Michael L. Hays
I made the round trip between Las Cruces to Albuquerque for the debate on education between Diane Denish and Susana Martinez, New Mexico’s two female gubernatorial candidates. I arrived to learn that I needed a ticket for admittance; a sympathetic policemen, whose commander has now received a letter commending his efforts, helped me get a ticket – unfortunately. For, when it was over, I called my wife to tell her that I would get home that evening. She asked, “was it terrible?” I answered, “not that good.”
To judge from their debate performance, I have doubts whether either candidate is worthy of the office to which they aspire. Two things most impressed – or depressed – me.
One, when we talk education and think of the number of public education employees, the size of the education budget, and the number of people – children and parents particularly – affected, we are talking about the state’s single largest activity. By that standard, we might expect the candidates to be well informed, even expert. We would be disappointed.
Neither candidate presented a clear, coherent, cogent statement of position on a single topic for two minutes without drifting, repeatedly, to one or more of their talking points, whether germane or not to the question, or resorting, repeatedly, to one or more of their thrust-and-parry jabs. (At one point, when Diane launched into one of them, the audience snorted derisively.)
With eight years on the job as lieutenant governor, Diane seems to have learned little about the issues affecting public education; with months, perhaps years, to prepare as a challenger, Susana Martinez has not done her homework to learn anything about them (programs which may work in Florida are not likely to translate well to New Mexico). As a result, neither had anything new, interesting or insightful to say on any educational topic.
Both candidates rehearsed their campaign positions on the educational planks that lie strewn about the educational landscape. Their old and rotten timbers cannot build a platform, much less one more likely than earlier ones to improve the quality of public education and student academic performance. So we heard yet again the same-old, same-old stale stuff about money (not less in bad times, always more in good times), vouchers, and auditing; accountability and testing; school choice and charter, magnet, private, and religious schools; proficiency scores and graduation rates; and programs – all without traceable logic to realistic reforms and improved education.
Money in the classroom
A word about money. Both candidates talked about putting more money in the classroom. Is this the punch line to a joke which I just do not get? I thought money got put into banks. The fact is that if you increase teachers’ salaries, you increase only one thing: teachers’ salaries. Whether you get an increase in anything else from better textbooks or more equipment still depends on the teacher’s competence, confidence and commitment – and money buys none of them.
Denish made one good point: student testing is – or should be – only a small part of teacher evaluation. Martinez wants more; she reminds me of the homeowner who plants a bush in the morning and digs it up in the afternoon to see if it is taking root.
But Denish had no good reply to the charge that education has not improved much during her tenure – a lost opportunity to offer a sketch of the problems and some suitable solutions, if she knew what they were.
Martinez made one howler when she declared that all children should be able to meet the ever-rising to 100 percent AYP standards – a flat impossibility. New Mexico is not Lake Wobegon. However, she did let slip the word “curriculum;” I wondered what she had in mind, but she failed to offer any elaboration.
Lack of public decorum and personal dignity
Two, between their lack of proficiency in education and their mutual dislike, both candidates showed an astonishing lack of public decorum and personal dignity. Repeated charges of deception, dishonesty, lying and lord knows what all else were demeaning to them, the audience present, and the audience remote. What was labeled a debate was really more a dishing of dirt, and it made me feel dirty. (I was not alone; the male civic activist on my right and the female elementary school principal on my left indicated to me by word, gesture and body language the same response.)
When I ended my earlier column based on my interviews of the two candidates – I enjoyed meeting and talking with each of them, and found them both agreeable people – I expressed a hope that they would address the issue and not engage in a cat fight. Fond hope.
So, on the basis of their public performance, I have two concerns about these candidates. One, since neither candidate seems to understand the problems and to have good ideas about solutions in an enormously consequential area of state involvement, one which needs, but is unlikely to receive, a lot of the governor’s attention, time and energy, I expect that the election of either means more misdirection and squandered resources, to the detriment of all public school students. Neither makes the grade.
Two, since neither candidate shows much respect for each other or herself in public, or for the public itself, I wonder whether either can effectively work with those who disagree with them and lead the state in this important area of endeavor. Neither has the class.
Michael L. Hays (Ph.D., English) is a retired consultant in defense, energy and environment; former high school and college teacher; and continuing civic activist. His bi-monthly Saturday column appears in the Las Cruces Sun-News; his bi-monthly blog, First Impressions & Second Thoughts, appears on the intervening Saturdays at firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com.