"Take a young fellow from a small town in Indiana," suggests La Gatta, " who studied and did all that kind of stuff, went to MIT and Harvard Business School and married a girl like that, who has an MA in something or other.

"I don’t care what their origins, but let‘s just pretend they’re garden-variety middle class achievers. And they go to Wall Street and Bankers Trust and J. P. Morgan, go to these prestigious big firms, and then they’re invited out here."

Though the couple, says La Gatta, will love the prospect of Nevada’s lifestyle—"what’s not to love?" he asks—the first thing that will cross their minds if they have children is the caliber of education available for their kids.

"They’ll be thinking, ‘Can we get little Sally and little Joe into dear old Brown, or Cal, or Claremont—[and] into the MBA program?’"

Therefore, argues La Gatta, if lawmakers really want to open up the state to new revenue, growth and economic diversification possibilities, Silver State education is the other area that the 1999 Nevada Legislature will have to at last genuinely address.

"The Nevada public school system is fair," wrote La Gatta in the 40-page paper he sent to all legislators, and to Nevada Journal he noted a number of excellent individual secondary schools in the state. "However, to attract highly-educated young families," he said, "[legislators] should create ‘fast track’ possibilities for bright students."

The investment banker described a gathering he attended at the home of one of Nevada’s most-well-known Democratic establishment lobbyists. In many ways it captures in a nutshell the skewed mindset in Nevada’s education establishment.

"I was one of two Republicans in the room," recalled La Gatta. "The other was Nancy Price. And I talked to a lot of educators there.

"I said, ‘Well, you should have special programs.’ And they said, ‘What do you mean? We do well for the blind, we do well for the fatherless, the motherless…’

"And I said, ‘I am not arguing with any of those good programs—the non-English speakers and so on. What you need is special programs for the gifted and the bright, and the higher achievers. You need precursor courses, so that kids who have a mathematical gift or something can race through that and be ready to take advanced placement stuff by the time they’re in the ninth grade.’"

Nevada’s education establishment can’t continue to ignore the state’s bright kids if the state is serious about competing for top-flight professionals and their firms, the investment banker insists.

While there are some well-regarded high schools in Nevada and some fine departments in the university system, he says, the overall impression is that the Silver State simply lacks at present the kind of quality schooling that would make young, highly educated professionals happy to move their families here.

He notes that Nevada currently has few private schools, and even fewer of those that are not affiliated with religious denominations.

To capitalize on the economic advantages on the horizon, he suggests, state lawmakers will have to find a direct and effective way around the educational problem.

"You’ve got to compete with everyone else," says La Gatta. "And this is a paper about economics rather than education. But I just sort of sense this as the weak link in the chain for getting these yuppies out here."