Education
Widening income gap partly due to NM's high illiteracy rate
The income gap has increased in New Mexico, according to a report released last week. According to some, one reason for the growing inequality may be found in the state’s shift to a knowledge-based economy at the same time that a sizable portion of adult New Mexicans are functionally illiterate.
Teaching in a community of 'great promise'
Like most Albuquerque Public Schools students, Amanda Otero will be back in school today. "My whole summer was about waiting for us to start school," she said Saturday an open house for Atrisco Heritage Academy. I was there too. I'm a teacher at Atrisco and like Otero, my summer was spent eagerly anticipating today. I'm a first-year teacher and the butterflies in my stomach started about a eight months ago when I decided to leave a 20-year career at the Albuquerque Journal to teach.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: APS super blasts federal education goals as unrealistic
The head of Albuquerque Public Schools says federal No Child Left Behind goals are unrealistic. The state’s top game officer may lose his hunting privileges for two years. A former magistrate judge in Taos has sued a Taos newspaper for libel over an article published in May. And the much-discussed but long-delayed improvement to the road into Chaco Culture National Historical Park looks like it’s still a long way off.
The obstacles they face
University of New Mexico law professor Margaret Montoya recently addressed the teachers at Atrisco Heritage Academy. It was a pep talk from a woman who knows how to overcome challenges. She was the first Hispanic woman accepted at Harvard Law School. What she left us with after her talk was a feeling that if I or any of my colleagues at Atrisco want to make a difference, we're going to have to overcome obstacles that have been in place for years.
Politicizing higher education
What is “traditional American history,” and who decides what it might be? The White House has vigorously promoted the notion of a kind of “getting back to basics” when it comes to teaching American history. But it doesn’t say what “traditional American history” is. In an informal search of recent literature on the subject, I could not find a single definition of the term. Is that because the conservative idea of traditional American history might be too inflammatory to be disclosed?
Curbing big pharma
Students at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center helped the facility join a national movement to keep pharmaceutical salesmen at arms-length. The conflict of interest policy approved last month means no more free lunches or tickets to a baseball game, no more T-shirts or ball caps emblazoned with "Lipitor" or "Viagra." And now the students are talking about having an "amnesty day," when they can return all the schwag they've accepted in the past.
Reading, writing and financial literacy
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish wants to require high school students to take a financial literacy course in order to graduate.
Atrisco out to prove cynics wrong
Writing assignments are to most ninth-graders what root canals are to you and me. Necessary evils. Let the root canals begin, I thought when I asked my ninth-grade media literacy students to write in their journals every day. I anticipated a lot of push-back from my students about this assignment, and I got some of that. But I also got some of this: "I was a scared shy daughter. I remember my dad yelling, calling me names and hitting me for no reason. I heard beer cans opening and lighters flicking. … I worried that my family and I were in danger. I’m only one person and I think the world is cruel sometimes. I will prove my dad wrong. I choose to be who I am, I dream that everything’s OK. …”
Newsflash: Many teens just don't realize they're interested in news
I asked my students if anyone was reading something interesting. Before I knew it, hands were shooting up and the topics ranged from how Ben Stiller directed his new movie "Tropic Thunder," to how a reporter went undercover in a religious cult just to see how freaky that was. One student read outloud the story in the Independent about our new school opening up. News was happening all around me. And nobody wanted to stop to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water.
Cradles of hope, with love to Africa
UNM on path to becoming "energy and water neutral campus"
From encouraging bike riding to putting solar panels back on its Mechanical Engineering Building, the University of New Mexico has tackled energy efficiency campuswide in the past year.
Hug a flag... it's Constitution Day!
Do you know where your civil rights are?
Across the nation schools are at the very least recognizing that in 1787 our forefathers signed the U.S. Constitution. Some Albuquerque public schools students are gathering around flagpoles to recite the pledge and history classes are required to teach a Constitution Day lesson today. But what about the rest of America? Constitution Day isn't a federal holiday, so marking the day often goes unnoticed.
