{"id":582381,"date":"2018-05-18T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=582381"},"modified":"2018-05-20T14:37:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T20:37:31","slug":"qa-lujan-grisham-says-early-childhood-education-will-be-hallmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/qa-lujan-grisham-says-early-childhood-education-will-be-hallmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&#038;A: Lujan Grisham says early childhood education will be &#8216;hallmark&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_565685\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-565685\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-771x522.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Lujan Grisham\" width=\"771\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-336x227.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-768x520.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/p><\/div>\n<p>New Mexico In Depth is speaking with the candidates for New Mexico governor on the issues of early childhood, child wellbeing and education.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newmexicansformichelle.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/a>\u00a0is the congresswoman from Albuquerque, and is one of three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination. This Q&amp;A has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sylvia Ulloa, NMID:\u00a0Can you lay out what early childhood education would look like in New Mexico under your administration, and how you would get early childhood to rural New Mexico?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Michelle Lujan Grisham:\u00a0Early childhood education would be a hallmark of the administration. We want every child to have universal access. We do not create cooperative leveraging between the Children Youth and Families Department\u2019s early childhood and Head Start. So we\u2019ve got fewer Head Start dollars in the state.<\/p>\n<p>They have insufficient numbers of CYFD folks who can do both oversight and a circuit rider team that builds capacity and deals with the rural areas, including looking at where it might be appropriate to combine 3- and 4-year-olds, and what kind of educators you would need in that system.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/05\/17\/qa-lujan-grisham-says-early-childhood-ed-will-be-hallmark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico In Depth<\/a>. Sign up for\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&amp;id=9294743d38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>You determine that getting to kids, particularly in at-risk families, happens immediately. You do statewide home visiting. You do a much better job of identifying at-risk families, assigning them to personnel in CYFD. And not just CYFD: leverage Department of Health, Human Services Department, Aging (because grandparents are raising grandchildren) and the Public Education Department.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: As you mentioned, early childhood programs exist at PED, CYFD, at the Department of Health, in the private sector, in the nonprofit sector. How do you coordinate all that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: You bring back a Children\u2019s Cabinet. And you set up \u2014 with the governor in the room \u2014 a coordination plan and everybody does it. People can be very territorial in their departments. So, you\u2019ve got to line everybody up, bring in Head Start money, make sure everyone is coordinating, and it\u2019s an all-out administrative effort to make sure that we are providing meaningful access for early childhood education.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: You support using the Land Grant Permanent Fund to pay for preschool. How much do you think is a responsible amount to divert from that fund? And how would you change that proposal to get more legislators on board \u2014 because right now it can\u2019t get out of the Senate?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: That is not an easy lift with the current makeup of the Legislature, and instead of attacking what they\u2019re doing, I am clear that they have a fiduciary responsibility that they treat very seriously. This is an endowment fund to meet our constitutional obligation to pay for education, K through 12.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We think we can get $175 million out of the permanent fund. Here\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna propose: Taking another 1 percent of the fund. It\u2019s overperforming. We want to give voters and the Legislature the ability to manipulate that 1 percent. We\u2019re gonna look at a formula that says if the fund is dropping too quickly, then they drop that percentage.<\/p>\n<p>Now, we\u2019re proposing $285 million over five years, so we\u2019re going to look at other funding streams from e-cigarettes, taxes, methane mitigation or recapture. We\u2019re gonna have to think about other diverse, but robust, funding sources to get you to 80 percent enrollment. My attitude is, you want 100 percent, but administering and getting folks in can be tough. So 80 percent will be our threshold; our goal will always be a hundred percent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: If you don\u2019t get this proposal passed, how exactly do you maintain a steady funding source for early childhood education?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: Part of it is how effectively we\u2019re leveraging and identifying new funding sources \u2014 and you\u2019d better get the economy right. I am incredibly motivated to get the economy right, which is why we\u2019ve got a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newmexicansformichelle.com\/policy\/leveraging-trade-and-investment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nine sector plan,<\/a>\u00a0which invests in the areas where we already have great potential, or are doing well, but there\u2019s been no real strategy or investments to make them move.