You can’t fix a car by manually turning off the “check engine” light. But that’s the approach Nevada education officials have taken for decades.

On Thursday, the Clark County School Board heard yet another presentation on student performance. It was disheartening. Just 34.7 percent of students are proficient in math. In a rare bit of good news, that’s actually an improvement over past school year’s 31.5 percent proficiency rate. But you can see the devastating effect of COVID school shutdowns in the data. The district’s proficiency rate in the 2018-19 school year was also 34.7 percent.

Students do best in elementary school. Almost 40 percent of elementary school students are proficient. But the longer students remain in the district, the worse they perform. Just 22.7 percent of high school students are proficient in math.

Students are doing somewhat better in English Language Arts. Around 45 percent of district students are proficient in reading. That’s less than the 47.6 percent proficiency rate in the 2018-19 school year. In grades three to five, only 46 percent of students are proficient.

For decades, the education establishment has claimed that the solution to low achievement is more money. In 2023, Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Legislature boosted education funding by $2.6 billion, an increase of more than 25 percent. Thanks to Nevada’s collective bargaining laws, most of those funds went to paying the same people more to do the same thing. That won’t fix things.

But Gov. Lombardo has sought to pair increased funding with increased accountability. Part of that effort is Read by 3. It requires that districts hold back third graders who don’t obtain a passing score in reading. But that accountability measure won’t begin until July 2028. That means students won’t be retained until the summer of 2029 — if ever.

The district is already pushing to eliminate this measure. The numbers the board heard Thursday reveal why. If the district held back third graders who weren’t proficient in reading, more than half could be retained. It would be less in practice because the law contains a number of loopholes.

Holding so many students back would be disruptive for the district and lay bare a colossal failure. Some students would be discouraged. Many parents would be furious.

But it might also give students the best chance to catch up and learn to read at grade level. That’s the whole point of education, and it sets up children to be more successful in later grades.

Lawmakers in Carson City should reject the upcoming push to gut Read by 3. Helping children read — which provides the foundation for future academic success — is worth whatever discomfort it causes in the moment.