You, too, can watch your electricity meter go backward
A foundation that teaches organic agriculture and sustainable living in Costa Rica has sought to apply "wise use" principles to its Albuquerque office. Founder Franklin Wilson -- who says the foundation has cut its energy use and produces power that is sold back to PNM -- wants to spread the word that anyone can pretty much do the same. In fact, he says, it's "rather easy."
The science of green little men
Half a world away, the University of Melbourne in Australia announced this week it is bestowing its first doctorate degree in ufology to a man whose research took him to the three places in the world most key in the history of the subject. The No. 1 spot listed? You guessed it: Roswell, N.M.
In a press release, the university announced:
Martin Plowman, from the School of Culture and Communication, investigated hundreds of UFO sightings and interviewed dozens of ufologists as part of his PhD thesis.
Mr. Plowman will become Dr. Plowman next Saturday (August 9) when he is conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.
As part of his research Mr. Plowman visited key sites in the history of ufology, including Roswell, New Mexico; crop circle hotspots in Wiltshire, England; and the Valley of Elqui in the Chilean Andes, and examined the links between UFO sightings and religion, politics, national security and popular culture.
N.M. History 101
Former Lt. Gov. Roberto Mondragon and educator Georgia Roybal have worked for 17 years to get a textbook of New Mexico history published and distributed in schools statewide. It will become a reality this fall. Mondragon’s and Roybal’s nonprofit group, Semos Unlimited, is rejuvenated and back to the task of completing the textbook. It will be published as a pilot project at the Atrisco Heritage Academy (AHA) high school this fall.
Mexico notebook: Obama on bilingualism
"Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual."
After reading Barack Obama's above response to a discussion about "English-only" legislation, my traveling companion said his view of the presidential candidate "just went up."
I'm guessing impressions of Obama went up for people all over the world.
What Obama said merely points out the obvious in the eyes of many outside of the United States. He said: "We should have every child speaking more than one language."
Home Hiving
Backyard beekeeping makes sense in light of widespread reports of "mysterious" bee colony collapse. It makes just as much sense as it does to grow one's own vegetables and fruits. And because pollinators of all types are threatened by pesticides, genetically modified crops and other industrial farming methods, "we as members of the community need to pick up the slack," says one local expert.
No surprise: NM kids fare poorly
New Mexico is once again near the bottom of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's rankings designed "to track the status of children in the United States."
New Mexico ranks 48th overall out of 50 states in the group's annual Kids Count report. Last year, New Mexico ranked 47th.
"It's always disappointing to see New Mexico so close to the bottom," said Lisa Adams-Shafer, Kids Count program manager for New Mexico Voices for Children, which co-releases the annual report. "But, as always, there are some bright spots. We continue to do very well in terms of infant mortality rates, and we continue to outpace the national average in improvement in high school dropout rates," she added. "Sadly, our child death rates have continued to worsen."
NM has second-worst graduation rate in nation, new report says
A new report out shows that New Mexico has the second-worst graduation rate in the country.
According to the report, which is in Education Week, fewer students in New Mexico's class of 2005 graduated with their peers than students in virtually every other state in the union, except Nevada.
Here's an excerpt from the report:
Nationwide, about 71 percent of 9th graders make it to graduation four years later, according to data on the class of 2005, the latest available. That figure drops to 58 percent for Hispanics, 55 percent for African-Americans, and only 51 percent for Native Americans. While more than eight in 10 students graduate on time in Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, that rate drops to fewer than six in 10 in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina.
The press release announcing the report also has a link to a cool map that allows you to see what the graduation rates are for local districts.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Secretary of State's office botches voter info
Thousands of voters received incorrect information about where to vote from the office of Secretary of State Mary Herrera. Santa Fe will celebrate the opening this weekend of its long-awaited Santa Fe Railyard project. San Juan County's Boys and Girls Club in Aztec may receive federal funding to start an education program to fight methamphetamine use. And Republican candidate Jose Silva's name will remain on the ballot after a state court judge dismissed state Sen. David Ulibarri's suit to remove it.