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of examples, and the obvious one, this state must move into renewable energy. This is a significant source of economic growth and new jobs. We are leading the country in wind investments, but we just don\u2019t have a strategic sense about how to utilize, manage, grow the economy, even in rural areas.<\/p>\n<p>If you have an idea, and you have a strategic plan, and you align your departments, and you show real outcomes, and the economy is moving, those funds will embed themselves in your priorities and that\u2019s exactly what I propose to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: Under the Trump administration, there are proposals to significantly cut back on SNAP and Medicaid, and add work requirements. These programs are highly utilized in New Mexico by children and families. As governor, how would you mitigate the effect of those cuts, if they happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: Two things: There are already work requirements in SNAP. This governor\u2019s already being investigated about falsifying SNAP records and trying to keep people off. So one, you have to have an attitude that these benefits are critical to the health and wellbeing of families and children. I think it\u2019s really easy for Republicans in Congress to set this narrative that there are able-bodied people on SNAP, and they try to minimize the number of disabled adults, children, seniors, active military men and women and veterans who are on SNAP. The food program has the lowest rate of fraud of any of the assistance programs that we provide through the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>These work requirements are a bureaucratic nightmare that even Republican governors do not want. It makes absolutely no sense; it\u2019s just gonna hurt your neediest families.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re either going to get (SNAP) reauthorized, current requirements, or we\u2019re going to come out with another bite at this apple, and go to conference with the Senate. And let\u2019s say I\u2019m totally wrong, and they somehow manage to get these draconian work requirements passed by the Senate. A governor and Cabinet have to fight against things that don\u2019t make sense for our communities. When they said to a state with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country \u2014 right when I got into the Department of Health \u2014 that they wanted us to do abstinence only (sex education), I flew to Washington, D.C., and convinced them to give us a waiver. We were allowed to keep the money, but do comprehensive sex education. And we dropped teen pregnancy rates.<\/p>\n<p>So you have to be ready to get a waiver to these new proposals, and be very clear about how you win them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: Medicaid expansion is one of the things Gov. Susana Martinez approved, and it\u2019s been a success story here as far as covering more children and helping to fuel the health-care industry. How are you going to deal with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: There are rumors in Congress that this administration is looking at implementing some of these changes in a per capita way that would hurt states that are largely Democratic. It\u2019s illegal. You gotta look at the constitutionality of these draconian decisions, and you work with your attorney general, and you sue the federal government and you stop them from doing it.<\/p>\n<p>You look at waivers to the highest degree possible, and you work with all of your providers to do that. And if all of those fail, we have to be ready. I\u2019m ready to do a comprehensive health care delivery redesign, working with all of the stakeholders that would include things like looking at the Health Care Security Act (which I think holds great promise for states like New Mexico), regional delivery plans and Medicaid buy-in. The Senate is now looking at Medicare buy in.<\/p>\n<p>The nice thing about New Mexico is, what is often our Achilles heel, that we\u2019re so small and we\u2019re so rural, with our telehealth opportunities and our Federally Qualified Health Centers and our community health, we can actually cover 2 million people and get it right. That\u2019s one of the reasons I want to come back. That\u2019s an area I excel in and have expertise in and I\u2019m ready to get done for New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: I\u2019d let you get back to adverse childhood experiences. We have a lot of horrific child abuse cases. Do you think changes at CYFD are headed in the right direction?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: I am really upset at CYFD. You can not have any vacancies for critical positions. These are folks that are responding to complaints, and they are the front line in making sure that we\u2019re keeping our kids and our fragile families from falling deeper into at-risk situations and poverty. And they aren\u2019t doing that.<\/p>\n<p>They aren\u2019t working with educators and PED. They aren\u2019t reforming and looking at, with the court system, our children\u2019s code and what changes need to be done. And they aren\u2019t looking at foster care from both a productive safety-net situation and an accountability situation. You have to do both. You don\u2019t get to choose one of those.