Santa Fe/ Oil Production Up in New Mexico, Boosting Revenue
The Associated Press
Las Cruces Sun-News
August 23, 2012
State officials say oil production in New Mexico rose by 13 percent last year, but natural gas production declined.
Top budget and tax officials in Gov. Susana Martinez's administration told the Legislative Finance Committee on Wednesday in Angel Fire that oil production reached 78 million barrels in the fiscal year ending in June.
Economists expect production to gradually grow to about 86 million barrels in the next few years.
Higher oil prices have spurred production and are providing a revenue boost to the state.
Taxes and royalties from energy production are expected to account for 16 percent of the state's total revenue this year.
Lawmakers were told that gas production fell by about 1 percent last year and that prices remain low mainly because of increased natural gas supplies nationwide.
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Santa Fe/ Atalaya Elementary School Makeover to Start in Spring 2013
By Robert Nott
The New Mexican
August 22, 2012
Many Atalaya Elementary School students, parents and supporters are rejoicing this week after the school board unanimously approved $5 million in general obligation bond money to start a massive renovation next spring.
- The first phase of the project will combine the three separate structures on campus into one, create a centrally located administrative office and entry area, increase security and address problems that have plagued the school for some time - including drainage, leakage, fire-prevention and insulation.
- The kindergarten classrooms - currently off separate hallways - will be relocated to the same hallway.
"The changes that need to come to this school are heartfelt and well-deserved," said Principal Diane Katzenmeyer-Delgado, who just transferred to the district from nearby Pojoaque this year. "We have a family here dedicated to Atalaya. ... There is a sense of community here that overwhelms you, but the structure of the campus itself is not conducive to building that community.
"Things are choppy and isolated," she added. "But it has pockets of beauty."
The school, which is located on Camino Cabra not far from Upper Canyon Road, was built in 1971. Two classroom buildings were added in 1996. Student enrollment is at about 200 now, though the school's capacity is about 260.
Atalaya has experienced its share of challenges in the past five or six years. Katzenmeyer-Delgado is at least the sixth principal in as many years. Enrollment has fallen from 262 students in 2008-09 to about 250 in 2009-10, and about 215 in the past two years. And Adequate Yearly Progress scores have declined as well.
This year, however, Atalaya received a B in the state Public Education Department's newly adopted A-F grading system.
In 2010, the district considered consolidating Atalaya with Acequia Madre elementary, another small school located nearby, to save operational funds.
In the 2011 election, the makeup of the school board changed, and the consolidation plan was dropped. Earlier this year, however, Atalaya parents learned that the district had asked the Albuquerque-based Hartman + Majewski Design Group to offer several options for Atalaya. Among them was closing the school.
But the school board again rejected that idea.
Now, the Atalaya community has a reason to breathe a sigh of relief. During Tuesday night's board meeting, several Atalaya parents spoke of the school's community spirit and sense of success, with one former student-turned-parent calling it "the gem, the pride of Santa Fe."
Though all five school board members voted to fund the first phase of the renovation, several expressed concern about the school's declining enrollment numbers. About half of the students receive interzone transfers to attend Atalaya. Board member Steve Carrillo said he is reluctant to invest money in an east-side school for just 200 students. But he stressed that about 38 percent of the school's students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches, and about 12 percent are English-language learners.
The second phase of the Atalaya project, contingent on funding, will cost about $8.5 million and include a new gym and cafeteria. Currently, the school has one room that serves both of those purposes.
Katzenmeyer-Delgado said her only concern is that the upcoming construction will start around the time that the school's third- through sixth-graders are required to take the state's annual Standards Based Assessments. "I don't want to uproot their learning environment," she said.
Christine Lehman, president of PTA-Atalaya, said, "This is extremely positive news for Atalaya. It's the culmination of years of work and countless volunteer hours from CRC [Citizens Review Committee] members, Atalaya families, Atalaya staff and the administration. The renovation is the last piece of the puzzle for Atalaya. For the first time, we will have this combination of involved families, excellent leadership, a huge growth in academic results and a learning environment that will reflect all the great energy going on at the school.
