Whether you are the son or daughter of an immigrant or a hard-working parent who has lived in the Valley their entire life, you have probably been told to go to school and get good grades.
Education will set you free, they said. Or maybe they didn’t say it, but I’m telling you right now. Education is the number one predictor of success, financial independence and overall happiness.
One can certainly get ahead with hard work and determination; many a millionaire has been made on sweat equity and a willingness to take risks.
Maybe I don’t have all of the research to back me up on this, but I have seen how, above all else, education gives people options — and options are valuable.
In a 2022 paper written by MIT professors in the Quarterly Journal of Economics titled, “Why Do People Stay Poor,” the authors argue two different reasons for why we remain poor.
One says that people are naturally different in terms of their abilities, talents and motivation to work and therefore achieve more (or less).
The other is known as the poverty trap theory which says that differences in opportunities that come from differing access to wealth cause longterm disparities between the haves and the have nots.
What do you think? Do entire populations remain poor for long periods of time because they don’t have the talent or drive to work harder and pull themselves out of poverty?
Or do you think that the rich have always been rich and we don’t stand a chance at climbing that ladder because we just don’t have the same benefits and things that money buys?
Are we destined to generational poverty or will we learn to make better decisions?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know we don’t earn a whole lot in Española and our surrounding communities.
We have one of the highest poverty rates in the state and based on median incomes, we earn less than the rest of the folks in New Mexico.
And not by a little, but by a whopping 27%. What is it going to take to move the needle and get us out of this predicament?
According to research from the article, one of the actions that produced the greatest success was giving poor people a cow in order to increase their net assets.
The experiment took place in Bangladesh where wealth could be measured in mostly agricultural terms.
It’s something we can all relate to, right? Who couldn’t use a good steer and some more chickens?
In basic terms, these poor farmers were given options. They were given a real financial asset that they could harness, grow, trade and use to increase wealth.
Halfway around the world, we ought to use the same logic.
The similarities in outcomes between being given a cow and a strong education are oddly striking. They both give us something we can be proud of.
They teach us that patience is a virtue. And most importantly, if you work at improving both of them, you will have something greater at the end than what you started with.
Given the crucial importance that a good education is to creating options for our kids and our future, I cannot stress enough the importance of making good decisions when it comes to voting for school board members.
Teachers should be our number one priority, not power structures that desire for control of the board. It’s been said that one person campaigning for his candidate in the recent school board election had the audacity to say, “I am the next emperor.”
Well, he didn’t quite say emperor, but I’m sure you can guess the name he used to evoke a sense of imperialism and ownership over Northern New Mexico with his power and politico-mafia drama.
If you get enough candidates elected to enough boards, commissions and councils, then you create an empire for yourself, not your community.
Think about that the next time you get a call from someone asking for a vote for yet another of his or her cavalcade of minion candidates.
If you only knew the power plays, the people who jumped from bed to bed just to be between the sheets with other politicos you would be stunned.
The saying that politics makes for good bedfellows never rang more true.
Education is too important to be left to the low-level mediocrity.
Let’s hope we can move forward with our current Española School Board to instruct, challenge, stimulate, prod, invigorate, inspire, and awaken us. Our rankings and our future depend on it.
Let’s educate our children and give them options, while we’re at it.