I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Gov. Susana Martinez is currently deciding whether to sign a bill to ban a practice in New Mexico schools that many assume is a thing of the past — corporal punishment. New Mexico is one of 20 states that allow corporal, or physical, punishment in public schools.
The New York Times looked at the practice and its critics around the nation on Tuesday.
In New Mexico, a bill to ban the practice passed the House and Senate by narrow margins. The legislation cleared the House on a 36-31 vote and passed the Senate on a 22-17 vote, while earlier the Senate’s version of the bill failed on an 18-18 vote.
The Times quotes Sens. Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces, and Vernon Asbill, R-Carlsbad. Nava sponsored the Senate legislation to end corporal punishment in schools while Asbill supports keeping the practice.
“With parental supervision and parental approval, I believe it’s appropriate,” Asbill, a former teacher and school administrator, told The Times. “The threat of it keeps many of our kids in line so they can learn.”
“It’s shocking to me that people got up on the floor and argued passionately to preserve it,” Nava, a school superintendent, said to the paper. “We should be educating kids that they can’t solve problems with violence.”
Currently the decision on whether or not to allow corporal punishment is left to the school districts. Today, 36 of the state’s 89 school districts still have corporal punishment as an option on the books, Nava told the Santa Fe Bureau of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, but the districts may not still use the punishment.
The bill is one of hundreds of pieces of legislation that passed the state legislature that Martinez and her staff are poring over to decide whether to sign.
