High-School Students Lagging in Standards, and the impact of Casinos on Education

Education studies indicate that more than 50% of students entering high school are two or more years behind in at least one subject on meeting the academic grade-level standards. On top of that, the same studies indicate that less than 40% are proficient, and only 5% are advanced. For educators, we need to therefore ask ourselves: What do we do about the more than 50% of students who are missing the necessary prerequisite skills to master their current standards? Good instructional leaders have a vision of individualizing instruction to meet the needs of individual students. Unfortunately, they lack the assessment and diagnostic tools to make this vision a reality. Some school districts, most notably, the Clark County School District in Nevada, are severely lacking in qualified, and suitable teachers that can help lower this gap. Students attending schools in "Casino" districts are most likely to suffer and are most likely to fail to achieve the required standards by the time they reach high-school. Therefore, community leaders must carefully weigh the short-term terms gains that may result from the approval and construction of casinos vs. the long-term affects on educational quality. High-performing school districts use a variety of assessments and tools to address student improvement. In the Clark County School District, for example, parents and students are being asked to cut back, sacrifice more, while the powerful student unions do everything to preserve the salaries of inefficient, and uninspiring teachers who do no more "copy and past" assignments from the Internet. Quality school districts that employ qualified teachers, on the other hand, have developed numerous hot-button gauges that tell us what standards a student has mastered or not mastered to diagnostic tools that identify skill strengths and deficiencies, and they provide authentic (created by the teacher) materials to teach valuble missing skills.