Las Vegas' Impressive Newcomer

Residents of Las Vegas profess to be undisturbed by their town's sincity reputation. They euphemize gambling into "gaming," and stress upbeat touches such as the way Craps Dealer Ralph Hicks ends his trick at The Golden Nugget and rushes off to preside as president of the Western High School P.T.A.

Yet an aggressive educator from California, Las Vegas School Superintendent Leland Byerly Newcomer, 44, has been shrewd enough to realize that the collective conscience of Las Vegas is bothered by the area's dependence on its dubious industry--and Newcomer has been smart enough to play upon that conscience to develop one of the nation's most improved and innovation-minded school systems. "The schools represent a catharsis of guilt for many people in Las Vegas," says Newcomer. "They are glad to have something that gives this community an identity and a stability it never had before."

Shifting Old Butts. When Newcomer, a gangly, kinetic education Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, moved to Las Vegas four years ago from his job as assistant superintendent of the Covina, Calif., schools, the Las

Vegas system was in a jam. Almost half of the 29,000 students were on double sessions; annual teacher turnover was a disruptive 33%. Newcomer told the Clark County school board that he would take the post only if given full administrative powers, free from daily meddling by board members. Newcomer promptly shoved aside a group of what he calls "old butts"--political types paid administrative salaries to perform mainly clerical chores. He brought in a "cabinet" of five imaginative administrators, four of them from out of state. He was criticized for paying one assistant $15,000 a year just to seek foundation support--until the assistant netted $600,000 in grants within six months.

Newcomer carved the 8,000-sq.-mi. Clark County district into five sections, assigned a "director" to each to serve as a liaison with his office, gave each principal a free hand to shape his own school toward centrally decided educational goals. He told them to concentrate on what the kids were learning rather than on what was taught and to let others worry about routine problems. "I don't pay my principals $12,-000 to $15,000 a year to see that the windows are clean," Newcomer says. His teachers and administrators are not protected by tenure. "We just don't tolerate sloppy work," he says.

The shake-up put new life into the whole system, inspired parental excitement over the schools. When Newcomer proposed an astonishing $21 million school bond issue in 1963, the P.T.A. put 5,000 people to work stuffing information envelopes and plugging the cause. It passed 7.5 to 1. Only 15 months later he proposed a $38 million issue--and it passed better than 4 to 1. Since his arrival, two high schools, three junior highs, 20 elementary schools and 20 additions have been built.

21/2 Acres of Carpet. Today Newcomer's district has an annual budget of $29.2 million, almost triple that of four years ago and more money than is spent by any other public agency in Nevada. In the same period, enrollment has risen to 58,000, which is 52% of the whole state's pupils, yet double sessions have been eliminated. Teacher sal aries have risen 25% and teacher turn over has been cut to 14% . Newcomer's own salary is $26,500--making him the state's highest-paid official.

While more money and an administrative overhaul were vital, the real promise in the Las Vegas schools lies in their openness to new ideas. "We have some of the best innovations in education going on--and probably some of the worst," says Newcomer. In the city's Paradise Valley area, the new, low-slung $4,600,000 high school has open arches rather than doors in windowless rooms shaped in triangles, arcs and diamonds. Sliding partitions convert a classroom to a 250-student lecture hall.

A full 2 1/2 acres of the seven-acre school are carpeted to reduce noise.

To create flexibility in time as well as space, class periods are broken into 20-minute units that can be combined to fit instructional needs. The end of a period is signaled by intercom music rather than bells. Class schedules are laid out by a Stanford University computer. Team teaching is commonplace --partly because "you can't afford to be a poor teacher when you are working with your peers in a goldfish-bowl situation," as Principal James Smith puts it. Bright students are given up to 13 hours a week to spend as they wish, hopefully in "resource centers" and "learning laboratories" where supplementary materials are available. To complaints that some kids waste this time, Newcomer replies: "The reason so many good high school students go to hell when they get to their freshman year in college is that they have never been on their own. They have to learn the consequences of wasting time."

Every Kid a Genius. Despite his success, Newcomer is a chronic worrier who frets about the future of his schools, sometimes goes home and sips three bourbons and water to relax--then frets about having taken three drinks. He worries about integrating his schools, so far partly accomplished by bussing Negroes to junior high and high school. He once strode into a TV studio to interrupt an education speech by Governor Grant Sawyer, accused .him of "irresponsible leadership" in bucking most educational problems to the rural-dominated legislature. When an official of the Nevada Taxpayers Association called Newcomer's school budget phony, Newcomer said the man "either can't read, or he's stupid, or he's dishonest."

Yet most people in Nevada deeply respect Newcomer's educational philosophy. "There isn't a kid in the world who isn't a genius or a near genius in some things, or a moron in others," he says. The schools, says Newcomer, must "find ways to analyze each child in terms of his uniqueness as a human being."

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