The Need for Education Funding in Las Vegas
By: Stefan Tomov
An analysis about the school district in Sin City that continues to need help
Project Background:
When I first started thinking about “Analytics for Good,” the first place my mind went to was social issues in my community. Education has always been a large and important issue in Las Vegas that I believe very few people know about. The city is treated like a playground for the millions of tourists that flock over annually, yet seldom do these tourists think about the millions of families that support their vacations.
This project idea came to fruition in order to bring more light to the unmet educational needs of the people of the Clark County School District (CCSD). CCSD is the governing school body of all Las Vegas metropolitan students. As a child who grew up in this system, I experienced first-hand how the lack of resources in our public schools led to overcrowding, low test scores, and a general negativity surrounding the whole system.
In the following sections, I will be visually showcasing these problems that are in dire need to be fixed. I hope through these analytics, the public can be both aware and active in changing the situation. With each section, we will explore the main issue and in the end see how it can be potentially fixed.
CCSD Facts: Why is this so important?
One may be wondering why, in a country with so many underfunded public school systems, Las Vegas’ CCSD is the district to talk about. Let’s look at some of the following facts to get a better understanding:
- CCSD educates over 320,000 students in any given year
- CCSD is the 5th largest school district in the United States, whilst Las Vegas is only the 28th largest metropolitan area
With such a large school district that is primarily made up of low-income minority students, this underfunding issue directly affects the most vulnerable in the city. Furthermore, unlike other large metropolitan areas that have multiple school districts, CCSD’s encompassment of 70% of the population of Nevada leads to an over-reliance on this single system.
Just how bad is it? — Education Rankings and Proficiency
In order to truly understand the severity of CCSD’s underfunding, let’s first look at the bottom 10 states (including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) in terms of the percentage of people holding high school, bachelors and advanced degrees.
Not shocking, Nevada ranks in the bottom 10 states in all of these measures. In these three measures it ranks #46, #47, and #46 respectively. The severity of this measure becomes clearer when one realizes in these measures, apart from California and Texas whose high school education statistic is skewed by immigration, all states also rank in the bottom 10 for GDP per capita. However, Nevada’s economy is relatively strong and fast growing, placing in the high 30’s amongst other states. This showcases Nevada as an outlier, with high GDP per capita and low degree attainment.
Furthermore, we can also see in the following chart the english, math, and science proficiency percentages of each high school in the district.
Apart from a select-few schools, most high schools barely hit the 50% proficiency mark, with some as low as 4% proficiency in science. In the chart on the left, we can see that the average percent of high school students proficient in each of the subject areas did not reach 50%. This is even more concerning when one realizes the U.S. average high school English proficiency is 50% and math proficiency is 46%.
Dim Stars and Crowded Hallways
Apart from the abhorrent test scores and state rankings, the continuous lack of resources and funds in the school district have also created core infrastructure problems, leading to low star ratings and overcrowding.
The following chart illustrates the distribution of star ratings amongst CCSD high schools, where one can see that the majority of schools are ranked below 4 stars.
These school ratings, although at first may seem like a vanity metric, directly point to the greater problems, including graduation rates and overcrowding. When plotting these star ratings against the graduation rate, we can how high schools with star ratings of 4 or 5 average a 90%+ graduation rate. However, with most CCSD schools ranking below a 4, it becomes apparent why graduation rates across the district are comparatively low. If CCSD was properly funded, both high school graduation rates and star ratings would hand-in-hand drastically increase.
Apart from star ratings and graduation rates, the main infrastructure problems are caused by the overcrowding of CCSD schools. The lack of funding has stalled the additional construction of high schools in the Las Vegas Valley.
When plotting every high school in Clark County, and then shading in all schools whose capacity has exceeded 90% in red, we see that almost every high school is at full or over capacity. I chose to model the map with 90% instead of 100% capacity since count days do not take into account absent students, thus most enrollment numbers are actually a bit higher.
With almost every high school in the Las Vegas valley near or over capacity, there is a dire need for more high school construction to alleviate pressure on the infrastructure. In many classrooms there are a lack of textbooks, and in some even a lack of desks and chairs.
Using this analysis, we can visually understand that the southern portion of Las Vegas (which is also the fastest growing population wise), is most in need of more high schools.
To see the full interactive version of the map, please see the data methodology section.
What do the employees have to say?
This problem of underfunding has been even more realized by the employees of the school district, whose reviews on Glassdoor continue to call out the mismanagement and lack of funds in CCSD. The word cloud below represents the most common words found in the negative reviews of CCSD’s Glassdoor page. It is apparent with words such as pay, salary, benefits, and support being highlighted that employees feel undervalued.
CCSD is currently one of the largest non-tourism employers in the state of Nevada. With over 35,000 employees, the district is responsible to not only take care of 320,000 students’ futures, but also the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.
The Unseen & Forgotten Consequences [Trigger Warning: Suicide]
The underfunding of the Clark Country School District has led to many consequences. The most visible of which include those already discussed: secondary and tertiary graduation rates, english and math proficiency, employee dissatisfaction, and overcrowding.
However, this strain on the education system, along with relatively weak mechanisms to save at-risk youth, has led to two other usually forgotten data points.
- Las Vegas has the second highest rate of youth homelessness in the entire nation
- Las Vegas has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, being nicknamed the ‘Suicide Capital of America’ during the last recession, and a substantial increase in youth suicides during the pandemic.
The underfunding and mismanagement of CCSD needs to stop to not only save our students’ future, but also their lives. With the appropriate resources, these statistics can change.
In the End… What Can be Done?
With all of the above-mentioned analysis, what can individuals do to create some change?
First off, you can send a message to the Trustees of CCSD to voice your concerns at https://www.ccsd.net/trustees/contact/all. They meet regularly during the school year and are the main drivers of educational reform.
You can also send a message to Senator Catherine Cortez Masto at https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/contact/connect or Senator Jackie Rosen at https://www.rosen.senate.gov/contact_jacky to voice your opinions about the current educational crisis in Clark County to possibly secure more educational funding for the state.
However, I would encourage donations to Three Square Food Bank the most. Educational reform is slow and bureaucratic, which does not target the problem quickly. In the meantime, in order to create a safe environment for the students in Las Vegas, donate to the largest food bank in the city at https://www.threesquare.org/.
Data Methodology & Data Sources:
In order to create the visualizations above, I used R to clean, sort, and analyze the data. The data comes from a variety of sources including data packages from CCSD, the U.S. census, Nevada Department of Education, and nevadareportcard.nv.gov. Furthermore, in order to create the word cloud, reviews were web scraped from Glassdoor.
Other Sources: