New NM Education Secretary Criticized

Posted by Rachel Pulaski on Sunday, February 13, 2011
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Hanna Skandera
From washingtonexaminer.com -New Mexico school administrators and a teachers union are upset over a decision by the state's new education secretary-designate to hire out-of-state consultants.  The eight consultants for Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera will be paid a total of $152,000 to advise Skandera on such things as tracking student achievement and handling public relations. The contracts expire at the end of March or end of April.  At least six have careers tied to either of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or former President George W. Bush, according to a copyright story Sunday by The Albuquerque Journal. Skandera worked for Jeb Bush. "You can't copy and paste an education agenda for New Mexico's kids that outside consultants have used elsewhere," Christine Trujillo, president of New Mexico's chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said. "Our students and teachers need education leaders who come from New Mexico and understand the unique needs of our state's children — not folks with connections to the failed education policies of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and to former President George W. Bush's botched No Child Left Behind program."  More here
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NM is a special place and different from most every where else.

Outsiders never quite understand us. Outsiders cannot give advice because of this fact.

Do they have good system from where they came? Probably BUT will those systems work for NM?

There are many, many capable people in NM who know and understand our people. But those in power seldom select them to help and more often do not even look to folks already in the state.

Education is failing because those in charge have no apparent understanding of educating. They may have education degrees or specialties but they lack common understanding of what is required.

The governor must look inside the state for people to solve our problems.

February 14, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Anonymous said...

I always thought that, for the most part, people in New Mexico were the same as anyone else in America. We would like to see our children receive a good education and grow up to be productive American citizens. The new education secretary has been on the job less than two months and some are already critical and wishing her failure. The previous governor cared more about promoting his own future than the quality of education in Mew Mexico. Nevertheless, the brain dead voters continued to vote for him. Consequently, we STILL have a broken education system, a HUGE deficit, ideologues appointed to the EIB that were determined to chase badly needed jobs from our state to other welcoming states and a state legislature of hopeless progressives who INSIST upon issuing driver licenses to any member of a Mexican drug cartel that needs SOME STATE in the U.S. to grant them legal status within our borders. There are those who would argue that issuing a driver license doesn't convey legal status. Well, they're wrong. At a minimum it grants illegal aliens the State of New Mexico's blessing to operate a motor vehicle in our state. If only the newly appointed Education Secretary could receive the same warm welcome! The education system in Florida was improved greatly under her stewardship. Lets at least giver her a chance before we start whining about her performance before she's had a chance to perform.

February 14, 2011 at 2:06 PM

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