1. Trump wants to stop awarding tenure and instead use “merit pay” for teachers. How could that impact CCSD?
A: Like most other states, teachers in Nevada are eligible for tenure after three years — they must have two years of satisfactory performance on each teacher evaluation.
Critics say tenure gives teachers less incentive to put their best foot forward.
Ending teacher tenure laws around the country would be coupled with enacting performance-based bonuses — or merit pay — with the goal of improving student outcomes.
At the beginning of this year, the teachers union negotiated a new contract that gives them an 18% increase over two years, making the new starting pay for teachers $53,000 with the top salary at more than $131,000.
2. How would Trump’s policies affect schools at an administrative level?
There’s about 1,500 members of the Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-Technical Employees. They got a new contract at the end of last year with an “unprecedented” 10% raise, putting the average administrator in the 75th percentile for wages nationwide, 90th percentile in the state.
The two dozen region superintendents and school associate superintendents make between $150,000 and $230,000, 8 chief officers make between $160,000 and $222,000.
Trump also wants to increase funding for schools that let parents directly elect principals.
Of the more than 1,000 principals, only a handful make less than $100,000, with many making much more than that. Plus an average benefits package of $45,000.
Trump has advocated for at least some form of universal school choice in every state so we may see Nevada’s voucher system expanded, just like Gov. Lombardo has tried to do.
3. How realistic is Trump plan to dissolve the Department of Education?
A: It won’t be the first time someone tried. Reagan tried just two years after the department was created, and Trump tried in his first term.
Eliminating the department would mean transferring existing programs to other federal agencies and giving a lot more power and responsibility to the states.
To do that, Trump would need 60 votes in the Senate — which Republicans won’t have.
Maybe he gives the agency less money, shrinks its footprint, has fewer employees, and change policies, that’s more likely.