By Rep. Larry Larrañaga
The Legislature’s ongoing debate about whether the state should adopt a new public school funding formula, and increase taxes to pay for it, has failed to address the most important issue facing New Mexico’s educational system — how to improve accountability and educational results.
While there is a fierce lobbying effort underway to enact a $350-million annual tax increase because proponents claim schools need more money, many policymakers and taxpayers are asking a key question that must be answered before any tax increase is approved. The question is, since state funding for education has already increased by 57 percent over the last eight years, have statewide student performance and graduation rates increased significantly?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. In turn, I believe most New Mexicans recognize that in order to improve our state’s educational system, more money is not the solution.
State legislators, whether Democrat or Republican, are well aware of the need for our state to have the best educational system possible. A world-class education is no longer just desirable. It is a necessity if current and future generations are going to be able to compete in an ever-challenging job market. This commitment to education has been one of the centerpieces of my years in public service, and I am proud of my record of being a strong voice for ensuring that students receive the education and skills necessary to fulfill their potential.
To ensure we provide the best educational value possible, we need to undertake a more comprehensive review of our educational system. Legislators, taxpayers, teachers, administrators and students should be trying to understand how education dollars are currently being spent and whether those dollars are actually achieving results.
If proponents of higher education taxes want to dwell on dollars, let’s make certain the whole education story is being told. According to the Public Education Department, for the 2007-08 school year, the total education spending — including state funding, federal dollars, local property tax dollars, capital outlay dollars, numerous fees and other income sources — was just over $4 billion.
In other words, already stretched-to-the-limit taxpayers provided $12,210 for each of the 329,000 students attending
Everyone associated with our schools must be wondering, how are these dollars being spent? Unfortunately, in far too many cases, we do not know the answer to this question. Although local control of education is the best way to run our educational system, there is currently no adequate structure of accountability between the state and local districts to determine how these dollars are being utilized.
We need assurances that taxpayers’ dollars are directed to the classrooms, where our teachers can effectively educate our students.
Rather than increasing taxes in the name of improving education, we need to change the way we look at those public schools that are failing and demand better results. Our students and our state’s future prosperity are too important to continue pouring money into an educational system that lacks both accountability and measurable success.
Increasing taxes along with spending those new dollars in the same manner as we do today is not only fiscally irresponsible, it will also preserve a flawed educational system that is shortchanging our children.
Larrañaga is a Republican House member from