Political Update – September 25, 2018
Nevada among freest U.S. states, but work to be done on taxes, regulations
Noelle Evans
The Cato Institute recently released their “Freedom in the 50 States” report. It’s a study of how the policies of each state affect its residents and businesses. Nevadans were not surprised to learn that their state was sitting comfortably in the top ten. In fact, the report ranked Nevada as the fifth “freest” state in the union. The ranking was unchanged from the last time the study was published in 2014. While the study particularly cited high levels of personal freedoms that residents of Nevada enjoy, the authors also recognized the above-normal land-use freedoms as well. Holding the state back from ascending higher were a pair of fiscal-based policies. “Nevada’s fiscal policy has worsened since 2002, a fact that might have something to do with a 2003 state Supreme Court decision setting aside part of the state constitution, which required a supermajority for tax increases,” the report says. It also took issue with the high level of regulations in a disparate selection of industries, including epidemiology, sign language interpretation, athletic training and well drilling. Michael Schaus, executive director of National Employee Freedom and the communications director of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, expressed similar concerns with the state's occupational licensing practice.
Quote of the week
Quote: "Nevada has the sixth worst public school system in the U.S. The high school graduation rate among low-income students is 66.7 percent, the lowest in the country, meaning 1 in 3 low-income students do not graduate. The regular high school dropout rate is 26.4 percent, the third highest." WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez
Nevada releases education performance data defying negative rankings
By Bethany Blankley Watchdog.org The Nevada Department of Public Education has released its Nevada School Performance Framework, which boasts a range of improvements across several achievement indices – in stark contrast to other reports that ranked the state's public education system poorly. In January, Education Week’s "The Quality Counts 2018: Report And Rankings," an annual report card of how well states and the nation are educating K-12 students, gave Nevada a D grade, ranking its education system 51st in the nation. A 2018 Education Law Center report published every two years gave Nevada an "F" grade in 2014, 2016 and 2018. A WalletHub 2018 Best and Worst Public Schools ranking lists Nevada 46th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the two main categories it prioritized, the study listed Nevada 47th in “quality of education” and 36th in “school safety.”
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