Original Content

Education in New Mexico (continued)

Steve Fischmann

Senator Fischmann acknowledges that this massive funding is not actually reaching the classroom and that much of it is drained off by the administrative bureaucracy. He commented that “the $350,000 number includes all school services funded by the state and the federal governments divided by the number of classrooms in our school system k-12. For him, the point is that the State can call them schools, yet with all the money we spend on ancillary services, we do not manage to fund the basics - like texts and teacher supplies. This points to what he feels is a lack of focus - are we going to do a good job on the core functions of education, or are we going to do a mediocre job of implementing a hodge podge of individual programs”? However he didn’t quantify the number of students per classroom, indicate how many positions are mandated or if school athletics were included.

There are 89 separate independent school districts each having its own Superintendent and administrative staff. Forty-seven of them have fewer than 1,000 students. Senator Fischmann will be introducing a bill during this legislative session to require consolidation of school districts with less than 1,000 students and believes this will save millions of dollars in reduced administrative costs.

Unfortunately such legislation fails to consider the unique character of individual district and is not based on performance. Some of these smaller districts have the lowest cost per student ratios and the highest rates of sophomores that graduate from high school and college. Consolidation should not be based purely on student population. We must be careful in phasing out or re-forming existing districts and the process must include appropriate “cost-benefit analysis” as well as district performance ratios.

While this does not guarantee an improvement in education it does focus on the problem of district performance and has the potential to free up significant dollars that can be put directly into the classroom to address many of their needs including classroom teacher pay and quality.
Governor Martinez stated in her State of the State address that she proposes a 1.5% administrative (non-classroom) cut in all 89 school districts and redirects the savings to the classrooms. As a member of the Legislative Education Study Committee, Senator Fischmann believes he can work with the Martinez administration but this legislation will not solve the problem. Let’s encourage all our State Legislators to work together to focus any reform on performance and not population to improve the quality of New Mexico’s education system.