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States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

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McNamara, Laura A

States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

>
> ?? If you really want to be depressed, check out where Los Alamos and
> Bernalillo County rank, nation-wide, for education and realize how bad
> the other counties must be to drag the state down to #50.??The
> variance in quality of education in this state is exceptionally large.
>
> --

Hi all,

I'm a list newbie and what a topic to begin with - I come from a family of New Mexico educators and this ranking doesn't surprise me one bit. My family would have plenty to say about education in New Mexico.

If anecdote counts for anything, here's a graphic illustration of the disparity: My sister taught for one year at Santa Fe High School before she was recruited to California, where she's now principal of a large urban high school in the Bay Area. She's one of those people who was born to teach high school - she speaks three languages (Spanish, English and Thai), is triple certified in ESL, History and English, and just completed her masters' degree in educational administration. Kids both fear and adore her. Just what you'd want our state to keep, right?

We didn't have a chance. While at SFHS, she had to purchase light bulbs for her classroom. The district ran out of money and the high school was forced to send report cards home with the kids because it couldn't afford postage. You can imagine what happened to the report cards... The heat routinely broke in the mobile unit she was teaching in, and the legs on her desk shattered one day when she placed a pile of books on it. One of her kids was an 18 year old with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome who routinely set fire to the bulletin board; he was in her classes because special ed had run out of room. She bought lunch daily for another kid whose parents had kicked him out of the house - he was living in his car and working at Denny's overnight while finishing high school. She saw her principal once in the entire school year.

Here's the kicker: at this point, she was an UNPAID INTERN at Santa Fe High School. She got no support, zero, from the administration or the district, and she was working for free.

Well, when California recruited Amy in 1999, she'd had enough and she left - for a $50K starting salary and a signing bonus. When the students and parents at SFHS found out that Amy was leaving, they started writing letters to the school begging them to keep her. The school's response? They offered her 17K to start. Amy considered it - until she found out that her district had just created a $70K/year position for a director of diversity in the SF public schools.

California is just a few rankings above us, and Amy's in one of the toughest schools in the Bay Area - but at least she makes a decent wage, and she doesn't have to buy light bulbs for her teachers now.

Laura

> Ray Parks?????????????????? rcparks at sandia.gov IDART Project Lead??????????
> Voice:505-844-4024 IORTA Department????????????Fax:505-844-9641
> http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
> ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
> ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

Luciano Oviedo

States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

To, All:

I agree. The problems are well discussed. The entire system is in the ICU
and on life-support.

How about a new thread on the real challenge - what are WE doing (and/or
going to do) about it?

Regards,

Luciano

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of McNamara, Laura A
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

>
> ?? If you really want to be depressed, check out where Los Alamos and
> Bernalillo County rank, nation-wide, for education and realize how bad
> the other counties must be to drag the state down to #50.??The
> variance in quality of education in this state is exceptionally large.
>
> --

Hi all,

I'm a list newbie and what a topic to begin with - I come from a family of
New Mexico educators and this ranking doesn't surprise me one bit. My
family would have plenty to say about education in New Mexico.

If anecdote counts for anything, here's a graphic illustration of the
disparity: My sister taught for one year at Santa Fe High School before she
was recruited to California, where she's now principal of a large urban high
school in the Bay Area. She's one of those people who was born to teach
high school - she speaks three languages (Spanish, English and Thai), is
triple certified in ESL, History and English, and just completed her
masters' degree in educational administration. Kids both fear and adore
her. Just what you'd want our state to keep, right?

We didn't have a chance. While at SFHS, she had to purchase light bulbs for
her classroom. The district ran out of money and the high school was forced
to send report cards home with the kids because it couldn't afford postage.
You can imagine what happened to the report cards... The heat routinely
broke in the mobile unit she was teaching in, and the legs on her desk
shattered one day when she placed a pile of books on it. One of her kids
was an 18 year old with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome who routinely set fire to the
bulletin board; he was in her classes because special ed had run out of
room. She bought lunch daily for another kid whose parents had kicked him
out of the house - he was living in his car and working at Denny's overnight
while finishing high school. She saw her principal once in the entire
school year.

Here's the kicker: at this point, she was an UNPAID INTERN at Santa Fe High
School. She got no support, zero, from the administration or the district,
and she was working for free.

Well, when California recruited Amy in 1999, she'd had enough and she left -
for a $50K starting salary and a signing bonus. When the students and
parents at SFHS found out that Amy was leaving, they started writing letters
to the school begging them to keep her. The school's response? They offered
her 17K to start. Amy considered it - until she found out that her district
had just created a $70K/year position for a director of diversity in the SF
public schools.

California is just a few rankings above us, and Amy's in one of the toughest
schools in the Bay Area - but at least she makes a decent wage, and she
doesn't have to buy light bulbs for her teachers now.

Laura

> Ray Parks?????????????????? rcparks at sandia.gov IDART Project
Lead??????????

> Voice:505-844-4024 IORTA Department????????????Fax:505-844-9641
> http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
> ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
> ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives,
unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org

Parks, Raymond

States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

In reply to this post by McNamara, Laura A

McNamara, Laura A wrote:
> Well, when California recruited Amy in 1999, she'd had enough and she
> left - for a $50K starting salary and a signing bonus. When the
> students and parents at SFHS found out that Amy was leaving, they
> started writing letters to the school begging them to keep her. The
> school's response? They offered her 17K to start. Amy considered it
> - until she found out that her district had just created a $70K/year
> position for a director of diversity in the SF public schools.

This is one of the perceived, if not real, problems with NM
education. Our per capita spending is lower than average, but it
doesn't seem low enough to be the cause of the infrastructure types of
problems Laura mentions. However, we seem to have a propensity for
highly-paid administrative positions while the teachers and facilities
suffer. There are frequent scandals in which some administrator
embezzles money from a school district. Overall, the management of
education in NM seems lacking. One would expect that voters would
replace school boards that support this type of thing, yet they don't.

The problem isn't only with K-12 schools. At one time since I've
been living here, the President of the UNM Board of Regents was a lawyer
whose firm had gone bankrupt. Not, in my mind, a good qualification for
that responsible a post.

BTW, one of the ways in which NM leads the nation has not been
mentioned - per capita government employees. We have more government
(Fed, state, local) employees per capita than any other state (that may
have changed but I'm sure that we're still right near the top). IMHO,
government employment in NM is a disguised form of welfare. Oh, we're
also right up there in taxes paid per capita, presumably to pay for all
the government employees.

I've lived here since 1987 and I wouldn't live anywhere else, but I
realize the warts. My feeling is that New Mexico government has
inherited from both the Patron system and the Texas good-ole-boy network
and combines the worst of both.

Another interesting aspect that became evident soon after I moved
here was government-by-lawsuit. Back in the late '80s, early '90s, the
Supremes decided that states can't tax federal pensions. Every other
state that was a party to that court case or affected by it agreed to
refund any taxes charged on fed pensions and changed their law. New
Mexico did stop taxing federal pensions, but the Revenooer's directed
everyone who wanted refunds to join a class action lawsuit run by a
lawyer in Las Vegas. It might have been coincidence that said lawyer
had family connections to various state officials and legislators and
had a languishing practice.

--
Ray Parks rcparks at sandia.gov
IDART Project Lead Voice:505-844-4024
IORTA Department Fax:505-844-9641
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288