Posted on 04/29/2022 8:32:12 PM PDT by DoodleBob
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Albuquerque’s K-12 schools should cut staff and think about downsizing its footprint because of dwindling enrollment and spend more for the education of low-income students who fell further behind their peers during this school year, according to a report from the New Mexico Legislature made public Wednesday.
The report from the powerful Legislative Finance Committee recommended that Albuquerque Public Schools let go 400 of the district’s 12,000 employees, but didn’t specify how many of the district’s increasingly empty schools it should shutter. The school district has 144 schools and 73,000 students, down from 85,000 six years ago.
Public schools in New Mexico have not recovered from the exodus of students that accelerated during the pandemic, with enrollment across the state and in Albuquerque still down about 4%, more than the average of 2.6% for 41 U.S. states.
Thousands of families in New Mexico amid the pandemic tried homeschooling or charter schools for the first time and didn’t send their kids back to classrooms this year. ...Rural districts across New Mexico also lost students, though often for different reasons.
“They went to Texas because their schools were open 100%,” said state Sen. Gay Kernan, of Hobbs, in southeastern New Mexico on the Texas border, told Albuquerque education officials at the hearing where the report was delivered Wednesday. “Lesson learned.”
...
Albuquerque enrollment declined 17% over the past decade, driven by lower birth rates and growth at charter schools. Meanwhile per-student funding increased by 49% and achievement gaps between low-income and other students in reading and math widened in Albuquerque more than in the rest of the state.
The report also documented rising facility costs and a 21% increase in learning space, even as enrollment dropped.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Albuquerque enrollment declined 17% over the past decade, driven by lower birth rates and growth at charter schools. Meanwhile per-student funding increased by 49% and achievement gaps between low-income and other students in reading and math widened in Albuquerque more than in the rest of the state.
The report also documented rising facility costs and a 21% increase in learning space, even as enrollment dropped.
Ping.
Less education. That’s exactly what albuquerque needs. /s
My son drove from CA to NC at the height of the pandemic and reported NM was the most evil, closed up, unfriendly state he drove through. The governor was evil and cross country runners in high school were forced to run masked outdoors and passed out (in OR too).
I judge a state by how they treat their high school distance runners.
If the government was in charge of a desert, there would soon be a shortage of sand. I think that came from Milton Friedman.
Governor Lujan Grisham Michelle LGM is still evil.
At least, politically.
Funding up, teacher/student ratio increase ... and learning dropped. Gee, how could that be /s
Did the report take into account the hoard of new students just south of the border?
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