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Saturday, April 23, 2011
Gov., Legislature Get Failing Grade for First 100 Days
By JosÉ Armas
Latino/Hispano Education Improvement Task Force
A 100-day report card is overdue for the governor — and for lawmakers. It's not a pretty report.
Both Republicans and Democrats failed in their fiscal and policy responsibilities by approving a low education budget intended to reform one of the worst school systems in the country.
We elected Gov. Susana Martinez, who billed herself as the "bold education reform" champion. We've also elected a Legislature to advocate for us.
Instead, both have relegated us to the back of the proverbial bus. We are now at a tipping point.
The Department of Education uses misleading figures by failing to include mid-school and elementary school dropouts in their statistics.
Latino, Indian and black children make up nearly 75 percent of our student population. Many more than half of those children are not being graduated each year. This threatens the future of all New Mexicans.
Martinez asked for and lawmakers gave her a 1.5 percent cut in the education budget. Then days after the legislative session ended, her education secretary nominee, Hanna Skandera, dropped the bombshell that new cuts would, in fact, be more than double the original amount.
Skandera and Democratic accomplice Rep. John Arthur Smith are trying to scapegoat school districts for failing to do their own homework. Skandera is currently wasting precious resources to find blame elsewhere.
Our state Constitution calls for "perfect equality" for everyone and mandates that education must be "adequately funded." But according to Tom Sullivan, the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators, Martinez's budget will now be close to 25 percent below what has been determined to be "adequately funded."
Is there misspending in education? Certainly.
The University of New Mexico receives millions of extra dollars for being a Hispanic Serving Institution and yet they manage to graduate only 5 percent of Latinos in four years. Worse, our colleges are cranking out 1,000 new teachers every year who are failing to educate the majority of our students. So who is sounding those alarm bells?
We do have a few real education champions, which include Representatives Rick Miera, Mimi Stewart and Sheryl Williams Stapleton and Senators Michael Sanchez and Tom Keller.
Nonetheless, fed up community leaders such as Daniel Antonio Herrera are saying: "Ya basta/Enough! We demand our 'perfect equality.' Hispanos and Indians and blacks must now look at the real possibility of filing a civil rights case against a Hispana governor and a Legislature controlled by Hispano Democrats."
Despite what Martinez and some lawmakers claim, education reform will not happen on the cheap. It's going to cost lots of money.
Solutions? Yes, there are several: First, call a special session. Then, use the dividends from our three permanent fund accounts, which gained $1.8 billion last year alone. Tap this "rainy day" money to confront this education tsunami engulfing us.
Next, it's time to tax our richest corporations. It's outrageous that a single mother earning minimum wage pays more taxes than the top corporations. If Martinez and lawmakers are afraid to raise taxes, then just stop all the corporate welfare. Stop gifting them loopholes and incentives. Make corporations pay their fair share to educate what is among the most ill-prepared workforces in the country.
The will to do this must be found.
Sandoval County just fired its manager, Juan Vigil, for daring to ask Intel, one of the richest companies in the world, to pay its share of property taxes. Something is wrong with this picture.
Schools are failing, but both the governor and lawmakers deserve "Fs" for making it even tougher for our schoolchildren to get a fair chance to succeed in life.
Both should suffer the same consequences of being shoved to the back of the bus — along with the rest of us.
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