"It's all coming together now ... and it's been a long time coming."
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ABQ/ Health Leadership High School: Proposed New South Valley Charter School Debated
By Glen Rosales
ABQ Journal
August 23, 2012
A proposed charter high school in the South Valley that would focus on instruction and immersion in the health care industry received overwhelming support from community members, but Albuquerque Public Schools officials said the school's services were redundant with those already offered by the district.
- "This program is not different and it's not innovative," Mark Tolley, APS director of charter and magnet schools, said about the Health Leadership High School.
The school was the topic of a public hearing Tuesday before the state Public Education Commission in preparation for the commission's final decision on the school's formation, which will come during the body's next scheduled meeting Sept. 19 and 20 in Santa Fe.
The proposed school drew positive comments from more than 15 people and another group of community supporters were unable to speak because of time constraints.
- Health Leadership High would exist at a to-be-determined site in the South Valley and serve students ranging from traditional-track freshmen up to 24-year-olds who are returning to school. It would also include night classes.
However, Tolley said in the area the school would be located, 11 other traditional and charter schools serve the same student demographic that Health Leadership would target.
The school has the support of organizations such as First Choice Healthcare and Presbyterian Healthcare Services, said Tony Monfiletto, who is a facilitator in the project. Monfiletto helped create Amy Biehl and ACE Leadership charter high schools and the proposed school is modeled after the latter.
- But with the courses and dual-credit opportunities that already exist, it might not be a good allocation of already limited resources, said APS policy analyst Carrie Robin Menapace. "I think we're basically asking you all to consider a possible cost-benefit analysis," she told the commission.
- "Is the benefit of opening a charter school that is offering a lot of the same programs that do already exist in Albuquerque really worth the cost of diluting those courses, diluting those resources and having a bigger burden for facilities and funding in the long run?"
Offering a school dedicated to hands-on, project-based learning, however, has proven effective at Monfiletto's other endeavors, said Mark Padilla, president of the New Mexico Association of Health Plans.
- "As far as cost-benefit analysis, I've actually been to Amy Biehl and I've been to ACE Leadership High School and you look at the eyes of those students, I think that's where you see the results of your cost-benefit analysis," he said.
Health Leadership would provide a vital service in the community, said Patsy Nelson, past president and a board member for the New Mexico Alliance for School-Based Healthcare.
- "I don't think we can afford not to invest in this kind of innovation and intensive program that prepares our students for a career in the health professions," she said.
The school would expose students to the possibilities of a career in the health industry in ways that APS may not be able to provide, said Patricia Montoya, a registered nurse and former New Mexico secretary of health.
- "I think APS does what it can best do, being so large, but we have a need in this community and in this state," she said. "When you take a look at the economy and you look at where the jobs are and in the future, they are in health care. Not just as a health professional, but health careers."
APS, however, may be increasing its health care programs in the future, Menapace said, which would solve any deficiency in the district's programs.
"I think we are very interested in expanding the programs that we already have," she said. "There may not be a necessity to create an entirely new school in order to do that expansion. I think there is a commitment from Albuquerque Public Schools to continue to meet the needs of the students who want to pursue these fields, pursue these academic opportunities and that's something that we're very interested in doing. We just don't know if opening a new charter school is worth the cost it may impose upon the community."
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Clovis/ COLUMN: District Bustles for New School Year
By Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy [Instructional technology coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools]
Clovis News Journal
August 22, 2012
However impossible it seems, the beginning of a new school year is upon us, and students returned Monday of this week. Visiting various schools on the first day, it's always gratifying to rediscover the delightful anticipation and exhilaration from staff and students, clad in their crisp, new school clothes.
The elementary schools were lively, with many parents escorting students inside; last minute registrations; students greeting old and new friends; with some shyly holding back.
