Social Promotion in Higher Education

The governor is against social promotion for grade school children as we all know. She has spoke loud and long on the subject. So why are we now faced with a system that would promote social promotion for adult learners who attend college? This issue is an outrage to every college and university educator across the state.

Saving money at the expense of closing colleges and universities in this state is the biggest mistake any governor could ever make for New Mexico voters. We need a system, which rewards educators for quality work without harming them for factors that are out of their control.

The governor needs to look at factors, which cause students to leave school or fail a class in the first place.

Factors Such As:

This state needs childcare for single parents. Because they cannot bring their children to class, since children in the classroom would destroy the learning environment for all.

We need reliable transportation for getting students to class on time everyday of the week. Missing classes can cause a student to fail a class.

Health care so students do not infect their classmates. Flu shots go a long way toward keeping students in the classroom.

Tutoring and basic education skills classes are needed for students that have been out of the system for long periods. How much do you remember from your fourth grade math class?

Socialization and mental health issues are a rising factor in the classrooms. Students need to understand how to communicate with others in a socially acceptable manner. Mental illness can cause major harm to the learning process for all involved. No one wants to see another Virginia Tech incident.

We should be training educators in methods that work when it comes to adult education. People are not born knowing how to teach adults. Pulling skilled workers out of the workforce to teach classes does not mean that they know how to teach other people those skills. Education is a learned skill just like all other higher professions. Do we really want them learning on our future workforce?

Education reform should be about dealing with the issues that cause students to fail classes and leave school. We can have the world’s best educators in our colleges and universities, but if a student is not prepared to learn then nothing we can do will fix it.

Punishing Educators for factors they have no control over will drive them out of New Mexico and further harm our educational system. Educators do not go into the field in order to get rich but the United States needs to understand that other countries, which are having success, are putting money toward helping educators. These countries have respected their educators, which is something that our country is failing in across this nation.