Ledes from the Land of Enchantment

To make a real difference, teachers need time, not just money | Local Columns

Michelle Lujan Grisham must have been a math expert at St. Michael’s High School.

Who reads numbers, reads numbers better than the governor? When she was running for a second term and obviously smart enough to see her public education system creak under the weight of COVID-19, MLG ran her fingers on a calculator and developed a payment plan that will warm any teacher’s heart : 7 percent raise.

When one includes the proposal to raise the floor for the three pay levels that regulate teachers’ incomes, it is far more than a raise. What the governor is proposing in the 2023 budget is to begin reshaping how New Mexico sees its schools.

Assuming the 7 percent pulls through (and is implemented by all New Mexico school districts; never a surefire thing), teaching in a public school becomes something akin to a real career, rather than just a kind-hearted sideline, in which a long-suffering proletariat simply takes what is on offer.

Yes, 7 percent is big. But let’s face it: the governor had no other choice. It was a movement of despair, not magnanimity.

The teaching staff in New Mexico is thin, tired, and without many reinforcements on the horizon. That has been true for a decade or more. But demographics and COVID-19 have created a perfect storm of real crisis. Together, they have left almost every district in the state without enough teachers to fill the male (and female) classrooms.

Santa Fe public schools say there are 50 teachers. I am shocked that there are so few. New Mexico needs 1,000 more teachers nationwide.

Lujan Grisham sees such numbers clearly. And I bet she also has polling numbers that suggest her Republican opponent will try to use intelligence on her in the 2022 election. Add 2 + 2 – the need to create more body in classrooms with potential political vulnerability – and you have a solution.

Or, more precisely, maybe an answer. Sometimes that gets you over the top in an election year.

But here is the next need for schools, and perhaps the bigger need.

Talk to any teacher and they will tell you that they want and deserve more salary. That’s true, but it’s always true.

Dig a little deeper and a good teacher will tell you it will take more hours to be effective.

I’ve spent eight years of my life on the fringes of education in a job that allowed me to see classrooms and kids. Here’s what I learned: Education is not microwave safe. It’s a slow cook in the pot that requires persistent dedication and the ability to focus on the diverse needs of 22 or 25 or 30 children at a time. It can be done, it is done, but to get consistency there needs to be fewer distractions and more uninterrupted hours.

But this is not a common practice in most public schools. For one thing, the traditional school year is completely inadequate. A nine-month calendar with 180 or 183 school days is no longer suitable for education in the 21st century. The school day itself is probably too short. Throw in all the other stuff – the training and retraining; The classification; the inevitable changes in teaching evolving standards; the email tennis was played with demanding helicopter parents – and you have a workforce that is continually behind and often unable to do the job they are paid to do.

They can be consultants and coaches, confidants and social workers, but do they have the time to teach? In a word, no.

The state will say it has worked to convince districts to look into extended school calendars to bridge the learning abysses (and the yawning gaps that existed before COVID-19) caused by the pandemic. But essentially this was an opt-in / opt-out proposal, based largely on the sentiments of teachers and teachers unions – and parents who couldn’t bear to give up part of their summer vacation to see Grandma in Iowa.

From a purely educational point of view, the state can no longer afford such subtleties. Students have to be in school longer. Period. Teachers must be paid well to work in a job that is year-round rather than nine months. Period. And New Mexico, which has whined about its education system for so long without actually creating a better one, should be better prepared for the bill when it comes due.

Lujan Grisham took office in 2019 and promised the often repeated “moon shot” for education. I’m not sure if she ever actually got off the launch pad. Yes, COVID-19 has changed the entire paradigm, forcing the entire education system to give up desirable size for easy survival.

Exhausted teachers, school principals and administrators quit. The others, bless them, are hanging for their lives.

A raise helps. But in New Mexico classrooms, time is money – and money is time.

The math expert in the governor’s office should also take that into account.

Phill Casaus is the editor of The New Mexican.

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