We’d like to think that before legislators get all fired up about throwing money at education, some common sense enters the equation and proper questions are asked (and answered). However, common sense legislation is often an oxymoron.
There was poorly conceived fallout from the Yazzie Martinez lawsuit, where in 2018 District Court Judge (the late) Sarah Singleton found New Mexico does not properly fund education. The legislature’s and then Gov. Susana Martinez’s first reaction was to give teachers raises. This is always the go to answer for education, probably because no one in the Roundhouse wants to listen to teachers union lobbyists. So despite push-back by then Sen. John Smith, over $300 million was pushed toward meeting the Yazzie “requirements,” including those big, fat 6 percent raises.
The corona virus came along and the state clawed back most of that money. What will be done under the Yazzie ruling and how much it will cost taxpayers remains to be decided.
The 60-day session always brings the big spending projects and New Mexicans’ education is already a little less than half ($3.3 billion) of the $7.3 billion budget. And what do we get for our billions? We’re continually the worst state in the country for education.
One would think spending half your budget on something would get positive results, but not in New Mexico. We enjoy pounding our heads against the wall, doing the same thing repeatedly and asking for more money to do that useless thing.
So we’re spending all this money and getting terrible results, the predominant logic at the Roundhouse is: we need to spend more money.
This brings education “advocates” to work very hard to get their hands in the golden cookie jar, the Land Grant Permanent Trust Fund. The aforementioned Smith was famous (or as teachers would say, notorious) for pinching pennies and stopping unnecessary spending. It cost him his seat as he was beat in the June 2020 primary by a woman surely ready to throw gobs of money at teachers. Neomi Martinez-Parra is a teacher from Lordsburg. Taxpayers caught a break when she was beat by Republican Crystal Diamond in the general election.
However, the import of Smith losing his seat isn’t to whom but the fact he is out of the senate. Heading the Senate Finance Committee, his powerful “no” stopped a lot of senseless spending, and yes, probably some good ideas and projects.
And so the “Smith” affect on the $13.6 billion Permanent Fund? It’s not sure that reason will rule without Smith and we could see the percentage of spending from the Fund increased for a not-so-clear reason.
The Fund is the second largest of its kind in the country. It disburses almost $1 billion annually ($836.5 million in FY21), yet grew almost $500 million. That makes it easy to make the argument for pulling a couple of cookies out of that jar. Who’s going to miss them?
The Fund has a life of its own. It grows about 6 percent and it receives about 4 percent in royalties and rents. Can we afford to take more from the fund? Yes, definitely, for a long time.
But to what end?
Former Gov. Bill Richardson made such a claim in 2004 and was successful in passing a constitutional amendment in 2006 allowing the permanent fund disbursements to rise to 6 percent for several years, sliding back down to 5 percent in 2017. We question his method as what it did was get teachers raises, created a tiering system for newly hired teachers and encouraged existing teachers to meet goals to get larger raises.
We’re about 13 years in to that experiment and what are the results? We’re still clinging to that bottom spot in national education ranking.
Our test scores are abysmal, attendance awful, graduation rates came up a few percentage points but so did the rest of the country’s so we’re still 50th. Martinez brought in the hot shot from Florida to fix everything and that administration’s answer was school grades. That worked well. We all got confirmation of what we already knew, our schools are terrible.
Before we get our grubby fingers in the cookie jar how about we look at our big fat waste line (or waist line) and see if we can do more with what we have. It is clear and Richardson proved this in spades: paying teachers more will not improve the education of New Mexico’s children.
Those who advocate for teacher pay should stick to facts. Teachers want to get paid more. Period. We’re not going to get return on that spending.
Additionally, at a time where the legislature is mulling more money for education, the governor suspended school districts’ requirement to tell parents how their schools and district are performing. The governor suspended that requirement when she came into office and did away with the school grade system. No district has published an accountability report since possibly 2019, which would have been 2018 statistics.
No one is giving factual information on how students and schools are performing right now. At best there is anecdotal evidence, which is not the way you fund education.
So in short, we don’t know how our schools and districts are doing, but let’s give them more money for questionable programs and pay teachers more. That’s simply bad business.
Selling early childhood is a great way to gain sympathy but no one is asking questions, or at least the right questions. What specifically will it fund? Which program, at what cost and what empirical evidence is there that this program will work?
Studies exist on both sides of the early childhood education argument. Let’s hear facts, from somewhere, anywhere, not rhetoric about vague possible ideas.
Taxpayers are protected since the legislature can pass the resolution to put the question on the ballot in November 2022 but proponents will have to roll out a pretty slick marketing campaign to get voters to approve it. Again, some facts and a plan on how to spend the additional money will make its passage more assured and parents (you know, the ones who pay the bills) could find out how their child’s school is operating.