Education from New Mexico Independent

You, too, can watch your electricity meter go backward

Denise Tessier — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:00:00 GMT

A foundation that teaches organic agriculture and sustainable living in Costa Rica has sought to apply "wise use" principles to its Albuquerque office. Founder Franklin Wilson -- who says the foundation has cut its energy use and produces power that is sold back to PNM -- wants to spread the word that anyone can pretty much do the same. In fact, he says, it's "rather easy."

Not a farewell, at least not yet

Heath Haussamen — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:47:07 GMT

The man who has dominated New Mexico politics in recent years today made a humble acknowledgement. “I am going to make an admission that I never, never make,” Gov. Bill Richardson said to the retiring U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici. “Had I run against you, you probably would have beat me.”

Newspapers' online products not helping readership

Barbara Armijo — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

No sooner had the New Mexico Independent published a commentary I wrote Tuesday about the high school kids I teach at Atrisco Heritage Academy not being exposed to news, when I got an alert from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. It was the center's biennial news consumption survey on Sunday. Here's what it said:

"Findings on TV news and online-only news produced a few surprises, but on the newspaper front the indications were mainly negative. And it wasn't just bad news for the print side, newspapers' online products didn't do much better. Namely: while more young people are indeed reading newspapers online, their total readership, print and Web combined, has not grown in two years.

Newsflash: Many teens just don't realize they're interested in news

Barbara Armijo — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:22:57 GMT

I asked my students if anyone was reading something interesting. Before I knew it, hands were shooting up and the topics ranged from how Ben Stiller directed his new movie "Tropic Thunder," to how a reporter went undercover in a religious cult just to see how freaky that was. One student read outloud the story in the Independent about our new school opening up. News was happening all around me. And nobody wanted to stop to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water.

ACT scores on rise in APS

Barbara Armijo — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

We all know the ugly news that most New Mexico public schools are not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Now for some positive news out of the state's largest school district.

According to Albuquerque Public Schools officials, the district's 2008 graduates earned better scores on all sections of the ACT college entrance exam than the previous year’s graduating class. Even better still, on average, APS students also outperformed the rest of the state and nation.

Today's Top Stories: Juarez death toll nears 800

Denise Tessier — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:31:01 GMT

The homicide count is up to nearly 800 for the year in the border city of Juarez, Mexico, where 15 people were killed this week, the El Paso bureau of the Las Cruces Sun News reports.

In what has been described as the deadliest attack this year, eight men were slain and another five were injured when a commando-style group attacked a rehab center where people had gathered for a religious service, the paper reports. Among those slain was a pastor.

Seven others were killed in separate attacks this week, the paper said.

NMSU still has beef with two fired professors

Barbara Armijo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:30:00 GMT

New Mexico State University officials are playing hard ball with two former professors who have been fighting their dismissal from the university since March. According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, the professors, John Moraros and Yelena Bird, received letters last month in which a university official said the two had never submitted proof that they had earned medical degrees from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez.

The letters, from Valerie Pickett, director of New Mexico State’s Office of Enrollment Management, gave the professors until Aug.14 to provide final transcripts from the Mexican institution, or face “appropriate action, up to and including the possible revocation of your above-referenced graduate degree from NMSU," according to the letters.

Politicizing higher education

V.B. Price — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:00:00 GMT

What is “traditional American history,” and who decides what it might be? The White House has vigorously promoted the notion of a kind of “getting back to basics” when it comes to teaching American history. But it doesn’t say what “traditional American history” is. In an informal search of recent literature on the subject, I could not find a single definition of the term. Is that because the conservative idea of traditional American history might be too inflammatory to be disclosed?

Back to school pains

Barbara Armijo — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:30:00 GMT

It's back to school for most Albuquerque Public Schools students today, and it has been a little more challenging for the district to open doors at some schools this year.

Severe flooding at at least two schools, including at Manzano High School, meant APS maintenance crews working overtime to dry up the mess and get the classrooms and gym operational. APS spokeswoman Johanna King said that at Hodgin Elementary in the Northeast Heights, the flooding damaged floors but not books were damaged, allowing school to open today.

In addition to the cleanups, APS opened four new schools this year, but all of the schools are at temporary sites because construction at their campuses is not complete.

TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Metro Courthouse trial gets a green light

Joel Gay — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:26:32 GMT

The Metro Courthouse corruption trial of former state Senate President Manny Aragon will go on as scheduled after a federal judge dismissed claims by the defense that the prosecution was tainted by political and ethnic concerns,The Albuquerque Journal reports.

Farmington middle school students are starting their school year with free Apple MacBook laptop computers as part of a new program in the Four Corners region, The Farmington Daily News reports. It's the first year for the Farmington Learning Initiative that focuses more on computers than printed textbooks for information, Farmington Municipal Schools officials said.

Teaching in a community of 'great promise'

Barbara Armijo — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:36:29 GMT

Like most Albuquerque Public Schools students, Amanda Otero will be back in school today. "My whole summer was about waiting for us to start school," she said Saturday an open house for Atrisco Heritage Academy. I was there too. I'm a teacher at Atrisco and like Otero, my summer was spent eagerly anticipating today. I'm a first-year teacher and the butterflies in my stomach started about a eight months ago when I decided to leave a 20-year career at the Albuquerque Journal to teach.

AYP: Public education's dirtiest little acronym

David Alire Garcia — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:47:07 GMT

NM public schools' report card revisited

State wants to avoid another grade-change scandal

Barbara Armijo — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:00:00 GMT

The New Mexico Public Education Department has adopted a statewide rule about when a student's final course grade can be changed, saying the new rule "should result in the changing of grades only when warranted and should lead to increased public confidence in the process."

Public confidence had eroded with some Albuquerque Public Schools parents last year when an administrator ordered a Rio Grande student's grade change in order to let him graduate on time and at the insistence of his parents -- Bernalillo County Commissioner Teresa Cordova and former APS board member Miguel Acosta.

The black eye that the grade scandal caused lingered, however. Something needed to be done at the state level, and now it looks as if the PED agrees.

Native kids at risk

Barbara Armijo — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:06:00 GMT

A report released late last week concludes that the Bureau of Indian Education is "dangerously unprepared to prevent violence and ensure the safety of students and staff." The 17-page report was prepared by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which visited nine BIE schools, including three in New Mexico that were surveyed in April

The science of green little men

Denise Tessier — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Half a world away, the University of Melbourne in Australia announced this week it is bestowing its first doctorate degree in ufology to a man whose research took him to the three places in the world most key in the history of the subject. The No. 1 spot listed? You guessed it: Roswell, N.M.

In a press release, the university announced:

Martin Plowman, from the School of Culture and Communication, investigated hundreds of UFO sightings and interviewed dozens of ufologists as part of his PhD thesis.

Mr. Plowman will become Dr. Plowman next Saturday (August 9) when he is conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.

As part of his research Mr. Plowman visited key sites in the history of ufology, including Roswell, New Mexico; crop circle hotspots in Wiltshire, England; and the Valley of Elqui in the Chilean Andes, and examined the links between UFO sightings and religion, politics, national security and popular culture.