{"id":284684,"date":"2017-02-07T08:56:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T15:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=284684"},"modified":"2017-02-07T09:17:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T16:17:22","slug":"senators-halt-proposal-to-revive-state-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/senators-halt-proposal-to-revive-state-school-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators halt proposal to revive state school board"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Five Democrats joined four Republicans on Monday to block a bill that would have eliminated the job of cabinet secretary of public education and resurrected a statewide board to oversee schools in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate Rules Committee voted 9-2 to table <a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=S&amp;LegType=JR&amp;LegNo=2&amp;year=17\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Joint Resolution 2<\/a>, a proposed constitutional amendment to create a 10-member school board that in turn would hire a secretary of education. In the existing system, the governor appoints someone to run the Public Education Department.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, introduced the resolution, saying it would return power to school districts and would allow the state board to hire or fire a secretary of education at will.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2017\u00a0legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;If the individual [secretary] does a poor job, the state school board can take that individual out of the position,&#8221; Padilla told the committee. Otherwise, he said, even if a secretary of education is doing a good job, a newly elected governor could &#8220;turn it upside down&#8221; by hiring his or her own person for the job.<\/p>\n<p>A state board of education once existed, but former Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who served from 2003 through 2010, created the cabinet position of secretary of education. Veronica Garc\u00eda, superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, was the state&#8217;s first education secretary.<\/p>\n<p>Eleanor Ortiz and Virginia Trujillo, both of whom served on the state school board, testified in favor of Padilla&#8217;s bill. But they didn&#8217;t sway the committee.<\/p>\n<p>Sens. Daniel Ivey-Soto and Jacob Candelaria, both Democrats from Albuquerque, told Padilla that the influence of outside forces &#8212; including super political action committees &#8212; could funnel large sums of money into election campaigns and shape the school board.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Candelaria said, Padilla&#8217;s proposal is a means of saying, &#8220;If we don&#8217;t get what we want, we change the rules.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was referring to the fact that most Democrats in the Senate voted against confirming Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera, who took office in 2011 but did not receive a vote in the Senate for four years. Senators finally confirmed Skandera on a 22-19 vote, though many Democrats challenged her qualifications. Skandera has never been a classroom teacher or a principal.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, one of only two committee members who voted for Padilla&#8217;s bill, said he liked the fact that it would put power back in the hands of the public, who would ultimately have the right to boot out the school board members if they were not doing a good job.<\/p>\n<p>Ivey-Soto countered that few people would likely run for these board seats. &#8220;The level of engagement is fairly low and the level of dark money is very high,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, also supported Padilla&#8217;s resolution.<\/p>\n<p>After losing the committee vote, Padilla said he was optimistic about getting a second chance during the session if he continues working on the bill. But a bill tabled by a committee rarely is reconsidered, so his proposal probably is dead.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Robert Nott at (505) 986-3021 or <a href=\"mailto:rnott@sfnewmexican.com\">rnott@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five Democrats joined four Republicans to block the resolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3329,234,125,107],"class_list":["post-284684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-children","tag-education","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}