Near the end of the 2007 Nevada Legislative Session, Richard Perkins, the City of Henderson’s Police Chief paid a lobbying visit to my office in the Assembly’s wing of the Nevada Legislature. When he left, I had a feeling I should take a shower to wash off the corruption. Yesterday an article appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal that confirmed that feeling.

The Henderson Chamber of Commerce refused to support my reelection because I stood up to a corrupt casino owner. Terry Graves, on of the officers and a chief lobbyist for the chamber was particularly upset about that perceived betrayal of Republican values. To today’s GOP, there is little difference between Republican and Democrat. They both value campaign dollars above human life. As the Assembly Speaker, Mr. Perkins cost Henderson Businesses millions more by raising taxes that what I would have by forcing some honesty into the system. Perkins is the one they hired at a retainer of $10,000 a month.

Politics has developed an ingrained system of corrupt behavior and corrupt deals. All of these dealings and doings violate the law, and in some cases the ones doing the violation wrote the laws they break. If that sounds monumentally cynical, it is. It reminds me of a story of two politicians arguing. In the middle of the argument, one stands and shouts at the other, “You’re a liar!” The one accused nods and replies, “Of course I am, but hear me out!”

In the Nevada Revised Statutes there is a provision that forbids a public servant from acting as a lobbyist before a certain period of time has elapsed. This is a sort of “cooling off” period. During his time as Assembly Speaker, Mr. Perkins expressed concern over those who violated that rule. Apparently the rules do not apply where he is concerned. We have yet another case of a politician following the “do as I say, not as I do” doctrine.

As reported, Richard Perkins left the Henderson Police Force with a lifetime pension of $99,400 a year. The City of Henderson, paying that pension, seems to have money to burn because they granted their ex-police chief a one time separation payment of $242,132 and will be paying him $120,000 per year to lobby the legislature. The legislature only meets every other year, and only for 16 weeks, but Perkins will receive his salary every year. Not bad for part time work.

What is remarkable is that according to Nevada law, it is illegal part time work. Remember, according to the law, public servants cannot be hired as lobbyists right out of retirement. The City of Henderson and Mr. Perkins claim to have gotten around the law by hiring a corporation, not a person. The corporation? Richard Perkins, Inc.

Last night Governor Jim Gibbons of Nevada issued his State of the State address. Because Governor Gibbons made a promise of not raising any taxes at all, Nevada’s economic woes grew right along with its population while revenues went down. Governor Gibbon’s solution to this pressing need for more money? Fire teachers.

Before I go into just how imbecilic his suggestion is, let’s explore the region of common sense. Nevada is a unique state. It is the only one where gaming is allowed state wide. New Jersey has Atlantic City and a few others have Indian Casinos, but they are not Nevada. To build a casino anywhere else other than Nevada, a gaming company has to convince that state that allowing them in is a good thing, translate that as “profitable”. The gaming taxes for the successful bidder can be as high as a full third of the gross profits. In Nevada the gaming tax is less than ten percent and it is not calculated on the gross, but the net. For some of the companies this winds up as less than one percent a year. It is no wonder that a good portion of the gaming CEOs in Nevada own their own jets and commute from their Oceanside estates in Southern California.

Mining is the other primary business in Nevada. More gold comes out of Nevada’s ground than any other state in the union. The mining industry pays an effective .5% a year in taxes while the sale price of gold continues to skyrocket. Barbara K. Cegvaske, the State Senator for District 8 in Nevada told a group of teachers being threatened with the loss of their careers that if the state raised taxes on mining to save the teachers’ jobs, mining would leave the state. I’ve had the misfortune to speak with Senator Cegvaske. You would not be blinded by her intellect. It is very likely she actually believes what she says. More’s the pity. Gold is found deep within the ground. If mining left the state, where will the mineral they seek be? Mining technology has improved since the gold rush, but I doubt it has climbed to the level where they could take the mountains with them when they go.

Governor Gibbons has a problem he did not mention in his address; he has no veto power. The last election eliminated the Republican leadership in the State Senate and gave the Democrat Speaker in the State Assembly a veto-proof majority. The power shift in the Assembly can be placed onto the shoulders of one man, George Harris, publisher of a poorly written rag called Liberty Watch. Harris never forgave me for defeating his anointed candidate, Kris Munn for the District 21 Assembly seat. That made me the 15^th vote in the Assembly on the Republican side. Because of that position, I was able to block a couple of measures that would have severely impacted small business’s ability to survive in Nevada. Harris spent a fortune attacking me in the last primary. Because of that and a record low Republican turn out at the polls, Harris’ puppet got into the general. I was quite happy to help the Democrat Candidate Ellen Spiegel win the seat. Because of Harris, the Governor has no power over legislation at all. The question is whether or not the legislature has the wisdom to do what is right.

