© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 7-1-24
Let’s get bold about fixing education
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
The most overused word in the recent primary was “bold.” Candidates were claiming they had bold solutions for New Mexico’s myriad problems and failings.
Then we got the Kids Count report, reminding us that New Mexico is again 50 out of 50 in children’s wellbeing.
The bare statistics in that report show that New Mexico children’s literacy rate is much worse than the poverty rate. We have 23% of New Mexico children in poverty, almost 50% higher than the national average of 16%. But the rate of fourth graders who cannot read proficiently is 79%, 11 points above the national average – or, expressed another way, two out of three children who can’t read are not in poverty, so poverty is not their issue.
At the same time, we have a reported $3 billion or so in extra state revenue floating around.
I have been collecting bold ideas for improving New Mexico education, and the extra $3 billion makes me feel somewhat bolder. If New Mexico really wants to implement bold solutions for education, here are a few.
- Demonstrate to students that New Mexico values their education by sending them to school in good buildings. Rebuild or remodel every outdated school in the state so that school buildings are not only safe, healthful and comfortable but also handsome and well maintained. Include single-stall gender-neutral restrooms for students with special needs so we stop wasting energy on restroom arguments.
- Do whatever it takes to teach every possible student to read. This might require significant changes in school transportation systems so students can stay for extended hours and have a ride home. Teach their parents if that proves to be necessary. Treat this like a crisis, because it is.
- Similarly, do whatever it takes to get absentee students back to school. Maybe that means a new truancy police or new solutions for homeless students. Students who skip school are likely the same students who didn’t learn to read. The latest report from the Legislative Education Study Committee says 40% of students miss 10% or more of school days. Why would you go to school if you can’t understand what’s being taught because you can’t read?
- New Mexico has made a start on financial literacy. It’s not enough in this world of complex technology and myriad hazards. Teach life skills beginning in fourth grade, with age-appropriate topics such as balancing a bank account, avoiding online predators, understanding social media, and especially basic parenting skills to prevent the next generation of CYFD tragedies.
- Make the teaching of civics mandatory beginning in fourth grade.
- Ban smart phones, period. The studies are conclusive that smart phones are making a generation of children lonely and miserable. This must be done on a whole school or whole district basis. School districts can decide whether to ban phones entirely or permit phones that only call and text. Ensure every school has a process for emergency contact by parents.
- Let students practice cooperation by offering a wide choice of team activities, including sports, debate, music groups, science projects and so on.
- Teach responsibility: Starting in first grade, devote five minutes of every school day to cleaning up. Time and level of responsibility increase in high school.
- Restructure the relationships between the schools and other government agencies to overcome bureaucratic boundaries and ensure seamless cooperation.
· All of the above requires full staffing by qualified professionals, and how to achieve that requires a separate discussion.
If I were in the Legislature I would advocate for every one of these proposals. I hope they will all serve as discussion points.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 6-3-24
Do your research before you vote
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
“We need bold solutions, drastic overhauls and serious reforms,” writes a candidate for the Legislature in an op-ed article.
Bold, huh? Boy, that’s new and exciting. Oh, wait. It isn’t. It’s a standard cliché for everybody who runs for office.
This particular candidate wrote an entire op-ed filled with platitudes and generalizations. Not a single specific policy position was stated. I’m not giving this candidate’s name because it’s not my intent to embarrass the candidate, but rather to remind voters to look further. Lots of candidates do what this candidate did. It’s political fuzzy language. It’s Republicans saying all Democrats are radical, and Democrats saying all Republicans are extremists.
The early voting polls are open, and the primary election is in full swing. It’s up to us voters to do a bit of homework to find out about the candidates before we fill in the little black circles on our ballots.
In a primary, we may find that candidates of the same party have similar political views, so what matters may be their prior professional experience, their competencies and their likely ability to deliver. Especially in the Legislature, professional backgrounds matter because legislators bring their knowledge to their understanding of legislation.
Your criteria in a primary might be quite different from your concerns in the general election. It might be to pick the candidate who has the best chance of winning in November.
To oversimplify, in some Democratic primary contests the distinction is moderate versus progressive. The moderate argument is that, in a mixed district, by nominating a progressive in the primary, you may be handing the district to the Republican nominee in November.
In some Republican primaries, the distinction might be today’s Republican orthodoxy versus the old moderate Republican approach or any other variation.
