Both of Berkley s measures would amend the education bill to include provisions beneficial to Nevada s interests. The first of the two provisions would add a dropout prevention measure to the overall bill, thereby articulating a new national priority on dropout prevention and extending additional federal aid to school districts like Clark County. The second of Berkley s measures would change the way education funding is allocated among the states to more accurately reflect changes in population, thus securing millions of dollars of additional funding for fast growing states like Nevada. This artificial distortion of the funding mechanism is further exacerbated by Nevada s extraordinary growth rates, and the two year drag on adjusted census numbers. Funding formulas allocate the money, but the formulas themselves are rigged.
Money just isn t following the people.
It s stuck in the old population centers, which means high growth areas like Nevada are being underfunded. Berkley s dropout prevention measure was introduced in the House earlier this year as a stand alone bill, and has so far garnered the support of more than a dozen other cosponsors. The bill would reorganize the many dropout prevention programs at the Department of Education by creating a single office to coordinate approaches to the problem, and to assist locally controlled programs across the country. To Help Solve Our School Dropout Problem .