Elementary and secondary education in this country, as measured by academic performance, is poor relative to other industrialized nations. Elementary and secondary education in New Mexico is poorer still. New Mexico ranks among the bottom ten percent of states.

Education reform in the nation and state is suspect. The focus has been on getting more money for education and on improving accountability. Statistically, if not emotionally, education spending correlates poorly with educational achievement. More money into bad school systems does not often help much and sometimes even makes things worse.

Accountability is good if accompanied by sound analysis and common sense. Unfortunately sound analysis and common sense are scarce and getting scarcer.

The state legislature passed two measures designed to improve education that require approval of constitutional amendments. We vote next month.

There has been little elucidation of the details of the amendments on the September 23 ballot. After considerable research, I finally hit pay dirt on the web site for the state legislature, www.legis.state.nm.us.

Go to the site and click on “2003 Constitutional Amendments Arguments For and Against.” You will find the proposed amendments, some brief analysis and arguments for and against.

The first proposed amendment creates a cabinet-level public education department. It changes the 15-member (10 elected and 5 appointed) state board of education, which currently determines public school and vocational education policy and controls, manages and directs public education, into a 10-member elected public education commission with no expressly enumerated powers and duties. The cabinet secretary of public education would then be responsible for public education.

Arguments for on the web site include giving the governor more authority, streamlining bureaucracy, strengthening accountability, and facilitating and speeding needed change. It was noted that the current governance structure of the state board of education had failed to provide adequate accountability, was burdensomely bureaucratic and had not effected the improvements direly needed. It stated, “No one is happy with the results of the status quo, and the state has continued to throw money at the old system for years with few, if any, positive results.”

Arguments against include unwisely concentrating fiscal power and decision-making, creating an undefined public education commission, diluting decision-making input, compromising continuity and stability and making education more political. The amendment was called a “mishmash attempt to satisfy everyone when, in reality, it will likely cause conflict and uncertainty and satisfy virtually on one.” It stated “Constant debate over governance structure merely dissipates energy and money that could go instead to addressing low test scores by students throughout the state.”

When I ran for the state board of education I was asked if I would oppose abolishing the board. I said, “No.” I still feel the same way. The current structure is unworkable. The only problem I have with the amendment is that it is likely to make things even worse. Consider the following.

The amendment mandates a “secretary of public education who is a qualified, experienced educator.” Professional educators can be a significant part of the problem. The reason one creates a cabinet secretary is to enable a kick-butt executive to run the show. To constitutionally constrain the governor to appoint an educator is, in the words of a former boss of mine, “Dumber than a barn.”

Public apathy to education has empowered the teachers unions and constrained improvement. The public education commission would likely be even more so dominated. Few outside the educational establishment would have the interest and support to get elected to an otherwise meaningless body. This amendment would likely strengthen union influence and complicate both Democratic and Republican governor effectiveness. Democrats would be beholden to the unions. An entrenched resistance to a Republican governor’s changes would continue.

The politics are fascinating. Democrat Christine Trujillo, elected state board of education member and chief of the state’s AFL-CIO and AFT unions, vowed to oppose, almost to the death, the change to the current structure because she felt it would threaten the existing union power and influence. Former Republican Governor Gary Johnson was strongly in favor of creating a cabinet secretary of education because the status quo so frustrated his effort to reform and improve public education in the state.

The subject amendment has been endorsed by the NEA-NM and Trujillo’s NM Federation of Educational Employees. A number of business and education groups have also endorsed the amendment. Will the Dems generally go for it and Republicans generally oppose because it is Richardson’s initiative and not Johnson’s?

I would favor an amendment that would abolish the state board of education and create a secretary of education who would not have to be an educator. I am not sure I could vote for the one on the September 23 ballot as written.

The second amendment proposes to permanently increase the distribution to beneficiaries of the land grant permanent fund from 4.7 percent to 5 percent of the average year-end market values of the fund for the preceding five years. It also proposes to temporarily increase the distribution by .8 percent for fiscal years 2005 through 2012 and by .5 percent for fiscal years 2013 through 2016. These temporary distribution increases would be suspended if the fund balance falls below $5.8 billion or by three-fifths’ vote of the state legislature.

It should be noted that the New Mexico permanent school fund currently has assets of about $6.8 billion and so an extra .3 plus .8 or 1.1 percent would amount to some $75 million a year. It was assumed for purposes of the amendment that the growth in the permanent land grant fund would average 8.5 percent a year.

The arguments for included the following. It increases spending on educational reform. It safeguards against reductions in the fund’s principal. It is appropriate, timely and necessary to tap into the “rainy day” fund because the state’s educational crisis means it is raining. Growth in the fund would likely still be sustained.

The arguments against include the following. It increases the likelihood the growth in the fund may not keep up with inflation. It compromises the future principal in the fund by an unreasonably high assumption of investment return. It risks creating reliance on temporary distribution increases that cannot be satisfied when the temporary increases stop. It is noted that the increases to education from the permanent fund could be offset by reductions in appropriations for education. It is further noted that no one yet knows how the legislature intends to use the increased distributions for the other 20 beneficiaries of the land grant permanent fund. It is also noted that in order for the five-year average of the fund to fall below $5.8 billion in 2005, the fund would have to lose 20 percent of its value in 2003. The safeguard may not be much of a safeguard.

I am not a fan of this constitutional amendment for a number of reasons. The constitution is not a place for such financial detail with options based on fund level balances and future legislative action – at least in my opinion. The constitution, so far as possible, should be simple, straightforward and reflective of general and overarching principles. The constitution was designed to guard against such legislative legerdemain. I am a free enterprise, limited government and personal responsibility kind of person. The bigger and blanker the check for government, the more concerned I tend to be. This seems like a rather large and blank check. The assumption of an 8.5 percent return on investments seems unnecessarily optimistic. Alarm bells are ringing. Liberals yell about risking social security investments by individuals or the government in the stock market because of the extraordinary risk even when the effective return on the social security trust fund is about 2 percent. Now they turn around and assume an average 8.5 percent return for the land grand permanent fund.

At the same time, I am not adverse to extraordinary investments out of the land grant permanent fund to improve human capital. Investments in human capital are how third world countries rose out of the third world. Yet those extraordinary investments should be one-time programs with clearly defined and measurable expenditures and returns. Perhaps I am unduly cynical, but I have little confidence state government will manage the increased distributions from the land grant permanent fund so that the likely rewards will exceed the likely risks.

© NMIRI 2003
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