In another recent op-ed, legislative candidate Nicole Chavez identified herself as the endorsed chosen successor of legislator Bill Rehm, who is not seeking reelection. She said she will follow in his footsteps.
Rehm has been an anti-crime champion. So we know what Chavez is going to prioritize. We also might note that Rehm sponsored many good bills that didn’t get anywhere, so a voter in her district might ask her how she plans to improve on his track record.
The candidates in this district have made it easy for voters to figure out who’s who. Chavez is competing with two Republicans and one Democrat. Republican Sara Jane Allen, a local founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, a national organization that has been active in school board races. You can look up that group and find out its priorities. The third is Patrick Huested, who doesn’t appear to have a website (at least, I couldn’t find one) but who has supplied answers on vote411.org. The Democrat is Vicky Estrada-Bustillo.
In every race you’re voting for Democrat against Democrat or Republican against Republican. You could vote if you are a registered Libertarian, but I doubt there are any contests with two Libertarians running against each other.And if you are an independent or “declined-too-state” registered voter, you can vote in this primary by changing your registration literally at the last minute to Republican or Democrat, then changing it back again after this election. It’s a clumsy process but it’s New Mexico’s reluctant first step toward open primaries.
Unlike the general election, the primary ballot is short. It is not cluttered with bond issues or proposed amendments to the state constitution. It shouldn’t take you too long to figure out your choices.
And your vote will help determine how your local community is governed.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 5-13-24
Lawmakers should weigh burdens to smallest businesses
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
The man was said to be the only electrician in Mora, and my agency forced him out of business.
This was around 20 years ago. I learned about it in a staff meeting. The assistant general counsel who told us about it had tears in her eyes and a quiver in her voice, but she did it anyway.
My concern wasn’t just about the electrician. It was about all the people in an economically distressed county who might have needed his services and now would not have them.
The assistant general counsel said the electrician was semiretired but wanted to keep his license to do occasional odd jobs. But we – the Workers' Compensation Administration – required him to buy a minimum premium workers' compensation insurance policy, and he would not make enough money to justify the cost. So he was forced out of business.
The requirement is in paragraph 52-1-6 of the New Mexico statute, and if I try to explain it here I won’t get to my main point. I will simply say that in my opinion this was regulatory overreach based on the interpretation of one word. Nobody in the agency agreed with me, but I was not surprised that this happened. There were probably many similar stories that we never knew about.
That’s what happens when people who write a law neglect the little guy.
The little guys, very small business owners, are never at the table when laws are being drafted. They don’t participate, maybe because they don’t know how, maybe because they are too busy.
Very small businesses are one group that concerns me in relation to the current push to enact a paid family and medical leave law in New Mexico. This year’s bill was voted down, but we know it’s coming back.
Another vulnerable group is social-service nonprofits, including those that provide services like adoption, foster care and personal service to elderly clients or those with disabilities. Many of these nonprofits work under contract to state government. Here’s an unpleasant little secret: When the state enacts laws that directly increase the costs of paying employees, those laws apply to nonprofits as well as for-profit businesses, but the state does not necessarily increase what it pays to those nonprofits.
I watched this for years with a friend who ran a nonprofit agency. Every few years she would tell me the state had made a change that cut her funding, which forced her to eliminate something. The myth was that there were always inefficiencies that could be cut. But that was possible only for the first couple of cuts. After that the cuts were to real services affecting real people – the clients.
Rep. Marian Matthews has raised this issue. Matthews, D-Albuquerque, introduced a moderate and less costly alternative to the family and medical leave bill. Matthews’ bill was tabled in its first committee. She had been talking specifically about the severe costs to families when caregiver services are cut.
Our Legislature has been generous to employees in the last few years. We’ve increased the minimum wage from $7.50 an hour in 2018 to $12 an hour in 2023. Our paid sick leave law, enacted in 2022, requires employers to pay for up to 64 hours per year of sick leave. The employer also faces the cost of finding and paying for a replacement worker or going without whatever service the worker was providing.
Both the minimum wage and the sick leave program are meritorious, but legislators should be asking, before enacting another new employer responsibility, whether the administrative requirements of the sick leave program are reasonable or excessively burdensome.
And we should be making sure that employers at all levels, including the little guys, are being heard.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.