New approach to teaching race in school divides New Mexico - By Cedar Attanasio Associated Press / Report For America
A proposal to overhaul New Mexico's social studies standards has stirred debate over how race should be taught in schools, with thousands of parents and teachers weighing in on changes that would dramatically increase instruction related to racial and social identity beginning in kindergarten.
The revisions in the state are ambitious. New Mexico officials say they hope their standards can be a model for the country of social studies teaching that is culturally responsive, as student populations grow increasingly diverse.
As elsewhere, the move toward more open discussion of race has prompted angry rebukes, with some critics blasting it as racist or Marxist. But the responses also provide a window into how others are wrestling with how and when race should be taught to children beyond the polarizing debates over material branded as "critical race theory."
The responses have not broken down along racial lines, with Indigenous and Latino parents among those expressing concern in one of the country's least racially segregated states. While debates elsewhere have centered on the teaching of enslavement of Black people, some discussions in New Mexico, which is 49% Hispanic and 11% Native American, have focused on the legacy of Spanish conquistadors.
"We refuse to be categorized as victims or oppressors," wrote Michael Franco, a retired Hispanic air traffic controller in Albuquerque who said the standards appeared aimed at categorizing children by race and ethnicity and undercutting the narrative of the American Dream.
The New Mexico Public Education Department's proposed standards are aimed at making civics, history, and geography more inclusive of the state's population so that students feel at home in the curriculum and prepared for a diverse society, according to public statements.
"Our out-of-date standards leave New Mexico students with an incomplete understanding of the complex, multicultural world they live in," Public Education Secretary Designate Kurt Steinhaus said. "It's our duty to provide them with a complete education based on known facts. That's what these proposed standards will do."
The plan calls for students to learn about different "identity groups" in kindergarten and "unequal power relations" in later grades. One part of the draft standards would require high school students to "assess how social policies and economic forces offer privilege or systemic inequity" for opportunities for members of identity groups. In a first for the state, ethnic studies and the history of the LGBT rights movement also would be introduced into the curriculum.
An Albuquerque pastor, Rev. Sylvia Miller-Mutia, welcomed the change in her written comment, arguing children see race early, and that learning about it in school can dismantle stereotypes early. When her eldest child was 3, she said that her Filipino dad wasn't American because he has dark skin, while her mother was American because she has light skin.
"Already, a cultural script that said to be American is to be light-skinned had somehow seeped into my preschooler's consciousness," Miller-Mutia said in an interview.
Many Democratic-run states across the country are looking to diversify those cultural scripts, while Republican-run ones are putting up guardrails against possible changes. California was among the first states last year to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement. Texas passed a law requiring teachers to present multiple perspectives on all issues and one Indiana lawmaker proposed that teachers be required to take a "neutral" position.
The education department in New Mexico is reviewing over 1,300 letters on the proposed standards along with dozens of comments from an online forum in November. The standards were written with input from 64 people around the state, mostly social studies teachers, and are to be published next spring with revisions.
Among the authors was Wendy Leighton, a Santa Fe middle school history teacher. As a leader of the revisions for the history section of the standards, she said the goal was to take marginalized groups like indigenous, LGBTQ and other people "that are often not in textbooks or pushed to the side and making them kind of more closer to the center."
Identity was the center of a class she taught in December, where students learning about the Salem witch trials identified which groups were at the center of power — clergy, men — and which were on the margins — women, servants.
"What's a marginalized group in America today?" she asked the class.
State Republicans have argued that parents should teach their children sensitive topics like race and that there are bigger priorities in a state that ranks toward the bottom in academic achievement.
"The focus that I feel is urgent is math, reading and writing. Not social studies standards," said state Rep. Rebecca Dow, one of six candidates for the Republican nomination for governor next year, hoping to unseat Democratic incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Some parents who wrote public comments said they would rather homeschool their children than have them learn under the proposed standards.
"Struggle and adversity have never been limited to one specific race or ethnicity. Neither has privilege," wrote Lucas Tieme, a father of five public school students, who are white.
Tieme, a bus driver for Rio Rancho public schools, said his wife was homeschooled so they'd be ready to take their kids out of school if it came to that.
Some parents who support the changes generally are skeptical of introducing race for the youngest students.
