Issue Position: Thoughts on Education

Issue Position

Educating our children has such a profound impact on quality of life across the spectrum of society: individuals, families, cultural groups, the young and middle aged and seniors; it is such an imperative in terms of acquiring, holding, and utilizing knowledge and turning that acquired learning to productive pursuits. Simply put, education is one of the most fundamental building blocks that portends a successful life experience in today's highly technical, fast paced, ever changing world.

In New Mexico, education is under assault from many directions: 1) an unacceptably high drop out rate for high school students; 2) conflict over the necessity and standards used in required testing of students; 3) a state budget that, while slowly recovering, still is suffering from the impacts of the recent recession and that threatens Legislative funding levels; 4) a current internal struggle between teachers and the Public Education Department over the proper methodologies for evaluating teacher performance; 5) attempts by the current administration to undercut teacher's unions; and 6) an effort by the administration to bring in imported schemes from out-of-state as purported remedies for real and perceived problems with the state's education system.

Education is one of the three primary planks in my campaign platform. I plan to focus much of my time in the Legislature on educational matters and I intend to introduce or support bills that address my concerns relative to:

* 3rd Grade Retention: I am against it. I feel strongly that this conundrum can be solved with more and much stronger early education programs for pre-K students and better focus on at-risk children to ensure that they do not begin to fall behind early on. I support without equivocation an amendment to the New Mexico State Constitution that would allow monies from the Permanent Fund to be used in for early education purposes. Beyond that in terms of retention decisions, I feel teachers and parents know best and that a major program of retention will be very costly and there is little will in the Legislature to fund such an effort.

* Job Training: For those who fail or choose not to graduate from high school, there must be a fall back position. The same is true for those who lose their jobs and there are far too many of those now with unemployment rates high and not forecast to go down significantly for years. And, a university education is not the right life choice for some and in others cases it is not financially viable. I believe that there needs to be far more opportunities to learn trades or to "re-tool" a persons skill sets to the extent they can find meaningful, quality jobs with benefits and a future for themselves ans their families.

* Teacher Evaluation: It is a good idea and teachers must be held accountable, but under the right circumstances and using the correct criteria. I feel that a teacher should be scored on the compendium of their education, experience, skills, colleague, student, and faculty comments, and work ethic. I do not think that teachers should be evaluated on whether one or two or even a cluster of students are not passing certain mandatory tests or are failing to attend school regularly.

I am honored to have been endorsed in this campaign by the NEA and AFT. Teachers, students, and school administration employees will always be welcome in my office in the Roundhouse and I will keep education in the forefront of all my efforts in the Roundhouse.

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