Politics and Education

Del Hanson

Both candidates for office of the governor have continually inundated the airwaves and newspapers with brilliant plans to improve education. The chance that substantive change in our state educational system will occur as a result of either candidate’s plank is nil. In light of this, both would be well-advised to just shut up. Let’s face it, neither has a deep and abiding background in education. They both assuredly want the best for our students. I have no doubt about that. However, neither has been in the classroom instructing children. Both base their educational policy stands from advisors, and in recent “debates” or forums, it is painfully obvious that nothing new is forthcoming from either side. Lt. Governor Denish supports a turbo-charged version of more of the same, and governor hopeful Martinez echoes the tired and oft-used admonition to “cut waste” and give parents vouchers. If either gets her way, education will not and cannot move forward. It will continue to stagger sideways.


Diane Denish



Solutions for the questions which confront education in New Mexico do not lie with politicians. Sadly, they are the only ones who have the power to make the needed changes. So who should they be talking to? Who, if anyone, has the answers?

Let me first list the persons who most assuredly do not have the answers: 1. think tanks of any size and any political persuasion, 2. Arne Duncan, 3. any state department of education, 4. school superintendents or their associates, 5. nationally syndicated talk show hosts, 6. the union, 7. university colleges of education, and 8. anyone running for political office. Who then might that leave to help us understand the problems endemic to education? Let me pose this question first: who might you ask if you needed to determine why patients were developing severe reactions to medicines given to them after a particular kind of surgery? Hospital administrators? How about night custodians? Maybe afternoon talk show hosts? What about aspiring gubernatorial candidates? I would hope and pray one would ask doctors. Now, I pose the question again: Who might we ask about questions pertaining to public education? Perhaps, just maybe, we might ask teachers. I know it cuts across the grain of all common sense and intelligence, but just possibly teachers would have insight grounded in reality. We not only do not ask them, but we shun their input, lest it might be tainted with the residue of poor standardized test performance. Instead, before we ask teachers, we consult numbers one through eight listed previously.



Susana Martinez



My advice to governor of New Mexico hopefuls Martinez and Denish? Convene working committees of teachers to assist them in defining, pinpointing, and synthesizing concerns and problems within the system which diminish their ability to teach students. The fear of the right is that the unions will have undue influence. The fear of the left is that the unions won’t have enough influence. The only true insight into the problems and solutions particular to public education lies with the practitioners--the teachers. Use them and quote them. Somewhere and somehow over the past eight years or so teachers have been the labeled the culprits in the demise of public education. The profession has certainly been dealt a mighty blow, if not lethal. If a kid is not at or above average, much of public perception is that it must be the teacher’s fault. Some of that blame most assuredly lies with her, but an equal responsibility must lie with parents, and, heaven forbid, the child himself. In the disaster and folly of the new century, No Child Left Behind assigns sole culpability in non-achievement to schools and teachers.

The child and her parents are mere spectators who flow through the flawed system. The truth is that no educational system in the world departs markedly from what we try to do with our public education system, except to make their systems selective and non-universal after about eighth grade. Essentially, other nations field their ball teams with students who want to be there and cull the herd each year beginning about middle school, much like our university system does to students between the freshman and senior years of college. In America, using the ball team metaphor, we field teams using every child who walks through the door, no matter the level of disability or inability. It is truly universal to the point of excess. U.S. public education is expensive and not competitive compared to the other nations who do not embrace universally egalitarian education. This writer cringes every time a politician announces how he or she will “reform” education. I heard today that the Martinez campaign, and I am quoting, will “end social promotion.” Really? A new law will just like that end social promotion? Does Ms. Martinez or her expert advisors realize that the vast majority of social promotions come at the bequest of parents, who often override the decision of the teacher?

Who will decide who advances to the next grade? ?A test? Yet another expletive deleted test? What appeal process will be in place to ensure due process? Who will pay for the litigation of court cases when a student is denied grade placement? What if the student is held back four consecutive years? Will we create parallel schools in which to house them, or will we have 15 year olds in fifth grade in the same school with first graders? Does the Martinez camp realize that, due to the Draconian punishment meted out by NCLB sanctions, current law puts incredible pressure on districts to graduate every warm body in the senior class? I would guess neither of those concerns have been addressed, but the sound byte is sweet to the ears of those whose understanding of education is but superficial. The sound I hear coming out of the mouths of the candidates for governor reminds me of the muted trumpet sound issuing from Snoopy’s mouth in the old cartoon specials: waaamp, waaamp, waaamp, waaamp waamp. If they want to reform schools, go to the source. Ask teachers. It’s my guess it isn’t going to happen. It’s a shame. They hold the answers.

