Johnny Luévano
I know our politicians are currently very busy chasing votes and money in the pursuit of an elected office in 2010 and they do not have much time to propose any specific ideas on how to solve some of our pressing issues. So I would like to try to lend a hand to any takers, if any, with my ideas on how to improve education in New Mexico.
There is no disputing that New Mexico’s high school graduation rates are unacceptable, and our education system must improve in order for us to compete in the global economy. Our politicos continuously campaign on improving education, and the Richardson administration has drastically increased the state’s budget for education over the past eight years.
Despite these campaign commitments and increases in the budget, the low graduation rates still persist.
I believe money alone will not fix or even improve our graduation rates. More creative and flexible ideas need to be developed in order to provide more educational opportunities. The strengths of our educational system are our educators, and the lottery scholarship program that offers fully paid college tuition to New Mexico high school graduates.
In order to improve education we must utilize these strengths by providing more support to our educators, and we must loosen up the strict requirements to qualify for the lottery scholarship, if it is financially feasible. In this column, I will discuss some ideas on how we can adjust the requirements of the lottery scholarship to allow more educational opportunities for more New Mexicans.
The reality is that there isn’t much we can do to immediately improve our current lackluster high school graduation rates; this is a long-term issue with many complex causes engrained within cultural and personal barriers. But there are some reasonable policy changes that can be made to allow New Mexicans more opportunities to improve their education.
Making the lottery scholarship more flexible
First, we must harness the strength of the lottery scholarship and make it more flexible in order to allow more New Mexicans to attend higher education. The current policy states, “The lottery scholarship is intended for graduating seniors who immediately enter college.” This does not allow New Mexicans who choose not to immediately attend college to qualify as returning students for the lottery scholarship. This policy is too restrictive and financially discourages possible returning students from attending higher education.
If financially possible, the policy needs to allow returning students to qualify in order to provide students more educational opportunities despite a time lapse after graduation.
The current eligibility is also “contingent on continuous full-time enrollment for eight consecutive semesters.” There are some exceptions to this policy, but on a case-by-case basis. This is another example of the unreasonable restrictions of this policy.
I suggest that we open up the eligibility requirements for the lottery scholarship in order to further the education of those who do make it through high school by eliminating the “immediate enrollment requirement” and allowing returning students to qualify. Also, we must remove the “continuous full-time enrollment” requirement to allow for students to take a break or to allow part-time enrollment for students who are unable to maintain full-time enrollment.
I would allow all New Mexicans who graduate from an in-state high school to enroll in any accredited higher education course, to include vocational, within the state for the equivalent of eight full-time semesters without any regard to any restrictive timelines or course load.
Our state is struggling in most educational categories, and we must become more accommodating and flexible with the tools that we do have available to us. The New Mexico Lottery Scholarship is an educational strength that we must utilize to its full capability if we are to begin improving education within our state.
Part II in a later segment…
Luévano, a registered independent, is a Marine Corps officer with 18 years of active-duty service and an Artesia native. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2001 with a bachelor’s in political science and economics and from the University of Kansas in 2008 with a master’s in public administration. You can reach him at jfluevano@gmail.com.
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