By Moises Venegas
Quinto Sol
In New Mexico, are we able to educate our students who live in poverty? If we look at our record for the last 40 years of reform and the equity funding formula, the result is equitable funding for students but disastrous inequity in achievement outcomes.
The most recent national education report card in the periodical Education Week, as reported in the Albuquerque Journal, offers this grade for New Mexico's performance regarding a student's chance for success: D+.
To the state Public Education Department and its leader Dr. Veronica Garcia: Where are you? ÁSalvación!
Garcia, in her response to the D+ grade, attributes the "struggle to score better" to poverty. ÁCaray! In New Mexico I do not think I have ever heard that before from teachers, unions or administrators. Poverty. Perhaps we might consider a new, bold and daring direction in New Mexico.
Let us face reality: Poverty is the cause of poor performance, not an indicator. How else can we explain the reading percentile proficiency difference between two of our high schools, La Cueva and Rio Grande. La Cueva's is 81 percent and Rio Grande's is 20 percent. The gap: 61 percent.
In New Mexico, coincidentally, 61 percent of students also qualify for "free and reduced" lunch." And free and reduced lunch is one identifier we use to locate poverty.
As difficult as it might be for Garcia to educate our students who live in poverty, we must provide an educational learning opportunity for everyone.
Remember, all students can learn.
I leave with a thought from Emily Dickinson:
"I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you a nobody, too?
Then there is a pair of us— don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know."
In our classrooms, who are you?
Moises Venegas is executive director of Quinto Sol, a community development research organization.
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