Education is the most important and most basic building block of democracy! We must have a “Cradle to Career” approach to education, beginning as early as possible after a child is born, and continuing until that child enters the workforce as an educated citizen. An uneducated or undereducated population will be an uninformed, and thus misinformed, population, and a misinformed population can be more easily led down an anti-democratic path. New Mexico ranks dead last in education in our country, as it has for over a decade. While we've made great progress over the last six years, there is still a lot of work to be done to improve educational outcomes.
Not surprisingly, New Mexico also ranks dead last in literacy among adults, with 29.1% of the population being functionally illiterate, as well as in literacy among 4th grade students with 52% of our 4th graders reading below the basic level. It’s very difficult for a largely illiterate population to improve the literacy level of the next generation, leading to a “chicken or the egg” cycle.
Conservatives argue that we can’t solve our education problems by just throwing money at it, and there’s some truth to that. But everything that can be done to make progress in solving this problem will cost money. Smaller class sizes would help, but that would entail having more teachers and more classrooms, requiring money for salaries and infrastructure. Teachers’ salaries in New Mexico have gone up significantly in the past few years, but not enough to entice many qualified teachers to leave other states to come to the Land of Enchantment. Early Childhood Education is one key to better success for elementary school students, and we’ve made great progress in that area, but rural areas have been largely left out of the improvements in Pre-K. Our post-secondary education scores have been drastically improved in recent years, but it will take time for those college students to become teachers and working professionals, assuming they’ll be willing to stay to work and teach in New Mexico after they graduate from college.
Bottom line, teachers’ salaries need to be increased far more. Schools need to be fully funded for supplies so that teachers don’t need to dip into their own pockets to purchase basic classroom supplies. Qualified classroom Educational Assistants are every bit as important as the teachers that they work hand-in-hand with, yet EAs make barely above minimum wage. While local elected school boards should certainly be integrally involved in the educational process in their communities, there should be minimal standards for running for election to those important positions.
The single biggest thing that we can do to improve education in our state is to get parents more involved in their children’s education, but with many parents working two or even three jobs to make ends meet, it’s hard to expect them to be effective partners with the schools and teachers. But that means that our state’s overall economy needs to keep improving, as it has for the past six years.
Some conservatives, like Fred’s opponent, advocate diverting money from traditional public schools to support more charter schools, private and church-run schools and even parents who wish to home-school their children. Most charter schools are excellent, but there are some that are little more than for-profit diploma mills. Charter schools should be audited regularly, and their outcomes need to be closely monitored. Many private and church-run schools do a great job, but parents who choose that option should pay the price for their own decisions. Vouchers for students to attend those schools take money away from a public school system that needs more money, not less. And, if parents wish to home-school their children, that is once again a matter of choice, and the child’s progress should be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure that home-schooled children are receiving the level of education that every child deserves.
Finger-pointing and bemoaning our poor educational levels, which is about all that conservatives like Fred’s opponent are willing to do, won’t fix the problems. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to completely turn New Mexico around, and Fred is ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work in January.
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