Superintendent sticks to his guns

Dwight Jones could have changed course. The Clark County School District superintendent has been on the job a little more than a year, plenty of time for the state’s education establishment and unions to pressure the bona fide reformer on how things are done in Southern Nevada, what’s to blame and what can’t be changed.

But in his State of the District address Thursday at Chaparral High School, Mr. Jones sounded the same messages he has delivered since taking over as chief executive of the country’s fifth-largest public school system and the state’s largest employer. Among the highlights of his speech:

— He’s raising academic standards and expectations instead of lowering them. He’s getting rid of remedial classes. “Our kids are smarter than we give them credit for,” he said Thursday.

— He’s expanding the school district’s nontraditional curriculum by increasing enrollment in online courses. This gives credit-deficient students more opportunities to complete the classes they need to graduate, and it lets highly motivated, high-achieving students graduate faster.

— He has cut the central office administration budget by 20 percent.

— He has led the effort to track achievement growth by each student and each school to provide solid proof of needed improvement, rather than rely on inflated grade-point averages and results from dumbed-down tests. In about a month, the school district will release its School Performance Framework, which will rank campuses. “We will not do this by luck or chance, or randomly, but by design. This vision sets us on a long journey,” he said.

— High-performing schools will be given more autonomy and the opportunity to spread their successes to low-performing campuses.

Mr. Jones’ work, in conjunction with the education reforms championed by Gov. Brian Sandoval and passed by the Legislature last year, provides reason to believe our struggling education system eventually can be turned around.

Of course, Mr. Jones’ speech addressed the great challenges the school district still faces, most related to the waylaid economy. The budget is being cut back, and more students’ families have been hurt by hard times.

But such circumstances will not be used to excuse more failures. And that, by itself, is a huge step forward for this community and its schools.