Most legislators have more than one face, the one they show in public and the one they wear in private. While in the legislature, I learned what most Republican legislators think of public education. They consider teachers in public schools the enemy. A few of them actually think teachers are a danger to their children. They make the error of confusing the teachers union and its political agenda with teachers. It is impossible to convince them otherwise. I’ve tried.

If the Nevada Legislature does the right thing and raises revenue properly, we have a hope of becoming a better state. If they act as they have in the past and continue to kowtow to the spoiled industries of gaming and mining, we run the risk of becoming incapable of educating even a tiny percentage of our children. Vouchers will not solve the problem because they still involve state monies and private schools have the option of refusing any child that may present a problem.

Right now more than half of the students leaving high school cannot read or write at a functional level. Business, small and large continues to complain about the quality of applicants, especially in the technical trades. I wonder what they will be saying when they cannot find applicants even capable of writing their own name?

As a member of the Nevada Legislature, I was placed onto three legislative committees; Government Affairs, Health and Human Services and Education. Of the three, Education was my favorite. Government Affairs primarily existed to massage the egos of the various municipalities around the state and Health and Human Services was run by a chairwoman so corrupt she makes Ted Stevens look like a Boy Scout.
 
One of the things a member of the Education Committee gets to do is see how a state administrates its schools from behind the curtain. Here in Nevada, we had and continue to have a real problem in both the lack of evenhandedness of administration and the perception of what the job of a teacher entails.
 
Top administrators in Nevada’s schools can earn upwards of $300,000 or more. A classroom teacher begins at about $30,000 and has to apply for food stamps just to eat. A top Administrator works an average of 45 hours per week, shifting most of the actual hands-on duties to their staff. A teacher will put in over 60 hours with no staff help at all. Administration can retire with nearly no loss in the shift from salary to pension, including all the additional benefits. Most teachers wind up having to take on a part time job after retirement to make ends meet. Teachers are not allowed to keep their Social Security. No, I’m not kidding. That is what happens and it is a matter of law.
 
Well, you say, teachers only work 9 months out of the year, don’t they? No, that is a media and talk show host lie. Today there are nearly as many 12-month schools as there are 9-month schools, and even if a teacher is contracted to work at a standard 9-month school, it is only the classrooms that shut down in summer. For the teacher, the job continues. There is summer school, lesson planning, meetings, continuing education to keep up with all the changes that happen if every discipline, and so on. Those who say that teachers have it easy and are overpaid for what they do, know nothing. In every single case these commentators are parroting a lie in the hopes that if they repeat it often enough the people will believe it. Unfortunately that is exactly what has happened. To the vast majority of Americans, teaching is viewed as an easy high-paying job.
 
So, can Johnny read? As far as the American public is concerned, who cares? It is obvious to anyone willing to look that most parents don’t care. Politicians seem only to be concerned about their own campaign and Swiss bank accounts. On the Republican side of the aisle, they don’t want to expend any resources to support the teacher, unless it is for the staff in an exclusive private school their spoiled children are attending. On the Democrat side of the aisle, they are more than willing to raise taxes for schools, but they will only allow the money to go into the hands of the Administration who then let only a tiny fraction of what they have acquired trickle down into the hands of the teacher.

Nevada has pundits on both side of the aisle. It is interesting to note that those of a libertarian bent who continuously denigrate public education, have never had a child in school. The liberals are the same. These fountains of endless wisdom either home school or send their kids to an exclusive private facility. So when you read their rants, read them with the understanding that they are making everything up and have no experiential knowledge whatsoever.
 
You may scoff at this, but there are far more conservative teachers in the classroom than not. Most of the liberal elitism comes from the School Board, school administration, and union leadership. Many of these teachers have corresponded with me about what they face on a daily basis, and in spite of vast inequalities, these men and women continue to do a job far beyond the pay they receive. Many will purchase school supplies that they give to children in their classroom. I have seen teachers buying cases of paper because their school will not supply it, while at the same time demanding that the paperwork be done. Numerous teachers have detailed additional paperwork being handed down from the administration, paperwork that rightfully should be handled by the office and has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching.
 
So, it comes down to this question: what would you do to improve education? Should teachers be paid a wage that matches what they do? Should administrators take a cut to help? What about making parents responsible for their kids? The comment box is open.