Public Interest and Education

Eleven File for TMS Board in Taos

Taos Community Foundation will host the 2011 School Board candidate in a public forum 
Thursday, January 13, 2011 from 6:30pm – 9:00pm 
at the Taos Center for the Arts, 133 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM.

The moderated forum will give the candidates an opportunity to individually express their views on education and educational leadership and answer questions from the voting public.

Questions may be submitted by email to info@taoscf.org and at the door. 
Each candidate will randomly pick three questions and will have a limited time to answer.–Announcement.

Governor-elect Susana Martinez of has nominated Hanna Skandera to lead the Department of Education in New Mexico.

During the last year, the Albuquerque Journal has done a particularly good job of focusing on the challenges of Public Education in New Mexico. Yesterday,  10 candidates filed for the SFPS board and 17 filed for the APS board. In Taos 11 candidates filed for the TMS board. And Gov.-Elect Martinez selected a former Florida deputy commissioner of education, Hanna Skandera, 37, as education secretary for the state of New Mexico. Gov. Martinez brought in somebody from outside the state. In New Mexico generally and Taos particularly cronyism, nepotism, and bureaucracy stymie public education.

Despite Gov. Richardson’s best efforts, raising teachers’ salaries, he ultimately undermined progress by signing HB 212, which undermined local authority and turned elected policy makers into backseat drivers. Currently, school board members can nag but not affect changes in direction at their own home-based public schools. The Public Education school system needs an overhaul. Taosenos, in particular, have difficulty rising above personal grudge matches.

Fortunately, a number of the candidates, who have filed for school board here in Taos, are both products of Taos High and have received advanced degrees from colleges outside the state. They understand the local culture to some degree and can bring fresh and objective policies to the board due to broad experience. Due to the current bureaucracy, a product of administrators and teachers, who have created a culture of cronyism and low expectations, it won’t be easy. Excuses are a dime a dozen.

We are naïve to think the schools can change in one election cycle. But the current board, love them or hate them, has focused extraordinary attention on the financial and academic problems. Three financial audits and years of test scores and failed graduation rates confirm the need for reform.

Here are some reasons for optimism.

1. Gov. Martinez’s selection of a new education secretary, Hanna Skandera–young, experienced, and reform-minded suggests a new board will have support at the state level.

2. Just as Gov. Martinez recognized the need for choosing a young energetic secretary, so many of the candidates for the Taos board represent youth, young families, and fresh air. The THS Class of 1992 is well represented: Jake Caldwell, Attorney, David Chavez, PH.D Harvard, and Zach Cordova. Very young candidates include Neomi E. Martinez and Isaiah Pacheco.

Middling candidates include Stephen Ward, Jason Silva, and Manuel Pacheco.

If voters prefer, they can choose older, more experienced members of the community from a pool that includes town councilor A. Eugene Sanchez or re-elect incumbent board member Enrico Velasquez. (We have no idea why former mayor and cabinet secretary Fred Peralta is running for the board.)

3.Three systemic and financial audits, a history of test scores and graduation rates, and fresh air will allow a new or mixed board to evaluate the system and move forward objectively. The right board will have the data to support restructuring or other new policies that can positively affect students.

4. Nobody, who has observed the school system closely, read the reports, or looked into the last decade, can deny that the CRAB Hall culture and TMS in general would benefit from retirements. Administrators and teachers, who have achieved retirement status, should be encouraged to leave for both financial and academic purposes. Today’s’ young people change rapidly every few years and adults need to keep in touch. We need to encourage younger but well-qualified Taosenos to teach in the local schools.

5. Qualifications should be raised above the state’s low standards, wherein waivers can be given for just about anybody by PED, who has a degree. High school and Middle School teachers should be qualified in their academic subjects, not just in the department of education methodologies. We need teachers, like successful teachers at THS, who have studied science, math, history, English, Spanish, art, music, and athletics—not to mention teachers, who have studied formally the rich local culture.

(Coaches are some of the most influential adults in young peoples’ lives—yet TMS generally hires outside and part-time contractors as coaches: they need to be in the classroom and on campus.)

The proof of qualifications is in the degree, not in the politics of education departments: in classroom observation, not in ersatz training sessions. Test scores may be suspect but we know kids are learning when they smile and want to go to school. All the kids and parents know who the good teachers are. Let’s support them.

6. A knowledge of your hometown culture—especially in a place as culturally rich as Taos—should be included in the curriculum along with traditional subjects. We Americans in general suffer from a loss of identity in a fast-paced changing world. Though Taosenos give lip service to the local culture, they don’t formally study its archeological, historical, literary, artistic, political, and linguistic roots. Our kids need a cultural foundation, philosophical and psychological, upon which to stand whether they leave home to work or stay in town. A well-educated or knowledgeable child grows into a healthier adult.

(Recidivism rates for prison inmates drop dramatically as education levels rise.)

We hope candidates for the board focus on curriculum—academics, art, and athletics—not politics and money during this election cycle. Let’s discuss what the kids learn in the classroom. While we live in an increasingly ugly capitalist and corporate economy, a public education can be made available to those who study, find inspiration in the classroom, and encouragement in the community. We can’t count on parents specifically or society in general to help. But a community can provide a public education to children pre-K-12 if the adults can put the kids first. At Principal Bob Benavidez’s school in Ranchos de Taos, he and his teachers used to tell me, “We tell the students you can succeed here” (regardless of your home life).

It’s not a question of how much you care but what you as a student, parent, teacher, administrator, and school board member do. Do the right thing, my friends.

Dear UNM-Taos students, faculty and friends:

It has come to our attention that the conservative advocacy group Rio Grande Foundation in Southern New Mexico is advocating closing no less than half of the community college branches in New Mexico in order to make up for budget shortfalls at the state level.

We believe this is a misguided and ill-informed proposal that ignores the enormous hardships our citizens would incur in comparison to questionable and at best short term cost savings. Not only would our local workforce be deprived of the training and skills they need to be competitive in a difficult job market, but at the same time communities would lose the very real, positive contributions community colleges make to the local economy. For instance, UNM-Taos students brought $2.6 million into Taos County in 2009 through federal Pell grants alone. UNM-Taos currently employs 260 faculty and staff serving over 1,600 students per semester in our service area, which includes two pueblos and nine high schools.

Although the Rio Grande Foundation survey is full of misinformation, we believe it is important that community members speak out as to the benefits of UNM-Taos and other branch campuses throughout the state. PLEASE respond to this survey and pay special attention to question seven, indicating your strong opposition to the closing and selling off of some of our most precious assets: our New Mexico community colleges.

Link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DBXJMCN

Sincerely,

Kate O’Neill, Executive Director, UNM-Taos

Jim Gilroy, Dean of Instruction, UNM-Taos