Politics and Education

Music Matters - So Do Other "Activities"

Del Hanson

Years ago, my grandfather, father and I were trying to pull a corner post out of a fence line on the ranch with our 1966 Chevy pick-up. We wrapped it up real tight with a logging chain and put the hook on our rear bumper. Dad gunned the truck and we watched as that old corner post stayed standing and rear bumper clunked to the hard-packed earth. We looked at each other in silence, and then my grandfather broke the tension with a laugh and said, “Well, I guess we just ain’t that smart.” A study conducted by the American College Testing program a few years ago posed a series of questions to high school seniors taking the test. They were searching for the best predictor of future success in life as determined by the controlled situation in high school and standardized testing.
The study would establish whether having A. a high grade point average in high school, B. a high grade point average in college, C. a high score on the ACT test, or D. taking a meaningful series of electives in high school and being successful in them would be the best predictor of future success. The entire premise of the ACT and SAT exams is to predict potential success in college. The results were interesting.

Meanwhile, in our public schools, operating under the ominous shadow of No Child Left Behind, administrators and teachers chase the elusive rainbow that is AYP. To reach this ever-escalating proficiency, schools, by law, must provide students with tutoring and transfers to passing schools. As Diane Ravitch points out in her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School system: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, the central points underlying the massive education bill don’t work. It has been a dud and is getting worse. Ravitch, by the way, was the assistant Secretary of Education in the Bush administration. She helped implement NCLB and by 2005 had determined it was failing. How ironic. However, the bill still exacts a lethal stranglehold on school districts, and to appease the testing gods, principals and curriculum advisors require students not proficient on the exams to be yanked from class and provided “extra help.” Some of this “extra help” can be beneficial, but often it is grindingly tedious worksheet or computer practice, sometimes taught by persons not certified in the area being reviewed.

The results of the ACT inquiry discovered that the best determination of whether a student achieves success in later life is D., taking a series of meaningful electives in high school and being successful in them. Mentioned most often were music courses, but also athletics, art, and drama. Students who take music are more likely to succeed, stay in school, achieve high grades, graduate, stay out of trouble, have better reading comprehension and speed, do better in foreign language classes, and get along better with peers. Students yanked out of classes and forced into numbingly boring remediation due to poor exam achievement, are most often taken out of elective classes. Music is an elective. Although taking music is one of the best, if not the best, predictor of future success, schools diminish, curtail, or cancel music in lieu of providing basic remediation. We are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I will make a bold statement that I think I can back up: there are no great schools which do not also possess great music programs. There may good music programs which exist in spite of a poor school, succeeding out of instructor tenacity, but great schools have great music programs. Why then do superintendents and school boards weaken or diminish music programs through funding cuts and personnel reductions? Why does elementary music gravitate to the top of the list when cuts are announced? I believe it happens out of abject ignorance. It is just dumb, but dumb decisions have become so commonplace that we almost expect them. Every decision made in every public school district must be predicated on one and only one idea: is it good for kids? Not good for school boards. Not good for superintendents. Not good for district report cards to the legislature. Not good for P.R. Not good for salaries. Is it good for kids? If not, then don’t do it. Period. It seems decisions are made on a daily basis which do not benefit kids. Eliminating music programs hurts kids.

A friend of mine who was an amazing teacher and administrator in Clovis, New Mexico, once made an astute observation of a group of sixty choir students as they stood on the risers. He said, “This may be the only time in their lives that all these kids, some black, some white, some Hispanic, some rich, some poor, some from good families, some not, some tall, some short, will be absolutely equal and treated the same.” He was right. Music and athletics in our schools teach so much more than practicing the clarinet or running plays. They teach about life. It is something paper and pencil jobs can’t assess.

I hear all manners of excuses made for NCLB from apologists on both sides of the political aisle. There may have been some good premises for the law in the beginning. But what it has morphed into is a monstrosity that has sucked precious resources from the classroom and reallocated them to testing companies with no particular interest in children except that they are a means to their end of making a profit for their company. Testing companies don’t care what happens to any particular child. They are just doing their job. Teaching is more than people just doing the job. Educators are in the people business, or at least used to be before short-term assessment and data analysis became more important than connecting with kids. The last I checked, children are people. Instead, they have recently become statistical inferences and trends. Inferences and trends don’t have a heartbeat and feelings and emotions. Schools that have vibrant and flourishing music, art, and athletic programs also excel at academics. Coincidence? Not hardly. Why then do we chip away and weaken the very programs that enhance and bolster student learning and school participation? Well, I guess we just ain’t that smart.”

Music Matters - So Do Other "Activities"