While moving forward on critically important bills such as naming an official state bug, criminalizing taking too many "free" newspapers, and changing the official name of "manicurists" to "nail technologists," the state Assembly killed my bill which would have injected some old-fashioned free-market competition into our Soviet-style government school system.

In legislatorese, the bill was AJR 4. To us common folks it was the Excellence in Education and Increased Opportunities Act, better known as EIEIO. The bill would have provided parents who are dissatisfied with the public school, which the government tells them their kids must attend, some financial assistance in the form of Education Tax Rebates to instead send their children to a duly-licensed private school of their choice.

Such rebate checks would actually be reallocation checks. The state currently spends, on average, $5,213 per student in Nevada. That money, however, currently goes directly to the local public school system. EIEIO would change that by giving a check worth 75 percent of that per-pupil amount directly to parents if they choose to enroll their child in a private school rather than send them to a government school.

Opposition to EIEIO by the Department of Education was unsurprising.

Keith Rheault, Superintendent of Public Education, informed the Legislature that EIEIO "would require the development of a sophisticated accounting program by the Department to appropriately account for the eligibility and payment of the funds as well as a monitoring system that would provide appropriate safeguards to ensure that the funds were expended as authorized." He estimated the cost would be $75,000 a year.

Sophisticated accounting system? I don't know about you, but I can figure out 75 percent of $5,213 using either the long-math I was taught as a kid in school or a pocket calculator -- neither or which costs seventy-five grand.

Regardless, since EIEIO parents would only get 75 percent of the allotted per-pupil funding, Dr. Rheault and the public school systems would get to keep $1,303 for every Nevada student who didn't attend a government school. So unless only 58 parents in the entire state of Nevada took advantage of the rebates, there would be more than enough money to cover the amount Mr. Rheault claims he would need to administer the new program.

Problem solved. Next objection?

(Mr. Goedhart is the Nevada State Assemblyman from District 36 and can be contacted at goedhart4assembly@hotmail.com)