Sheldon Pickering, 41, has two adopted children who are Black, and has seen casual racism against his kids escalate as they reach adolescence in Farmington, near the southeast corner of Utah and the eastern part of the Navajo Nation. He has had "the talk" with his Black son, instructing him how to interact with police. But Pickering, who is white, worries about schools introducing too much too soon.
"If we start too early, we rob kids of this rare time in their life that they have just to be kids," said Pickering, a cleaning business owner. "They just get to be these amazing little kids and enjoy life without preconceived notions, without context."
Native American tribe, New Mexico ink water leasing deal - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A Native American tribe has agreed to lease more of its water to help address dwindling supplies in the Colorado River Basin, officials announced Thursday.
The agreement involves the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission and The Nature Conservancy.
The tribe has agreed to lease up to 6.5 billion gallons of water per year to the state to bolster flows for endangered species and increase water security for New Mexico.
The water would be released from the Navajo Reservoir in northwestern New Mexico to feed the San Juan River, which flows into the Colorado River.
New Mexico is among the seven Western states that rely on the Colorado River. Water managers elsewhere already have had to come up with contingency plans as less snow, warmer temperatures and water lost to evaporation have affected the river's ability to meet demands.
Daryl Vigil, the Jicarilla Apache Nation's water administrator, highlighted the need for creative solutions as pressure grows across the drought-stricken basin. He also pointed to the benefits of meaningful cooperation with Native American communities.
"This project should serve as a model for effective tribal collaboration and arms-length negotiations among sovereigns throughout the Colorado River Basin," Vigil said in a statement.
Not all tribes in the basin have legal authority to lease water. Some tribes in Arizona already have played a significant role in shoring up water supplies as that state deals with mandatory cuts to its Colorado River allocation.
The Jicarilla Apache Nation's water rights support the tribe's cultural practices and economy while ensuring residents have water to drink.
The tribe subleases most of its water to other users. For several decades, that has included coal-fired power plants in the region. With the plants facing closure, officials said that presented a new opportunity for the tribe, New Mexico and the environmental group to strike a new deal.
"The Colorado River Basin's tribal nations are among the most important leaders and partners in efforts to find lasting solutions to the pressing water scarcity and ecological challenges that face the millions of people who rely on this incredible river," said Celene Hawkins, a tribal engagement program director for The Nature Conservancy.
Santa Fe students to return to the classroom next week - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
Public school students in the state’s capital will return to classrooms next week.
Santa Fe Public Schools is amid a 4-day week of remote learning due to a COVID surge. When it was announced last week, the district said students would return next Monday “if conditions improve.”
Superintendent Larry Chavez said in a statement Thursday that the district has seen a decline in cases – from up to 90 per day prior to closing schools to an average of 30 per day this week.
Chavez says Desert Sage Academy, the district’s online school, is available for families who want their students to continue learning remotely.
The superintendent also said last week the state was unable to supply the district with a sufficient number of COVID tests to meet demand. Now, Chavez says the district has been assured there are enough.
New Mexico health officials Thursday reported 6,010 new COVID-19 cases and 24 additional virus-related deaths.
712 people are hospitalized with the virus in the state.
Arizona utility, Navajo partner on another solar plant - Associated Press
An Arizona utility has signed an agreement with the Navajo Nation to get solar power from a new facility on the reservation.
The Salt River Project and the Navajo Nation already had partnered on two other solar facilities in Kayenta that serve 28,500 homes and businesses on the reservation.
SRP and the tribe extended the agreement for one of those Thursday and signed a power purchase agreement for a new facility in Cameron, a tribal community on the route to the east entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.
Tribal lawmakers approved the lease for the Cameron Solar project last March. The solar plant is expected to produce 200 megawatts of energy for the Salt River Project. About 400 people will be employed during construction, and Navajos will be given preference for the jobs.
Another solar plant is in the works near the Arizona-Utah border in Red Mesa. That one will be owned by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and provide energy largely to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems.
The tribal utility held a job fair for that project last fall, said tribal utility spokeswoman Deenise Becenti. Construction is expected to start next month.
The two solar plants in Kayenta together produce 55 megawatts of energy and employ six people, the tribal utility said. The tribe and SRP extended the agreement Thursday for the initial project to 2038, more closely resembling the length of the agreement for the second Kayenta plant.
