Garnett STokes

After changes, chances of ‘Opportunity Scholarship’ passage increase

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The outlook for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s tuition-free college scholarship, one of her signature initiatives for the legislative session, had started to seem dubious. A budget bill the House passed last week for fiscal year 2021 included $35 million for financial aid programs — but no funding for the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship that Lujan Grisham had announced with fanfare in the fall. The effort would boost  enrollment and graduation numbers at state colleges and universities, she said, and strengthen the state’s workforce. But legislators had raised concerns that her proposal didn’t do enough to direct funding toward the lowest-income students. The Governor’s Office and lawmakers collaborated on an overhaul to address those concerns, and the House Education Committee renewed hope Monday that her plan to ultimately provide free tuition could become a reality for some 55,000 eligible New Mexico students each year who attend in-state schools.

Quick Reads

Bill to fund tax-poor rural school districts clears first committee

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As New Mexico lawmakers look for a way to provide extra funding for public school students in some of the most financially challenged areas of the state, a bill that eventually would provide $60 million a year for some of those districts to share cleared its first hurdle Wednesday. House Bill 4, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Brian Egolf of Santa Fe, Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup and Anthony Allison of Fruitland, would appropriate $18.9 million in fiscal year 2021 to start the new fund. Over the course of three years, the fund would grow to about $60 million in both operational funding and capital outay, Egolf said, adding 23 of New Mexico’s 89 school districts would be eligible for a share. The new funding is “a dire, dire need for us,” said Jvanna Hanks, assistant superintendent of Gallup-McKinley County Schools, a district that would qualify.

2019 Legislative Session

Dems push plan to tap the ‘permanent fund’ for early childhood education

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A proposed constitutional amendment to draw more money from the state Land Grant Permanent Fund to expand early childhood education jumped its first hurdle with ease Wednesday. The House Education Committee voted 10-4 on party lines for the measure. Democrats supported the measure, House Joint Resolution 1. It would take another 1 percent — at least $150 million a year — from the $17.5 billion state endowment. The bill’s proponents, including Rep. Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, say early childhood education can transform New Mexico, often regarded as one of the worst states in the nation for public education.

NM Legislature

Dems again push to use land grant to fund early childhood education

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A ballot measure that calls for using more money from the state’s $17 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund for early childhood education is a small step closer to going to voters this year. The House Education Committee on Monday voted 7-6 along party lines to approve the constitutional amendment that backers say could expand access to education programs for young children across New Mexico, the state with the highest rate of child poverty. Republicans on the committee voted against the proposal. They say it could deplete a fund that now props up the budgets of New Mexico’s public schools and is supposed to last forever. Democrats in the House of Representatives have made a priority of getting the measure, House Joint Resolution 1, on the November ballot.

Education

Reading bill dies quietly

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For seven consecutive years, Gov. Susana Martinez has unsuccessfully pushed a bill to hold back thousands of third-graders who score below par on standardized reading tests. A pair of similar bills this year haven’t even received a hearing before a legislative committee. And with just five days left in the 60-day legislative session, it is unlikely that they will. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, chairwoman of the House Education Committee, said she didn’t know whether the panel would have time to hear House Bill 114, introduced by Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque. But even if Garcia Richard’s committee takes up the measure, it almost certainly would table it.

2017 legislative session

Moratorium on charter schools heads to full House

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A committee voted along party lines Saturday to temporarily halt the creation of any new charter schools, sending the moratorium to a vote in the full House of Representatives. Backers, including teachers unions, argue House Bill 46 would allow time to develop better oversight of charter schools and prevent new schools from drawing funding at a time when the budget for public education is already tight. But opponents, including the Public Education Department, business groups and parents with children on waiting lists for existing charter schools, argue the measure would limit options for students. “The victims of this legislation will be those families and those students who need those alternatives,” J.D. Bullington, a lobbyist for the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, told the House Education Committee. The committee voted 7-6 to advance the measure.

2017 Legislative Session

Effort to make college research secret stalls over fears it goes too far

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Angelo Artuso warns that a move by lawmakers to shield some university research from the public eye could lead to harrowing consequences. At a Wednesday morning House committee hearing, Artuso invoked some of history’s darkest state-sanctioned university research projects. For decades, researchers at Tuskegee University studied the effects of syphilis by pretending to offer infected Black men free health care. And several colleges and universities from the early 1950s until 1973 were involved in Project MKUltra, a CIA program that used drugs like LSD unknowingly on human subjects to experiment with mind control. Programs like those, involving government-funded atrocities at institutions of higher learning,  Artuso maintained, would remain hidden at New Mexico public higher education institutions under a bill sponsored by state Reps.

Education

Sweeping charter school reform bill stalls in House committee

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Democrats on the House Education Committee effectively killed an expansive charter school reform bill after two hours of testimony Wednesday, arguing that it was too complex and contained provisions that many charter school advocates oppose. “It’s more dead than less [dead],” Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, a co-sponsor of the bill, said after the committee’s 7-6 vote along party lines to table House Bill 273. The bill would have called for “automatic closure” of low-performing charter schools. It also removed a cap on the number of charter schools that could open in any given year, gave high-performing charter schools the ability to streamline their renewal process and would have cut charter school funding by 25 percent over the course of several years. Ivey-Soto and fellow co-sponsor Rep. James Smith, R-Sandia Park, told the committee the measure would save money for the state and hold charter schools more accountable.

2017 legislative session

Early childhood education bill faces uphill climb

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Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment that would take about $112 million a year from the state’s land grant endowment to pay for early childhood education say a new study shows that the need for such programs actually exceeds $400 million annually. “This is an alarm,” Allen Sánchez, president of CHI St. Joseph’s Children, said Tuesday of the report commissioned by his organization. Sánchez is among the most vocal supporters of House Joint Resolution 1, sponsored by Democratic state Reps. Antonio “Moe” Maestes and Javier Martinez, both of Albuquerque.

News

Bills to stop contract buyouts die in House committee

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A state House committee on Friday tabled two pieces of legislation aimed at stopping public school superintendents, college presidents and university coaches from getting what some lawmakers referred to as a “golden parachute” when their contracts are terminated early. The House Education Committee action effectively killed both bills, sponsored by Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque. The decisions came on bipartisan votes, with some lawmakers and members of the education community arguing that the measures would hinder the ability of school districts and colleges to recruit high-quality candidates for top jobs. Much of the discussion Friday centered on recent controversy involving Robert Frank, the former president of The University of New Mexico who agreed to step down in December under a deal with the board of regents that allows him to continue collecting his annual salary of $350,000 through May. Under the agreement, Frank can continue working at UNM in a $190,000-a-year tenured position.