The Cost of Failing to Educate our Kids

Franklin Schargel* was interviewed on Eye on New Mexico on Sunday, February 20th, 2011. The show was broadcasted all over the state and in El Paso, Texas.  The interview touched upon legislation and Franklin's personal opinions and ideas, but focused on real data in light of New Mexico's new educational and political landscape. At the end of the segment, Franklin made this summarizing point:

"But the reality is education, even though it's taking over 50% of the state budget or close to 50%, is not expensive. Ignorance is very expensive. The U.S. Department of Justice says that 82% of all of our prisoners are school dropouts. Well, as a society, we can either pay for education upstream or the lack of education downstream. As a society, not just here in New Mexico, we are more willing to spend money downstream in incarceration. The average cost of incarceration in the country is $41,000 a year. Per inmate, per year. I don't know of any school system that is willing to spend or capable of spending that much money on education."

Schargel recently spoke at a graduation workshop held by the United Way of Cass-Clay in Fargo, ND. Over 100 community leaders listened as the author identified the top reasons students quit school: alcohol or drug use, poor teacher quality and curriculum planning, and low parental involvement. His advice was for policymakers to "recognize that we have a very severe problem," adding that teachers should make an effort to get to know their students.

Schargel is the author of many books on dropout prevention, including 152 Ways to Keep Students in School: Effective, Easy-to-Implement Tips for Teachers and co-author of titles such as Creating School Cultures that Embrace Learning:  What Successful Leaders Do.

*Franklin P. Schargel

Educator, Author, Motivational Speaker, Trainer, Consultant

Franklin Schargel, a native of Brooklyn, New York now residing in Albuquerque, NM, is a graduate of the University of the City of New York. Franklin holds two Masters Degrees: one in Secondary Education from City University and a degree from Pace University in School Administration and Supervision. His career spans thirty-three years of classroom teaching, school counseling and eight years of school supervision and administration.

Governor Sends Budget Back to House - Action Could Cause Problem for Southwest Learning Center

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.