Secondary schools were, in fact, much the same, with the exception of fewer parent escorts. Chatting with CMS staff, most concurred that, although the first day is always hectic, things flowed pretty smoothly, with teachers and students alike eager to begin.
This year middle schools held a "Transition Camp" for incoming seventh graders, funded by industrious CMS staff members who applied for and were awarded a CMS Education Foundation grant. "Transition Camp" was held one evening at each middle school for incoming seventh graders and their parents. Begun with a dynamic pep rally featuring the school band, cheerleaders, and drill team, these brand new middle-schoolers received their schedules and "walked" them to learn the layout of the school and meet seventh-grade teachers. Students received school T-shirts, and students and parents enjoyed pizza or chili dogs in the cafeteria.
Clovis High School was also bustling, settling in for the new school year after some shifting of classrooms to more effectively group departments for instructional teaming efforts. Popping by the new location for modern languages, the first sight encountered was a beautiful mural warming the walls in Patricia Natividad's classroom. Next door, catching "Madame" (Jennifer) Kelley in her French classroom was like alighting in the visual richness of Paris. CHS librarian, Jenny Blaylock, shared news of extended collections, highlighting the expansive digital resources - both databases and e-books - for off-site student or staff access.
CMS staff had been prepped the week prior with the annual Convocation, featuring speaker, Andy Sanchez, attorney with Cuddy & McCarthy Law firm. His presentation on "bully-proofing our schools" and sexual harassment provided a thorough briefing for staff. As Superintendent Terry Myers reinforced,
- "Our children deserve our best efforts toward helping each one succeed in our schools. As we prepare to meet the needs of the children in our classrooms, I would like for us all to remember the words: EVERY CHILD - EVERY TIME."
A delectable highlight of convocation day was the unbelievable luncheon prepared by Central Baptist Church to feed the army of educators. An outreach ministry to say "thank you" to CMS, this longstanding tradition, is described by Senior Pastor Alan W. McAlister as "a small token of our appreciation ... in recognition of the calling and commitment" of those in education. When a district our size sits down together to break bread, however, it is undeniably far more than a "small token," and, as always, we are very humbled and truly grateful.
Have a joyous and wonderfully productive year, everyone!
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Washington DC/ American Schools Spending Less on Minority Students Through Federal Loophole
Huffington Post Report
August 22, 2012
Schools that enroll 90 percent or more non-white students spend $733 less per pupil per year than schools that enroll 90 percent or more white students, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for American Progress released Wednesday.
- These "racially isolated" schools make up one-third of the country's schools.
- Nationwide, schools spend $334 more on every white student than on every nonwhite student.
According to the report, titled "Unequal Education," the traditional claim that variation in schools' per-pupil spending stems almost entirely from different property-tax bases between school districts does not hold true.
- Rather, variation within a district can be largely attributed to district budgeting policies that fail to take into account teacher salaries.
- For instance, new teachers who often start out in high-need schools that enroll many students of color earn less money than veteran teachers located in more affluent, whiter areas.
"This leads to significantly lower per-pupil spending in schools with the highest concentrations of nonwhite students," report author Ary Spatig-Amerikaner writes.
Spatig-Amerikaner also examines Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a federal policy that is supposed to guard against within-district inequities.
- In order to receive Title I money, school districts must provide comparable educational services to both their high-poverty and low-poverty schools.
- However, the law stipulates districts exclude teacher salary differentials tied to experience when determining comparability compliance.
- Teacher salaries, of course, are often contingent on experience, and the author points out how this problem has frequently been referred to as the "comparability loophole."
According to the report, high-minority schools, on average, boast 605 students.
Thus, the average school would see an increase of $443,000 if per-pupil spending was brought to the same level as those schools that enroll very few nonwhite students.
As Spatig-Amerikaner reiterated in a press call to discuss her findings, this amount is enough to pay the average salary of 12 additional new teachers or nine veteran teachers - a move that would go a long way in drastically reducing class size.
Also participating in the conference call, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) said the study adds to the "whole body of empirical data that shows that young people of color and poor kids in general are being shortchanged due to the way we fund schools."
