Albuquerque Police Shootings – We Must Have Answers!
On November 27, 2012 the Department of Justice, in a joint statement with Mayor Berry and Chief Schultz announced that it was launching an investigation of the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) after a string of officer-involved shootings and high profile abuse cases that allege the use of excessive and deadly force.
APD officers have fired on 34 suspects since early 2010. APD has justified ALL of them...
For Whom Does the Bell Toll?
On December 19, New Mexico’s Supreme Court rendered its 5-0 decision that denying same-sex couples the right to engage in civil marriage is unconstitutional. This was an early Christmas present for the hundreds of lesbian and gay couples throughout the state who got their licenses from the six brave county clerks who began issuing them last August, for the thousands more who have been waiting for state-wide approval, and to our many supporters of all sexual identities who believe in equal rights for all...
Flat-Lining New Mexico’s Tax System Would Make it Even More Unfair
New Mexico’s state and local tax system is already unfair—with the lowest-income New Mexicans paying a rate double that of the highest-income earners. A so-called ‘flat tax’ or ‘consumption tax’ would make the tax system even more regressive. Still, there are legislators who would like to enact a consumption tax. Representative Tom Taylor and Senator William Sharer introduced twin bills (HB-369 and SB-368) during the 2013 legislative session to do just that. Although that legislation did not pass, it is all but guaranteed to make a reappearance in January—and in subsequent years if it is not adopted in 2014...
Governor’s proposals continue to demoralize teachers
In the upcoming 2014 Legislative Session I will again seek approval of a bill that would appropriate nearly $68 million to hire intervention teachers to help identify and serve students from kindergarten through the eighth grade who are struggling academically in reading and/or mathematics.
In 2013, Rep. Mimi Stewart and I introduced Senate Bill 474, which sharply contrasted with Governor Susana Martinez’s and Public Education Department cabinet-secretary-designee Hanna Skandera’s past initiatives to retain third graders not reading at proficiency without their parents’ approval of the action...
Weekly Poem: We Considered Ourselves
The towers on Sandia Crest transmit
through sunset in some other home, Smokey
Bear is dead like a pop song
on a distant radio I keep
toying with the dials flipping the brights in a code
here no one remembers the first fire,
distant suns or one close star...
Reflections on Mandela by a South African who was there
"I was not born with a hunger to be free," Nelson Mandela writes in his autobiography. He immediately explains, "I was born free - free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God."
This is part of his reflection and frank assessment of how his life unfolded. Like all of us, Mandela was free in every way that was within his imagination or visible in the world he inhabited...
Mannyism
If you are a Manny, you probably won’t like what I am about to say one damn bit because it’s the Mannys of this world that are spoiling it all for everyone else. In fact, it is the very name Manny that is the probable suspect cause for all misery in the Universe, to say nothing of good ol’ NM.
During 2012 in the United States, the name Manny ranked 2044 in popular baby names. Compared to Bill, say, which is wildly popular, the name Manny has experienced a plummeting decline that could be graphically compared to the collapse of the NYSE in 2008, and it’s no wonder why the name Manny is going to the dogs...
Democracy or Safety? America’s Strategy in Central America
Democracy or safety? Which do you want? This isn’t a reasonable question for us Americans because we can have both. For many countries, it’s a wrenchingly difficult choice.
Take the tiny Central American countries of Honduras and Nicaragua. Honduras just held its Presidential elections and they offer some important lessons about our role in Central America, the impact of drugs and violence, and the factors that make a country viable...
Fighting over funding is hindering real education
In response to my colleagues’ recent op-ed column, “Stop the Cycle of Failure,” let me first say that I think our New Mexico public schools are good, our teachers are great and our students are performing well. I know, that’s not what you’ve read, but please hear me out.
We can argue about test results; let’s look at test design. All standardized-based tests spread children out on a continuum, a bell curve, by design. In every state, children from poverty, with rare exception, score at the bottom, by design. Children learning English as a second language tend to score at the bottom, by design. Does this mean they can’t learn or teachers aren’t working hard enough?...
Over-testing Takes Focus Away from Curriculum
Over the last few years our state has seen a massive push from the governor’s administration to drive education improvements through an increase in testing in our schools. In isolation, this might seem like results-minded reform, but in conjunction with the testing efforts already in place, the resulting “over-testing” is taking the learning right out of our schools...