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: Right now the state PED is being sued over its funding for schools and for the education results for Native Americans, English learners, special ed and low-income students. Not getting into the specifics of your\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newmexicansformichelle.com\/policy\/a-new-direction-for-new-mexico-s-public-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">education plan<\/a>, how would you deal with the lawsuit?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: I have no doubt that the identification of underfunding will occur, and the governor and the Legislature are going to have to embrace making sure that meeting our constitutional requirements gets back into the funding formula.<\/p>\n<p>We created the worst possible environment for education, but we have to take it as an opportunity. We have to fully fund the schools, we have to be clear about what outcomes we want. We have to give schools the flexibility to meet the needs of students, and we\u2019ve got to be partners \u2014 there\u2019s no partnering right now in state government. Everybody is just pointing fingers. Bring everybody to the table and get them to work together. The same thing with bilingual education. We ought to be leading the country in language preservation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: You say you don\u2019t believe in high-stakes testing. You\u2019d like to eliminate the A through F grading system for schools. How do you assure a parent that their child is getting a decent education in New Mexico without some accountability?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: Saying you don\u2019t want PARCC should not be misconstrued as saying you don\u2019t want accountability or data. We gotta have data. I gotta know exactly what\u2019s going on with our students and what strategies would make the biggest difference so that they\u2019re proficient in math and science and the arts.<\/p>\n<p>We know that STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), not just STEM, holds the greatest promise for student achievement and giving students the choices that they need so that they\u2019re graduating and successful in whatever path they undertake, whether it\u2019s apprenticeships, or trade, or higher education, or entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re immediately gonna undertake looking at New Mexico assessment tools, and we\u2019re going to have to do that in a transition. So, you just throw it all out, and then you\u2019re done? You can not do that. You have to have a transition plan that gets you away from the things that don\u2019t work, and fully implements the things that do.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the difference between me and most of the candidates for governor, that they don\u2019t have any experience in implementing new programs and strategies in government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NMID: You and several of the other candidates have talked about how we need to change the revenue situation in New Mexico, but I would imagine Steve Pearce would say revenue means taxes. How do you do that in a fair way and not hamper economic development in the state?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham: It\u2019s a healthy balance. You got a governor now, and I would guess that Steve Pearce will say exactly the same, because he\u2019s been that guy in Congress, which is that there\u2019s a pledge. No new taxes. What this governor won\u2019t tell you is that she just pushed those tax burdens and liabilities to local government. They all had to raise taxes, and then they had to put those funds toward all the things that they refused to do in this administration, like behavioral health.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not taking any pledge about saying I will unequivocally do X, and I will unequivocally not do Y. Everything is a balance looked at from the lens of what is in the best interest of your stakeholders, which is the citizens of the state.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re going to do a tax commission. I really want to look at every possible aspect, including supporting middle-income working families and small businesses, cause I don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing enough there. We\u2019re gonna have to have the attitude that we want everybody paying their fair share. That means that I am open to a variety of areas for productive tax reform.<\/p>\n<p>This is a governor that in a really tough economic environment \u2014 I don\u2019t diminish the recession and the oil and gas drops, and the sequester \u2014 didn\u2019t leverage, didn\u2019t grow the economy, didn\u2019t lead. It was a perfect environment for a governor that was trying to destroy state government.<\/p>\n<p>Then you could point to all these other influences and say, &#8220;It\u2019s not my fault.&#8221; It is your fault. That\u2019s a leadership job that requires experience and vision, and a can-do attitude about \u201cNew Mexico is open for business\u201d in a way that doesn\u2019t take advantage of New Mexicans, but builds on our potential.<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclaimer: NMID did not fact check every statement made by candidates in these interviews.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn what Democratic gubernatorial candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham thinks about the issues of early childhood, child wellbeing and education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":565685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,431],"tags":[2238,234,125,3318,107],"class_list":["post-582381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-qa","tag-2018-election","tag-children","tag-education","tag-michelle-lujan-grisham","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582381","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=582381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}