"We shouldn't have the kids needing the most help, being provided the least resources," he said.
The report argues that Congress should close the comparability loophole, and outlines how the requirement should be changed in three phases when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is reauthorized.
- According to the author, this change in federal law would affect about 3,386 districts, where 77 percent of all students attend school.
Fattah has proposed a bill that would do away with the federal loophole, and acknowledged the major hurdle to moving forward right now is the fact that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has yet to be reauthorized.
In reading other people's work, Spatig-Amerikaner said she found that district officials often do not realize that this problem of inequitable per-pupil spending even exists.
- They think that by providing the same number of teachers and the same student-teacher ratio at all of their schools, they are providing equitable services - when in fact they should be looking at the total dollars spent at each school.
- "A lot of school personnel have never had this data, so it's almost not their fault that they don't realize that this is a problem," she said.
The data in question is school-level expenditure data - including teacher salaries - that was collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the first time ever in 2009, and released to the public in 2011.
"Many districts aren't really aware that this problem exists, because they haven't had the data until now," Spatig-Amerikaner said.
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New York NY/ UCLA and Child Trends Study: Cost of Living Affects Student Achievement
By Bernice Young, California Watch [This story comes from our partner California Watch, which has the state's largest investigative reporting team. You can follow this story at their site: http://californiawatch.org]
Hechinger Report [Hechingerreport.org]
August 22, 2012
Poor children living in higher-cost areas like the urban centers of California are more likely to struggle academically than their counterparts in lower-cost areas, according to research published earlier this week.
- Based on a sample of more than 17,000 first-graders, the study by researchers from UCLA and the nonprofit Child Trends "provides important empirical evidence ... that geographic variations in cost of living indeed matters for children's well-being," the article states.
Although there is a substantive body of research examining the relationship between family income and child development and educational outcomes, this is among the first studies to look at the effects of cost of living on academic achievement.
"The federal poverty threshold doesn't factor in cost of living, and it doesn't take into account that living in Los Angeles looks very different than rural Nebraska," said Rashmita S. Mistry, an associate professor at UCLA's Department of Education and co-author of the report.
- The research shows that "it is not enough to simply look at the associations between family income, family life, and children's academic outcomes; how income plays out in young children's lives is conditioned by how much it costs for a family to cover its basic needs - and what is left over thereafter," Mistry added by email.
These regional and local variations in cost of living are one reason that some organizations and policymakers support a more comprehensive calculation of the federal poverty level.
- "The federal poverty level is an antiquated measure based entirely on the cost of food, first calculated in the 1960s, and it no longer accurately reflects the needs of modern families," said Shawn McMahon, acting president and CEO of Wider Opportunities for Women, which launched a state- and county-specific economic security database earlier this year.
- "The federal poverty level is also not specific to place, so we have one federal poverty level for everyone across the country, no matter where you live, and we know costs vary greatly."
The 2012 federal poverty guideline is $23,050 for a family of four, a number calculated by tripling the cost of food for one year.
- A 2012 UCLA policy brief found that California legislators tend to rely on the federal poverty level even though it "does not measure local conditions, it is not based on current costs and it does not take into account all types of expenses faced by low-income families."
This means that the "economic downturn coupled with the high cost of living in California has left many families and individuals economically vulnerable, but invisible to state policymakers" because they "do not have enough income to make ends meet and yet are not poor enough to be counted as poor," the brief states.
There are some efforts to look at a broader range of measurements to gauge poverty by region and locality.
- Last year, the U.S. Census began publishing a supplemental poverty measure that includes expenses such as housing, utilities and clothing costs that are adjusted by geography.
- Additionally, a team of researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California and Stanford University are developing a more comprehensive measure of poverty for the state.
Failing to look at regional differences masks the full impact of a poor student's economic circumstances on academic achievement, the new UCLA and Child Trends study says.
- "This study demonstrates that cost of living influences family and child well-being in ways not captured by income alone and, if omitted, its influence would be lost as statistical noise," the study states.
