{"id":378737,"date":"2017-06-29T11:09:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T17:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=378737"},"modified":"2017-06-29T11:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T17:11:00","slug":"new-mexico-cant-sue-its-way-to-better-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/06\/new-mexico-cant-sue-its-way-to-better-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico can\u2019t sue its way to better schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>However well-intentioned, the activists suing the state for failing \u201cto meet its constitutionally mandated responsibility to provide all public-school students the programming and supports necessary to succeed\u201d have a profound misunderstanding of government education\u2019s ability to compensate for severe social pathologies.<\/p>\n

\"D.

Courtesy photo<\/p>

D. Dowd Muska<\/p><\/div>\n

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The key assumption behind Yazzie v. New Mexico and Martinez v. New Mexico, consolidated into one case and currently before Judge Sarah Singleton, ignores mountains of research. Clear-eyed policy analysts have long understood that greater subsidization of government schools generates little, if any, progress in student ability and achievement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the 1960s, sociologist James S. Coleman undertook an enormous, federally funded study of race and education. His conclusion? \u201cPer-pupil expenditures, books in the library, and a host of other facilities and curricular measures show virtually no relation to achievement if the social environment of the school \u2014 the educational backgrounds of other students and teachers \u2014 is held constant. \u2026 Altogether, the sources of inequality of educational opportunity appear to lie first in the home itself and the cultural influences immediately surrounding the home; then they lie in the school\u2019s ineffectiveness to free achievement from the impact of the home.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Several years later, two Harvard scholars concurred. Mary Jo Bane and Christopher Jencks wrote that the belief that \u201cif schools could equalize people\u2019s cognitive skills this would equalize their bargaining power as adults\u201d was erroneous. Children, they concluded, \u201cseem to be more influenced by what happens at home than by what happens at school,\u201d with \u201cwhat happens on the streets\u201d and \u201cwhat they see on television\u201d as additional contributors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither the overall level of resources available to a school,\u201d Bane and Jencks averred, \u201cnor any specific, easily identifiable school policy has a significant effect on students\u2019 cognitive skills.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the early 1990s, researchers at the Educational Testing Service studied the connection between non-classroom factors and student achievement. They found that 91 percent of the difference among the performance of the states\u2019 government schools could be explained by five factors, including the amount of time students spent watching television and the presence of two parents in the home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Closer to home, there is not a morsel of evidence that New Mexico spends an inadequate amount of tax dollars on K-12 schools. Census Bureau data show that the Land of Enchantment surpasses each of its five neighbors in per pupil expenditures on government schools. New Mexico spends a whopping 48 percent more than Utah, where students generally excel.<\/p>\n

From class-size reduction to expanding preschool, the state has embraced every trendy, expensive fad pushed by the education establishment, with pathetic results. What\u2019s more, the \u201cfairness\u201d and \u201cequalization\u201d financing dreams of the educrat lobby have essentially been attained here \u2014 just a few states post a lower shares of school spending covered by local taxpayers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sadly, New Mexico is a \u2014 perhaps the \u2014 national leader in self-destructive behavior. Illegitimacy, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, refusing to work, welfare dependency, mental illness, substance abuse and DUI carnage are at alarming levels, and have been for decades. Perhaps that\u2019s why the sue-for-better-schools movement prefers to place blame for poor educational outcomes on inadequate taxpayer \u201cinvestment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lawsuits aren\u2019t the answer to fighting family fragmentation and the chaos it spawns. Work is. Ron Haskins of the liberal Brookings Institution recommends a strategy of \u201cincreasing work and reducing welfare use\u201d as the best tool to fight poverty.<\/p>\n

New Mexico labor bureaucrats\u2019 recent finding that three-quarters of employers with at least one job opening are struggling to find hires \u2014 in a state with one of the worst \u201cunemployment\u201d rates in the nation \u2014 was irrefutable evidence of a dire problem: Too many of our fellow citizens prefer the dole to the dignity and pride of productive activity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When making \u201cno judgments\u201d is the rule, not much can be done to address the true cause of underperforming students \u2014 and real solutions aren\u2019t explored.<\/p>\n

Seeking greater school spending through litigation is a dangerous distraction. Our state\u2019s time and resources would be better spent on a discussion of the undeniable role that government plays in perpetuating life decisions that are damaging to individuals, families and society at large.<\/p>\n

Dowd Muska (dmuska@riograndefoundation.org<\/a>) is research director for\u00a0New Mexico\u2019s Rio Grande Foundation<\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeking greater school spending through litigation is a dangerous distraction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[234,125,146,107],"class_list":["post-378737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-children","tag-education","tag-poverty","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378737","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=378737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}