Myers and Cook face off in board of education race - again

Voters can be forgiven if they experience a bit of déja vu when they see the November match for state Board of Education representing Western Nevada.

Incumbent Barbara Myers will face Dave Cook - the man she took the District 9 seat from four years ago - in her bid for a second term.

Cook with final results in for Douglas and Carson City and 60 percent of Washoe counted, Cook had a total of 12,531 votes. Myers collected 11,945.

Wilke did well in Carson City, where she collected 500 more votes than Myers. But her support fell off dramatically in Douglas and southern Washoe counties. With only Washoe still counting, she was a distant third at 6,477 votes and eliminated from the November ballot.

Myers said Cook has questioned the Board of Education's support for the teachers' initiative seeking to bring Nevada education funding to the national average. She said the board doesn't have control over that issue and that supporting the initiative was, in essence, supporting increased funding for public education.

"That's not a state board issue," she said. "I want to focus on issues the state board of education has some control over."

She said those would include changes to the No Child Left Behind Act to make it work in Nevada so that "we don't have every school in this state labeled as needing improvement." She said current No Child rules "make it look like every school in the state is failing."

"That's not true."

She said charter schools are also "becoming a hot-button issue." Some charter schools have had problems, and the state board is being asked to sponsor more of them - which Myers said is "disconcerting" since it puts the state board in the position of being the 18th school district.

Cook, a professor at Western Nevada Community College, could not be reached for comment.

When he filed for the board, he said he wants to make it easier for rural counties to start charter schools and believes local school boards should have more independence from the state board.

He said No Child rules and standards must be reviewed to ensure they are appropriate at every grade level.

Contact Geoff Dornan at nevadaappeal@sbcglobal.net or 687-8750.