Editors blame reform failure on "turf wars"

The editors cobbled together an editorial on school reform, link.
Recent research pegs New Mexico 49th of 51 states in education.

The editors concede there is

"the potential to do much better."

They conclude;

"Stakeholders must abandon turf wars, take these lessons
learned, and make it happen."

There may be turf battles going on, but this is the first time
anyone has suggested that they are causal in the failure to
educate an entire generation of New Mexicans.

If there is a fundamental failure, it is the failure to closely
examine each of the myriad of failures that accumulate in an
overall failure.

Take for example; student discipline. Student discipline has
as great an effect on educationally efficient environments as
any other factor. Yet, if you google "Albuquerque public schools"
and "student discipline", you will little to nothing by way of
research or conclusions.

Supt Winston Brooks and the
leadership of the APS cannot
even point to a written
discipline philosophy.

Without a coherent philosophy,
policies and procedures lack
foundation. They are often
contradictory and unenforceable.

Brooks and the rest of the
administration won't even concede
that the responsibility for dealing with chronically disruptive
students is an administrative responsibility. Instead, they
send even the most disruptive students back to the classroom
to become the responsibility of teachers who have been stripped
of any of the power and resources necessary to deal effectively
with students who routinely interfere with the educational
process of their classmates.

"Turf battles" may exist; they may even obstruct in miniscule
ways, the reform of education. To try to pass them off as a
fundamental and proximate cause of the failure to reform
educations, points to the editorial lack of understanding of
the real problems.

The editors would do well to talk to more teachers and fewer
superintendents, if their interest is truly understanding the
obstacles to real reform.




photo Mark Bralley