Santa Fe – Las escuelas de Nuevo México enfrentan un momento crítico porque el presupuesto que los legisladores estatales han diseñado podría significar recortes en educación. Esas medidas son como una nube negra sobre el panorama de muchas escuelas que desde hace tiempo operan con recursos por debajo de lo programado. En opinión de los educadores, más recortes no ayudarán a solucionar la situación.
Eduardo Holguín, coordinador de relaciones con el gobierno en la National Education Association - New Mexico (Asociación Nacional de la Educación, capítulo Nuevo México), advierte los problemas si se reducen los fondos todavía más.
"Agregar más recortes hace imposible cumplir el mandato de educar a todos los niños en Nuevo México al máximo de nuestras capacidades."
Holguín señala que por mandato constitucional se deben destinar suficientes fondos para educación pública, y que existen varias opciones disponibles para conseguir fondos. Como ejemplo menciona que en la Casa Redonda hay leyes que conseguirían dinero para educación si se cierran algunos vacíos que hay en los impuestos corporativos, se instrumenta un impuesto estatal por alojamiento, se hacen pequeños incrementos al impuesto sobre facturación y se rechazan las recientes reducciones de impuestos a los neomexicanos de altos ingresos. Agrega que no compra el argumento de que en las actuales condiciones de aridez económica, sea un error invertir en educación.
"Eso ya lo hemos oído en los buenos tiempos. Pero no se trata de un capricho, sino de un mandato constitucional de nuestro estado, que nos ordena subsidiar suficiente y equitativamente nuestras escuelas públicas."
Las medidas drásticas que están considerando los legisladores para ajustar el presupuesto, oscurecen el panorama para muchas escuelas que ya están en dificultades. Como alternativa, los congresistas ya consideran algunas leyes encaminadas a obtener recursos para la educación. Holguín agrega, sin embargo, que este asunto del dinero para las escuelas podría quitárseles pronto de las manos a los legisladores.
"Se está llegando al punto de si la legislatura no puede o no quiere hacerlo. Entonces puede terminar en manos de las cortes y ellas decidirán cuánto quiere decir el término 'suficiente' que está en la constitución."
Un estudio reciente hecho por el congreso de Nuevo México muestra que las escuelas ya tenían un déficit de fondos de un 15 por ciento, desde antes de la crisis económica. Holguín manifiesta su esperanza de que los recortes a la educación sean rechazados como estrategia para ajustar los desequilibrios del presupuesto estatal.
get more stories like this via email
Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage.
Around 37% of schools nationwide report being short at least one teacher. The problem is worse at schools serving high-poverty neighborhoods where more than half report a vacancy.
Susan Kemper Patrick, a senior researcher on the Educator Quality team at the Learning Policy Institute, said those numbers are troublingly high.
"At least 314,000 teaching positions across the U.S. are either unfilled or filled with teachers who are not fully certified for their assignments," she said. "This means at least one in ten teaching positions nationally are either unfilled or not filled with a certified teacher."
Data from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing showed 10,000 teacher vacancies in the 2021-22 school year. The number of teacher credentials issued that year was down 16% from the previous year - but has now started to trend upward.
In 2023, California passed a bill to make it easier for retired teachers to return to the classroom.
Kemper Patrick noted that schools are resorting to desperate measures such as combining classes, relying on a virtual teacher or using a long-term substitute.
"The U.S. Department of Education School Pulse survey found that 36% of public schools across the U.S. reported that they had to increase class size due to teacher and staff vacancies," she said.
Kemper Patrick blamed the problem on low salaries, noting the average starting salary for a teacher nationwide is less than $43,000 a year. Congress is currently considering two bills, the Diversify Act and the Educators for America Act, which would double the amount of the Teach America grant from $4,000 to $8,000 per year.
get more stories like this via email
It's estimated that nearly half of all schools in the country don't have enough teachers. To help change that, the University of Texas in El Paso offers a residency program to help ensure that first-time teachers succeed.
The "Miner Teacher Residency" gives students in the College of Education an opportunity to work in elementary and middle schools alongside working teachers.
Clifton Tanabe, dean of the UTEP College of Education, was part of a recent national roundtable discussion on ways to solve the teacher shortage, and said the program gives future educators the skills they need to be ready for their first day of class.
"A third grader in a first-year teacher's classroom is only going to get to do third grade once, but that teacher will be able to do the third grade again and again," he explained. "So, we want them ready for that first group of third graders that they take on."
Tanabe added nearly half of the students enrolled in the program are first-generation college students and 70% are bilingual. He adds that mirrors the population of students in the public school system in El Paso, where 90% of the students are Hispanic. Most of the new teachers remain in the area, he said.
Many school districts have been forced to leave positions open, or fill them with teachers who are not fully certified. Some rural Texas districts have gone to a four-day school week. And some teachers are leaving the profession, citing increased workloads, low pay and concerns about safety.
According to Tanabe, teacher retention is directly related to being successful in the first two years on the job - and the UT program addresses this.
"So, folks who graduate from our residency model in their first and second years in teaching are set up with an instructional coach who's from the university, from the College of Education, to work with them on individualized instructional improvement," he continued.
The residency program is in its sixth year. It currently has 62 teachers working in five different school districts in the El Paso area.
get more stories like this via email
Ohio's Black students are more likely to face excessively harsh discipline practices such as expulsion and suspension, according to a recently released report from the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio.
The data show out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2022-23 school year, compared with the previous academic year.
John Standford, state director for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said economically disadvantaged students comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions.
"School districts really have to pay closer attention to the data and really screen the data, review the data, on a regular basis to really begin to address the issues of inequities," Standford urged.
Last year saw 174,000 cases of total suspension or expulsion among low-income students compared to 35,000 cases among students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged. According to the report, Black females in Ohio were six times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white female peers. Black males were also more than four times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white male peers.
Kim Eckhart, research manager for the fund, said she understands the difficulties teachers face. She hopes the report encourages districts across the state to support schools with the resources and time needed to address behavioral problems restoratively.
"We need schools to be supporting teachers with additional time and space," Eckhart contended. "So that there is capacity to address these things, rather than just kicking the student out of the class, kicking them out of the school."
School discipline practices are also linked to Ohio's alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates. According to the report, missing as little as two days of school per month can lead to chronic absence. More than 26% of Ohio students -- more than 400,000 children -- were chronically absent from school in the 2022-2023 school year, up by nearly half from the 2018-19 school year.
Disclosure: The Children's Defense Fund of Ohio/KIDS COUNT contributes to our fund for reporting on Children's Issues, Education, Health Issues, and Hunger/Food/Nutrition. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
click here.
get more stories like this via email