By analyzing cost of living, the study authors said they discovered new insights about how family resources affect children.
- For poor children in particular, living in a higher-cost area is also associated with lower levels of what researchers called "parental investments" in their children related to time and money spent on extracurricular activities, school involvement, and books and a computer for the home.
- This is likely a result of having fewer financial resources left after paying for basic expenses, said study co-author Nina Chien of Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center.
Governmental policies also can affect low-income students' ability to attend high-performing schools, according to research published earlier this year by Jonathan Rothwell of the Brookings Institution. Zoning laws, in particular, can limit the development of affordable housing in affluent areas with high-performing schools, which means low-income children can be priced out of good schools.
- In the county's 100 largest metropolitan areas, it can cost 2.4 times more - or nearly an additional $11,000 - to live near a public school where students receive high standardized test scores than near a low-scoring public school, the study said.
- In Fresno, for example, there was about a 28-point gap between the average test scores at low-income and more affluent elementary schools and about an $11,300 difference in housing costs between those school neighborhoods.
"For many families, it would be cheaper to send a child to a parochial or even more expensive private school than to move into the attendance zone of a high-scoring school," the Rothwell study says.
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Chicago IL/ COLUMN: The Right Mentors for Our Teachers
By Esther J. Cepeda, Syndicated Columnist
ABQ Journal
August 23, 2012
Every once in a while you hear about an education reform measure that just simply makes sense. Newly in vogue: Showing teachers how great teachers teach.
Sure, this sounds ridiculous. How could it be possible for new instructors to graduate from college teacher preparation programs without knowing the intricacies of student engagement, effective classroom management and dynamic methods of teaching different subjects?
It happens all the time. The programs provide instruction on the basic methods and theories but never come close to simulating real classrooms that could range from under-stimulated high achievers to groups of students with varying levels of illiteracy.
In fact, one of the most exciting education policy stories to follow for the last year has been the stunning failure of teacher-training programs to deliver prepared faculty. Leaders of these programs started squirming in their seats last fall when the U.S. Department of Education announced it would rate them based, in part, on the teacher-in-training's test scores and those of their subsequent students.
And that squirming was nothing compared with the full-blown freak-out that came after the National Council on Teacher Quality released its report "Student Teaching in the United States" last July, describing most teacher preparation programs as disastrous.
Three-quarters of the 134 randomly sampled programs evaluated failed to meet five basic standards for a high-quality program.
Which brings me back to the trend of providing teachers with direct instruction of excellent pedagogy.
Recently, the New York Times profiled schools in the District of Columbia, where teachers get to watch reality-TV-show-style videos of master teachers executing high-quality instruction: "The 80 videos, 5 to 15 minutes in length, are peppered with quick jump cuts, slick screen labels and a jaunty soundtrack," the article noted. "In short interviews and classroom snippets, the District's highest-performing teachers demonstrate how they teach a range of lessons, from adding decimal numbers to guiding students of differing ability levels through a close reading of the Marshall Plan."
A Wall Street Journal story last week chronicled the efforts of a program in Chicago that is trying to improve classroom teaching by allowing prospective teachers to shadow experienced, and excellent, educators for a year. That's a rarity in most school settings but could be a priceless investment in the development of new teachers who will be ready to provide the best instruction and classroom leadership for their students on day one, not year three.
To put these opportunities into perspective, when I went through my teacher prep program so I could teach elementary and high school, I had to spend 100 hours observing classrooms in a variety of educational settings - urban, high poverty, suburban/rural, special education/gifted learners - before I even got to do my lone semester of student teaching.
The problem was that my many fellow teachers-in-training and I were simply placed wherever we could be accommodated with no regard to whether the teachers we observed would be modeling the very best methods or whether those hours would be spent watching what not to do.
For many of my peers, the student teaching experience was equally lottery-like: Some hit the jackpot of having an expert teacher to guide them through the daily challenges and others were simply baptized by fire while their cooperating teachers were permanently out to lunch.
