Cook seeks State Board of Education re-election

Dave Cook announced Tuesday he will seek re-election to the State Board of Education.

Cook said he wants to continue promoting the formation of charter schools.

"Before I was elected in 2008, it was widely known that the State Board of Education was not receptive toward approving new charter schools," Cook said. "One of my major goals has been to change that attitude on the board. By the end of 2011, the State Board of Education had now become widely recognized as a major supporter of the charter school movement in Nevada."

He said he's also looking forward to implementing the new state High School Proficiency Exam, which uses computer technology for greater convenience and user friendliness.

He said he will focus on battling dropout rates in the state.

"Nevada faces important challenges to increase the high school graduation rates in all of its 17 county school districts," he said. "These can be achieved by students, parents, teachers and administrators all working together to improve learning performance in the classroom."

To do so, he said, schools need to adopt an innovative evaluation tool for beginning and ending school year assessments of all students to measure individual progress.

Test results and assessments should be integrated into the performance evaluations of all schools, administrators, and teachers in a fair manner, he said.

All college-bound high school seniors should be encouraged to take college entrance exams, while all non-college bound high school seniors should complete the National Career Readiness Certification Program, he said.

Cook is a retired emeritus college professor of business and economics from Western Nevada College, where he taught for almost 30 years.

He is a Nevada licensed high school math teacher and specializes in working with at-risk and special education math students at Beacon Academy, a Nevada Charter High School.

Also, he is a fourth generation Nevadan.

Cook was most recently elected to the State Board of Education in 2008, representing Carson City, Douglas County, and south and east Washoe County.

Cook 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, including as its president in 1993. In 1996, he was elected to the Nevada State Board of Education, where he served for four years.