I recently received an email inviting me to attend an upcoming New Mexico First event. Apparently, the Legislative Education Study Committee has contracted with New Mexico First to convene a town hall utilizing their consensus process to deliver a report on the “APS Organization and Structure for Maximum Student Success.” It is expected that one questions which is bound to arise is “should APS be redistricted.”
Redistricted? If that’s another way of putting should APS be broken up (subscription) into multiple districts, I agree with former Governor Gary Johnson and believe the answer is a resounding, “no.”
At some point, hopefully our legislators and others will begin to understand that research shows that changes in the overall administrative and governance structure at the district and state level have no measurable impact on student performance. Recent statewide performance after the heavily pushed restructuring of state’s education system prove this to be true.
Unfortunately, prior committments make it impossible for me to spend three days back to back (pdf) on this discussion. What are those committments? Well, I’ll be coaching elementary school kids on the finer points of soccer on Friday and in a game on Saturday, and I’ll be volunteering through Junior Achievement at a local high school. You know, things that improve student performance.