The most pressing underlying problem here is that there just aren't enough really excellent teachers to pass the art of meaningful instruction to every new generation of teachers.
The National Council on Teacher Quality estimated that out of every 25 faculty members, there is but one qualified and willing master teacher available to mentor a newbie.
As the education reform movement succeeds in making measures of effectiveness a larger part of how teachers are evaluated and granted tenure - in schools across the country, tenure is increasingly earned rather than routinely bestowed upon anyone who simply sticks around - teachers can't be set up to fail from lack of understanding what great teaching looks like.
And if this means that more new teachers become long-term apprentices and established ones get to deconstruct jauntily produced videos with peers, so be it. Every teacher deserves the opportunity to learn from the masters of their field.
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Washington DC/ OPINION: US Education Must Keep Up with Bold Programs of China & India
America must invest in education if it wants to be competitive in the global economy
By Matt James, Neera Tanden [James is the president of the Center for the Next Generation, a nonpartisan strategic think tank based in San Francisco, and Tanden is the president of the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C.]
US News and World Report [www.usnews.com]
August 22, 2012
The United States reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the medal count at the 2012 Olympic Games earlier this month, edging out China, the 2008 winner, but in the competition that really matters our nation may not be so successful in the coming decades.
That more important race to educate our children and our workforce to out-compete the rest of the world in an intensely competitive global economy pits us against China and India, both of which are investing heavily in education to gain a long-distance edge over the United States while we handicap our chances with short-sighted policy disputes and political paralysis.
Here are the stark numbers.
- By 2030, China will have 200 million college graduates-more than the entire U.S. workforce.
- By 2020 India will be graduating four times as many college graduates as the United States.
We need to turn our attention to how we educate the next generation of American workers to ensure our continued economic competitiveness well into the 21st century.
The central question before us as a country, and what should be the central question for the presidential contenders, is how do we compare with our global competitors in supporting and investing in our most valuable asset, our children?
New research from our two organizations reveals how China and India have embarked on bold, ambitious programs to prepare more of their young people for the challenges-and the well-paying jobs-of the global marketplace. They are investing more than ever in their future while the United States is fighting to keep up.
As our national leaders dither and debate how to reform education and state officials slash education funding to balance budgets, China and India have implemented strategies that invest their next generation of workers to produce millions more college graduates than the United States over the next two decades.
The jobs of the future, especially in the critical-need areas of science, technology, engineering and math, will go to the brainiest, no matter what country they come from. As the world's most populous nations, China and India are poised to out-think and out-compete us by their sheer numbers.
- China is already graduating over 1 million college graduates a year in the areas of science, technology, and mathematics while the United States graduates fewer than half that number.
What we're doing now is clearly not enough, and imagine what happens in the years to come if investments in our children decline.
That's why we call for the president of the United States in early 2013 to convene a national summit on education cosponsored by the National Governors Association to renew our commitment to improve the education of all American children. This summit should set realistic, yet rigorous, national goals and devise a bipartisan a plan to achieve them, building on the so called Common Core Standards of educational excellence adopted so far by 45 states. These standards outline what kindergarten-through-12th grade students need to master to succeed in college or excel in workforce training programs in the industries of the future.
This summit would demonstrate the high priority that needs to be placed on training, supporting, and retaining highly effective teachers. And it would focus on critical importance of increased investments in early education as well as workplace policies that allow parents to be more involved in the education of their children. We can't afford any more missed opportunities.
Even in an era of extreme political partisanship, America's children are too valuable of a national asset to abandon. While there's a lot of talk about economic growth in this year's presidential race, the fact is that other countries recognize their most prized economic resources are their kids. America must take immediate action to play catch up; otherwise, we can't promise our kids that this century will belong to America.
As we head into this fall's elections and debates, let's hear from candidates at all levels about what they would do to address our growing gap in commitment to education. Our kids deserve to know how our leaders plan to ensure we remain a true leader in education.
