Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015

Nevada DOE missed opportunity at forum

Mr. Canavero, the Nevada deputy superintendent, missed the opportunity for much-needed information regarding Carson City’s standards and his support of the Common Core standards at the meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 13.

He could have provided a handout of all the public meetings and the number of citizen participants at those meetings. That way his remarks could have been more pertinent to state school curriculum and questioned Drs. Sandra Stotsky (ELA) and James Milgram (math).

The second mistake was his choice for the person to sit on the panel with him. The rules of the meeting, which were accepted ahead of time, stipulated only two people for each side. Sue Keema, who is associate superintendent for education services for Carson School District, should have been the second person on his side as one of her department services is curriculum, the very topic of the symposium!

Carson parents and teachers lost out the other night. Parents because the mantra from the Department of Education was more defensive and political; teachers, because they will be the ones blamed when the outcome is low achievement levels because of the complexity of the Common Core standards.

Sheila Ward

Carson City