On Tuesday, Governor Martinez met with legislative leaders and asked them to re-look at the proposed state budget. It is reported that Governor Martinez is unhappy with the depth of cuts to education, medicare, and the corrections department. The legislative leadership agreed to evaluate some of her concerns and sent the bill back to the House Appropriations Committee for further review.
The Governor would like to see the state lower the subsidy provided to the film industry when they film in New Mexico. Currently the state reimburses film producers 25% of the money they spend in New Mexico while shooting a film. The Governor would like to see this reduced to 15%. The Albuquerque Journal reported today that in 2010, the state reimbursed $65 million dollars to film companies. The proposed reduction would have presumably saved the state $6.5 million last year. However, opponents argue that reducing the film credit will drive producers out of New Mexico. Thus, the actual savings will be considerably less and more New Mexicans will be out of work as a result of the industry moving to other states.
This is important to the Southwest Learning Center because the original budget bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee did not contain any provisions to eliminate the small school size funding for charter schools and districts that house multiple schools in a building. In order to meet the Governor’s request to limit cuts to education, corrections, and medicare, the funds will need to come from somewhere. This puts the elimination of the small school size funding back in play. We are asking all parents, grandparents, friends, and supporters to watch the proposals coming out of the House Appropriations Committee carefully. If the small school size adjustment is brought back into play and eliminated, the three schools that make up the Southwest Learning Center (Southwest Primary, Southwest Intermediate, and Southwest Secondary) will be forced to either move or close.
Neither option is a good one. Moving will cost the taxpayers of New Mexico more money in the long run as facility, administration, insurance, transportation, utility costs, etc are all triplicated. It will disrupt the educational process significantly. Closing is even less appealing as 500+ students will be forced to change schools, 40+ people will be out of work and many families will be negatively impacted. Furthermore, the results the Southwest Learning Center achieve continue to break the mold with no achievement gap and the highest test scores in the state on the standards based assessment. We will continue to monitor this budget situation carefully and keep parents informed of any changes.
Finally, we want to also alert you to a rumor that has begun to spread. It is believed that once the budget is passed from the House to the Senate, budget leaders in the Senate will move to add language to “correct inefficiencies in the funding formula”. This is legislative language to remove the small school funding for schools that share facilities and to limit charter schools from receiving growth units when their populations increase significantly. Charters continue to experience large growth as more parents become aware of their successes and apply to charters. The Southwest Learning Center currently has more than 3700 students on the waiting list to get in! Rumor has it that the most likely places this language will be inserted are in the Senate Finance Committee or when the two chambers meet in conference committee to resolve discrepancies in the budgets.
It is incumbant upon us as parents to monitor these budget committees and make sure the legislators know that messing with the funding won't be tolerated. I, for one, need a quality school for my children and can't afford the private schools in this town.
ReplyDeleteSSLC's results speak for themselves...highest test scores in the state and no achievement gap. It seems like our success is targeted for punishment simply because we chose to be an effective, successful charter school-thus a grave threat to "public school as we know it." Yet, our impressive results seem to have no impact. Why are successful schools being threatened? I believe that any low-performing school should close. This money could be re-directed toward high-achieving schools including charter schools who actually fulfill their scope of work and effectively and successfully educate all students.
ReplyDeleteA continuing question one can ask is, "WHY are so many parents and students leaving public schools and choosing charter schools? The answers are many and varied: Less crowding, better teachers, safer environment, effective administration, better curriculum, increased learning, committed staff, outstanding performance, happier students, satisfied parents, and highly measurable outcomes that continue to exceed expectations.
Simply put, successful charter schools work. It would be a grave error to remove this viable and highly sought after school choice.
Does the state want success in education, or do they want to continue to be comfortable in complaining about our school system? Do they want to keep throughing good money towards a bad situation? We as tapayers do not have the money to keep throughing at the public school system that is failing. If they shut down the charters, I, speaking as a parent, taxpayer and consumer in this state, do not have the luxury to fund a failing system, pay for private school for my children,(i will not be a consumer of traditional public ed) and see valuable jobs in this state go to recruited out of state educated employees because our state is turning out poorly educated graduates, or to continue funding the colleges in this state to remediate students that should be ready to enter college. When will someone draw the line? Gov. Martinez is beating the drum of grading the schools. Hallelujah!!! Let's grade the schools, put a successful model in place and educate our kids. Support what works, change what doesn't and get ego out of the way. It is time for an public education intervention. The APS addiction to failure, poor management, comfort in using "same old same old" tactics to finding a solution and faking a facade that they know how to fix the issues with more money has to stop. Everyone involved in this education problem knows what has to be done. So who is gonna step up? And more importantly, when is it gonna happen. Every year that goes by is another year lost or gained towards the success of our grads.
ReplyDeleteSouthwest Learning Centers are working! The education is superior and our kids are fortunate to attend. We must keep pounding the doors of our legislators until they realize it and refuse to support any legislation that will cut funding for our schools. Do not take money from succeeding schools! APS can't keep up and their budgets are out of control (I know....I work there!)
ReplyDeleteMaybe the legislators don't want the children of New Mexico educated, then they would know what is running this state. I agree, we have just been throwing money away when it goes to APS. We as parents trying to get into Southwest Learning Center need to stay abreast of this situation also and do our part. We will never get in if there isn't a school.
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