Education wins and loses at the Legislature

The 2024 legislative session contained one big victory for public education and a few disappointments, the head of the local teachers’ union said Wednesday.

“In general, it has not been a banner year for education,” Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, told CityDesk ABQ.

She said the one great thing to come out of the session was new graduation requirements, which hadn’t been updated since the George W. Bush administration.

Bernstein said Bush-era No Child Left Behind policies focused on pushing students toward college, to the detriment of those not bound for higher education. House Bill 171, she noted, removes the passing of Algebra II as a requirement for graduation, although schools still must offer the course as an elective.

Bernstein said Algebra II has acted as a “gatekeeper,” keeping students from graduating who otherwise could. She said the new requirements will help keep students engaged and interested in their coursework, and thus more likely to stay in school.

“It’ll give teachers the option to craft courses that meet the requirements and creatively meet students’ needs and interests,” she said.

The new law also includes an optional financial literacy component and expands opportunities for foreign language or career and technical education electives.

Bernstein said the new requirements came to pass after about four years of educators pushing for the changes. She said educators worked with bill sponsor State Rep. G. Andrés Romero.

Improving middle schools

Bernstein said she’s also pleased with the passage of House Memorial 4, which directs the Legislative Education Study Committee to “study the structure, curriculum, funding, and design of middle schools” and make recommendations to the state leaders on ways to improve them.

She said middle schools have been pushed into a “junior-high model,” focused on preparing children for high school, and she thinks the study will help education leaders ensure that middle schools are focusing on the best approach for early adolescent learners.

Bernstein said research shows that early adolescents need to be taught by teams of teachers who work together and understand their students.

“There is so much emotional change and upheaval during those years,” she said. “Research is clear and unanimous. They need to be treated differently than high-schoolers. They need to be well-known and they need their learning to be engaging and hands-on.”

Education investments lacking despite surplus

However, Bernstein said the session was a missed opportunity in terms of financially supporting public education.

“It was a session with a giant surplus, but not a giant (gain) in funding for education,” she said.

Source New Mexico reports that the state will have a $3.4 billion surplus for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Bernstein said she had hoped to see the legislature provide school districts with money for discretionary spending on local priorities.

“If we want to meet local needs, there’s no wiggle room in our funding,” she said.

The budget also calls for 3% raises for all public school employees; that number was originally 4%, but was reduced by the Senate Finance Committee.

Bernstein said inflation is slightly above 3% and that she feels the state isn’t doing enough to retain teachers or other school staff.

She said she was disappointed in the failure of a proposal to raise the minimum salary for school workers to $30,000 a year.

“We’re making school schedules based on a shortage of bus drivers,” Bernstein said, adding that educational assistants, cafeteria workers and custodians are also getting harder to find. “If there’s a person who is necessary to make a school run, we have a shortage.”

She said that as the workforce ages in New Mexico schools and more people become eligible for retirement, the shortage will get worse.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do to focus on that,” Bernstein said.

Other happenings during the legislative session:

• Senate Bill 137 creates a requirement of 10 hours of mandatory training for school board members, mandates live streaming of all meetings and the maintenance of three years of meetings in archives. The law also requires campaign finance reporting for school board candidates who spend more than $1,000 and prohibits newly elected members from firing a current superintendent within 60 days of being sworn in.

• House Memorial 32 died on the house calendar. It had proposed a comprehensive study of teacher pay, benefits and responsibilities at all public colleges and universities in the state.
• House Bill 123 failed to be adopted as well. It would have withheld state funding from libraries that didn’t adopt and comply with the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and adopt written policies prohibiting the practice of banning books or other library materials on the basis of author’s race, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, or political or religious views.