Playing Catch-Up

Nevada faces the ongoing challenge of a skyrocketing enrollment as it works toward a more cohesive strategy for improving academic achievement and graduation rates.

By Mary Ann Zehr

Las Vegas

Educators in Nevada seem to agree the state could do a lot more to improve the academic achievement of the roughly 400,000 public school students in pre-K-12th grade this year, who, on average, lag behind their peers in most other states on national standardized tests and graduation rates.

But improving academic performance is especially challenging in the Silver State, where the number of public school students increased by more than 50 percent between 1994 and 2003, making Nevada’s the fastest-growing K-12 enrollment in the nation.

Many education experts here add that raising test scores and graduation rates is complicated by the high number of new students from immigrant families who need intensive help in English. The number of Hispanic students grew by 214 percent between the 1993-94 and 2002-03 school years, from 14.3 percent of K-12...