Didn’t take long for Sunday’s post on prospects for political influence on developments in education to “come true”. In recent Las Cruces Bulletin article by Todd Dickson, story says there’s a moratorium in place in NM for school year 2013-2014 that blocks approval of new charter schools in our state.
This is quite a surprise to me, given that the Martinez administration, and local officials have made loud noises of approval following the announcement of plans for the 2nd Early College High School to be built next to the present one on NMSU campus/ Arrowhead area. Stan Rounds was quoted on the funds being budgeted in LCPS budget etc, IIRC.
Dickson says it’s a combination of the Public Education Commission and the Legislature that has brought this moratorium about. Which I don’t understand how that was decided, and why or how the Martinez administration could have let this occur. In the bigger picture, it appears to be the northern part of the state “messing with” the southern part of the state….maybe other places want their own Early College HS and the money to start them.
Next to this article, was another story about how the Daniel’s Foundation had given NM $525, 000 to start more Early College HS, and that the legislature had approved another $500k for a total of $1M plus that Martinez was quoted as being excited about spending on more charter HS.
Go figure…
Or maybe certain interests that oppose charter schools are getting more active and pushing back harder. Would like to know more about how this happened. (I didn’t see any news story about this before mention in Bulletin.)
In any event, an example of some sort of politics affecting policy and not necessarily in a good way. Boo!