Educational Reform in New Mexico

Our state’s educational system is underfunded and one of the poorest in the country and you do not need to look far for data to prove that statement. We need to look at what has caused education to fail in this state. Reform is not the same as smart reform for a system. We have seen over the last year what the corporate model of paying enormous salaries to administration and low wages to frontline workers has done to the business world. We are now 27th in the world when it comes to education in this country and if we continue to use the corporate model of administration for our educational system in this state we can look forward to dropping even further in those rankings. Our state deserves better our children deserve better.

There are a great many things that can be done to improve education in this state.

1. Pay frontline educational employees better wages. You truly do get what you pay for in the field of education.
2. Stop paying $100,000 and higher salaries to people who sit in meetings all day long doing nothing to improve the system. Our state’s educational system is clearly top heavy at present. Ask yourself can we truly afford these people at present?
3. Provide materials for classrooms in this state. Children need a safe and well supplied environment in order to learn.
4. Early education for low income children.
5. Classes that education anyone who cares for a child before they start school.
6. Tutors at all levels of educations to help students achieve.
7. A campaign to explain to all New Mexicans the important of education to New Mexican students of all ages.
8. Enforcement of laws that prevent children from leaving school to work at an early age. My father started work at the age of 14 in a coal mine where he could not even stand up to work but he wanted better for his children and for all of our children in this country.
9. After school programs that help students and give them a broader more well rounded view of the world.
10. Courses that teach parents to cope with business and life skills so that they can then teach their children those same life skills.
11. Develop programs that match mentors with students to encourage them to believe that they can lean and that they do deserve a better life.
12. Have business people work with students and teachers.
13. Field trips to job sites to show students what type of jobs are out there for them.
14. Field trips to colleges so that they don’t feel overwhelmed by the concept of college.
15. Develop programs where high school students can get technical classes while still in high school.
16. Develop programs that pay college level people to attend job training courses in areas where we need skilled workers.
    

So mush is being done and so much more can be done to improve education in this state but it will take caring leadership in the future if we have any hope of improving the educational system in this state. Our educational system is already showing signs of frustration from frontline employees. Children should never be put in a position to say things that only adults are concerned with but when no one is listening to frontline employees then strange behaviors start to develop out of a sense of hopelessness. The question remains which way our school system will turn in the very near future. Change is a double edged sword and in the wrong hands it can be used as a weapon of destruction.