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Opinion editorials Handling of Pit Appeal Calls for a Time-Out |
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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Journal Selections for APS School Board
Four seats on the board of Albuquerque Public Schools will be on Tuesday's ballot. More information, including candidate profiles and Q&As, is available at ABQjournal.com/education.
The Journal recommends:
DISTRICT 3 — Anna Armijo brings varied, important perspectives to the board: APS graduate, parent of five APS students, educational assistant in the classroom and administrative assistant at the central offices.
She says occupying that “front-row seat” for more than two decades has prepared her to help guide the North Valley/West Side district and APS as a whole through current hard times. Armijo says the state budget shortfall and APS' poor graduation and student proficiency numbers mean it's time to align services with needs to address student achievement. While that might entail some “tough conversations with colleagues and the superintendent,” she says the bottom line has to be “doing the right thing for kids.” That includes establishing high expectations and rigorous standards, as well as transparency and “accountability at the superintendent level.”
DISTRICT 5 — Paula Maes: After two terms marked by change in the superintendent's office — including a four-person team and the accidental death of the subsequent superintendent — Maes sees a period of stability dawning at APS.
To help ensure stability, she would like four more years of representing the mid-Heights district where she has lived since 1962.
She says she is impressed by what Superintendent Winston Brooks has accomplished in six months, particularly in reaching out to the community, unions, legislators and his counterparts in higher education.
And Maes has high expectations of improvements in student achievement and graduation rates under this new administration.
DISTRICT 6 — David Robbins: In these tough economic times, any organization could use the insight of a budget professional. Robbins would bring that to this Heights district and APS at large, with an MBA in finance. Robbins is also an APS grad and has put three kids through the district, learning about special education and gifted programs along the way.
He says the administration must do a better job of justifying to taxpayers the $14,000 it spends annually on each student, that building costs must be brought down to the regional average, that superior employees should be rewarded, that parental involvement must be facilitated. And while emphasizing that a one-sized curriculum does not fit all, he says all APS students should graduate ready for college.
DISTRICT 7 — David E. Peercy has rounded out a highly technical career with the intensely interpersonal avocation of coaching youth soccer teams.
“Solving problems — that's what I do at Sandia” National Laboratories, focusing on improving processes, he says. There's some opportunities for that at APS, which has had trouble paying vendors and contractors in a timely manner.
But Peercy, raised by an elementary teacher, knows his quality engineering expertise doesn't necessarily translate to diverse classrooms any more than it does to coaching — because each individual student requires a different approach, he says.
Teachers should have more authority to determine how to reach educational objectives and more opportunities for professional development, he says; students have to have more time on task.
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