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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), along with former President Bill Clinton and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens converge on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas this week for the National Clean Energy Summit.

When gas prices climbed over $4 a gallon earlier this summer, many Americans were outraged. Whether it is through government action or private solutions, citizens are demanding relief.  But the rise in fuel prices over the last four decades pales in comparison to increases in per-pupil spending on public education in America. From 1961-2007, per-pupil spending increased by 293 percent after adjusting for inflation.

There is a premise that leadership and success start at the top. If this is true, then it is no wonder that education in Nevada is in a shameful state.

Further open records requests and audits have revealed that some local governments destroy their intergovernmental lobbying records so quickly that no public account remains to reveal exactly how taxpayer dollars are spent each year.

It's easy to imagine the glee with which Nevada's ever-higher-taxes crowd must be greeting a new study from the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which found that Silver State residents enjoy the nation's second-lowest state and local tax burden.

For over four years now, Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Jim Rogers has been bullying, sweet-talking, threatening, celebrating, decrying, politicking, quitting, un-quitting, donating his money, un-donating his money, and, even by his own account, being regularly unreasonable – all in the service of turning Nevada's taxpayer-supported universities and colleges into research and education wonders that will spark massive economic growth in the state for decades to come.

An unpopular Republican governor, an increasingly deep economic funk, and a national outlook that nearly all prognosticators say greatly favors their party. Nevada Democrats couldn't have come up with a better storyline heading into the 2008 elections if they'd been allowed to write the script themselves.

The education establishment consistently bemoans Nevada's lower-than-average per-pupil spending on education.  Implicit in their constant return to this statistic is a misguided belief that spending more money on education naturally leads to better education results.

Almost a decade after the Clark County School District adopted Policy Governance®, the natural question is: Has it moved the district along the road to higher achievement?