For too many children in and around Las Vegas, 
getting a great education has been a losing bet. As their Clark County School District exploded to become the country’s fifth-largest district, poor and minority students found themselves shut out of its top schools and concentrated in the county’s lowest-performing district and public charter schools.
And what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas: Beyond the consequences for each individual, that poor education hits the wider economy hard. Research suggests that cutting the number of high school dropouts by even a quarter could contribute more than $12 million to the economy for each graduating class—and as much as $5 million more if those students go on to college.
But Clark County has an opportunity to stop gambling on its students’ futures, as we write in a new report for Opportunity 180, The New Frontier: Public Charter Schools as a Tool to Transform Education in Clark County.
