Carter Bundy
During her Republican primary, Susana Martinez unequivocally advocated shifting public money from public education to private schools. The common term is “vouchers.”
She now claims to only want private money to go to private schools, but YouTube doesn’t lie. The key line is “the dollars that are set aside for that child should follow that child.” Susana’s been caught in one big whopper, but in a bizarre showing of chutzpah, seems to be doubling down on it.
Her running mate says that he and Susana support “vouchers.” Whoops. In every state in America, “voucher” doesn’t mean a private donor giving money, it means taking tax dollars away from public schools and giving them to private schools.
Republican Susana has been, until recently, an unabashed supporter of defunding public schools to boost private schools. Period.
How vouchers hurt
Don’t vouchers all equal out? If a kid is no longer in public school, and the public school loses, say, $7,000 for the year, doesn’t the school save all that money anyway?
Absolutely not. Things economists call “fixed costs” don’t go away when one, or 10, or 50 kids leave a school. Electricity, heating, cooling, landscaping, maintenance, libraries, sports equipment, athletic fields, travel for bands and teams, coaches, janitors, educational assistants, principals, secretaries, school busses, computers, chalk, white boards, cafeterias and cafeteria staff, and, of course, teachers all stay at the school.
If enough kids leave, maybe 100, you might be able to lay off a teacher or two (as if that’s a good thing), and maybe an educational assistant, and maybe you’ll purchase one or two fewer computers. But the vast majority of the public school’s costs will remain and the school — and its kids — lose big.
Left behind
In the meantime, you’ve left behind all the other kids whose parents don’t want to or can’t get their kids into private school. Only now, the left-behind kids have even fewer resources. Susana talks about not wanting to “trap” kids in failing schools. Well why is it OK to use tax dollars to help a private school do better and strip the public schools of their resources, making the trap even worse for those left behind?
She seems very comfortable with leaving everyone but a handful of privileged kids trapped in failing schools. Why not invest in the public schools — or even propose non-monetary solutions — to ensure every kid has a great opportunity?
What about the kids with special needs? Think they’re going to be getting into all the best private schools? What about kids who don’t quite have the grades to get into private schools near their house? What about the kids with learning disabilities or who need better social skills? What about single parents who rely on public school busses to get their kids to and from school? What about two-parent families who both work and can’t transport their kid to and from the private school?
Is Susana giving them a voucher too? Of course not — the private schools, by and large, aren’t going to take many of those kids. Even if they did, vouchers often aren’t enough to pay for the entire cost of private school, and most New Mexico families can’t afford thousands of extra dollars.
Public schools in small towns will be especially hard hit. Even freshman economics students know fixed costs are a bigger part of the budget in smaller schools. Vouchers will either make small schools unsustainable, the costs per student will go up significantly and require higher taxes just to stay at the same level of operations, or the left behind small town kids will face even more cuts.
There’s almost no single proposal that will exacerbate the state’s achievement gap more than vouchers. Public schools are America’s great equalizer, but if Susana supports gutting them by using public school tax dollars to prop up private schools, she should simply say so. Which is what she did, just a few months ago.
New Mexico is a state where most parents can’t afford to send their kids to private schools, and where most people believe that all kids should have a shot at a good education.
Given that, it makes sense that her pro-voucher position wouldn’t be popular (it’s not), so politically I don’t blame her for adopting a shiny new position in favor of public education now that she’s survived the Republican primary.
If parents want to send their kids to a private school, they absolutely have that right. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of the other kids remaining in public schools.
Integrity matters
Susana’s new position is against taking money from public schools. If she’s changed her mind, she should say so, and I (and most of New Mexico) welcome her to the pro-public education side.
But acting as if she never supported taking public school money and giving it to private schools? Stunning. Calling her opponent a liar for pointing out the flip-flop when her opponent was telling the complete truth? Galling. The fact that it’s all on video and yet she continues to seek a fight about it? That’s just not terribly good judgment.
It’ll be interesting to see if she keeps doubling down on a whopper, or if she comes clean and says she’s simply changed her mind about vouchers (which might antagonize her fellow Republicans). The latter might make her a flip-flopper, but at least there’d be integrity to it.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.