Carson City educator Dave Cook to run for Assembly seat

Carson City educator and state Board of Education member Dave Cook is running for the Nevada State Assembly District 40 seat.

The fourth generation Nevadan and Democrat is running largely on an education plank, saying the state faces important challenges to improve all students' learning experience and ultimately increase the statewide high school graduation rates.

The seat is now open after Republican Pete Livermore announced last month that he would not run for re-election.

Improved performance can be obtained by the implementing the school improvements and reforms that he is working to develop as a Nevada State Board of Education member, said Cook.

He notes the "high-tech tools of the 21st century" have become the essential resources — including electronic tablets — that "must be placed into the hands of both teachers and all students if the true benefits of reform are going to be fully realized in Nevada schools."

He said he understands the need for reform because he is a Nevada state licensed high school math teacher and currently specializes in re-mediating vocational education students who are enrolled in post-secondary career programs.

Cook laid out reforms he says are essential:

1. Adopting an innovative evaluation tool for beginning and ending school year assessments of all students to measure their real individual progress, such as “MAP” from the Northwest Evaluation Association.
2. Modifying the currently existing Nevada High School Proficiency Exam "as-soon-as-possible" to allow for a composite average overall passing total score along with appropriate separate test cut-scores.
3. Implementing a new improved computerized college/career readiness exam program in 2014/2015. It will be user friendly with faster results.
4. Integrating the results of these new assessments into the performance evaluations of all schools, administrators, and teachers in a fair manner, as mandated by AB222 from the 2011 legislature, and also AB288 from the 2013 legislature.
5. Ultimately, these steps (1, 2, 3 and 4 above) will help to create a simple, fair, and understandable grading system of the effectiveness of our teachers, administrators, and schools statewide.
6. Advocating that all college bound high school seniors take the ACT or SAT college entrance exams.
7. Advocating that all non-college bound high school seniors complete something like the National Career Readiness Certification Program, developed by ACT.

Cook notes that he is officially registered as a Democrat, has lived in Carson City for 33 years, raised and educated two daughters and he is a Christian.

Cook is retired emeritus awarded college professor of business and economics from Western Nevada College, where he taught for nearly 30 years.
He is currently a Nevada licensed high school math and business education teacher and specializes in working with at-risk and vocational education students.

He currently serves on the Nevada Commission for Post-Secondary Education as an appointee of the Governor. The commission licenses and regulates all private post-secondary vocational schools in Nevada.

This work is in addition to his other duties as a currently elected member of the Nevada State Board of Education, district 2, he said.

In November 2012, Cook was again re-elected to continue serving a third term on the state board through 2016. He represents all the residents of Education District #2 (same as CD #2), which includes all of Northern Nevada.

Previously Cook had been re-elected to serve his second term on the State Board of Education the State Board of Education in 2008 representing Carson City, Douglas County, and South and East Washoe County.

In 2002 Cook served as the appointee of the mayor on the Carson City Charter Review Commission.He was first elected to public office in 1988 as a member of the Carson City School District Board of Trustees. He served there for eight years (two terms), including as its president in 1993.

In 1996, he was elected to the Nevada State Board of Education where I served my first four year term on the board.