Nevada Proficiency Exam

Jonny tsunami
August 10, 2011
English 102
M. Munkers

According to Morgan Quitno Press, a state and city ranking publication, the state of Nevada has been continuously ranked in the bottom five when it comes to education. Just recently, reports by the Las Vegas Sun have been released that 48% of high school sophomores failed the reading comprehension component of the Nevada Proficiency Exam. While school officials claim that this is due to a new format of the exam more tailored to reading comprehension than was before, this is still troubling news since Nevada’s youth consistently rank lower in examinations relative to other states. A major reason behind this is due to the fact that Nevada has generally given education funding a lower
An educated workforce is the backbone and driving force of a thriving economy; however, states that insufficiently fund their departments of education tend to have less educated populations. As Nelson Fabian explains in Managing Editors Desk article, “A healthy economy is underpinned by a well-educated workforce. An educated workforce infuses inventiveness, productivity, research aspirations, quality products, efficiency, competitiveness, and sound decision making into an economy” (58). [MORE EVIDENCE]. The Atlantic, a magazine that focuses on politics and the economy, reported in a article the top states in America that have one of the best economies. The top five on their list included Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, Vermont, and Minnesota. According to statistics from Measuring Up, a credible organization funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, those same five states also received in A- or higher grade in terms of completing college, where a high number of their population holds a bachelors degree. Measuring Up collects data from all fifty states in the country and grades each states education within different categories, including high school and college level. Nevada’s unstable economy coincides with their grade given by Measuring Up as they received in F in completion of college and high
The fact that a person can make a great living working in the hotel industry with no college education is somewhat worrisome because many people soon to follow the easier route and thus lowers the priority of getting a higher level of education. Without an educated population, there wont be many people that can contribute to the aforementioned ideas that Fabian was talking about, thus not being able to expand the economy. For those who do want to get a college education, some might realize that education is not a high priority in Nevada and thus they can possibly take their talents elsewhere to a different state. Nevada needs to prioritize education to great importance to keep students from migrating