The solar plant in Cameron is expected to generate $11 million in land lease payments and $15 million in tax revenue for the tribe over 25 years. It should be complete by the end of 2023.
Some revenue from the project will go toward connecting more Navajo homes to the power grid and keeping rates down for tribal customers, the tribal utility has said.
SRP said the Cameron plant will help it reach its goal of adding 2,025 megawatts of new utility-scale solar to its portfolio by 2025.
Robot umpires at home plate moving up to Triple-A for 2022 - Associated Press
Robot umpires have been given a promotion and will be just one step from the major leagues this season.
Major League Baseball is expanding its automated strike zone experiment to Triple-A, the highest level of the minor leagues.
MLB's website posted a hiring noticeseeking seasonal employees to operate the Automated Ball and Strike system. MLB said it is recruiting employees to operate the system for the Albuquerque Isotopes, Charlotte Knights, El Paso Chihuahuas, Las Vegas Aviators, Oklahoma City Dodgers, Reno Aces, Round Rock Express, Sacramento River Cats, Salt Lake Bees, Sugar Land Skeeters and Tacoma Rainiers.
The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional league to let a computer call balls and strikes at its All-Star Game in July 2019 and experimented with ABS during the second half of that season. It also was used in the Arizona Fall League for top prospects in 2019, drawing complaints of its calls on breaking balls.
There were no minor leagues in 2020 due to the pandemic, and robot umps were used last season in eight of nine ballparks at the Low-A Southeast League.
The Major League Baseball Umpires Association agreed in its labor contract that started in 2020 to cooperate and assist if Commissioner Rob Manfred decides to utilize the system at the major league level.
"It's hard to handicap if, when or how it might be employed at the major league level, because it is a pretty substantial difference from the way the game is called today," Chris Marinak, MLB's chief operations and strategy officer, said last March.
MLB said the robot umpires will be used at some spring training ballparks in Florida, remain at Low A Southeast and could be used at non-MLB venues.
New Mexico asks Guard to sub for sick teachers amid omicron - By Morgan Lee and Cedar Attanasio Associated Press
New Mexico is the first state in the nation to ask National Guard troops to serve as substitute teachers as preschools and K-12 public schools struggle to keep classrooms open amid surging COVID-19 infections.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday the unprecedented effort to reopen classrooms in the capital city of Santa Fe and shore up staffing across the state.
New Mexico has been struggling for years to recruit and retain educators, leaving teaching routinely to long-term substitutes who do not have full teaching credentials.
Her administration says school districts and preschools are seeking at least 800 substitute teachers and day care workers for shifts ranging from one classroom period to the entire day. They're also asking state bureaucrats to volunteer to serve.
Other states have worked to mobilize state workers and National Guard soldiers to support schools. Last year Massachusetts mobilized its National Guard, first to support COVID-19 testing on school campuses, then to drive school buses. On Tuesday, Oklahoma allowed state workers to volunteer as school substitutes while continuing to receive their salaries.
But New Mexico is the first state to report recruiting troops into the classroom in response to COVID-19 staffing shortages.
Members of the Guard will serve on active duty, drawing their usual pay. State workers who teach in classrooms will get marked as paid leave that doesn't subtract from individual vacation allotments.
The governor said state workers are encouraged to participate in a spirit of public service and that no one is being drafted. The state hopes to quickly deploy 500 new substitute teachers and day care workers.
"We've determined that we have enough state employees, with the volunteer support with the Guard, to get to that 500 fairly readily, and that's just looking at key departments like the education department and veterans department," Lujan Grisham said at a news conference on the steps of a vacant high school in Santa Fe.
A surge in infections linked to the omicron variant among school staff and teachers prompted a weeklong switch to remote classes at Santa Fe Public Schools that could end as soon as Monday.
State public education officials say volunteers from the National Guard and state agencies can qualify for substitute teaching with as little as two hours of training and a two-step background check. School districts will decide whether military personnel appear in uniform or casual dress.
The recruiting program seeks volunteers from a pool of 16,000 state workers and 4,000 troops.
Republican House Minority Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia said the governor is calling in the wrong people to resolve a crisis of her own making.
"She wants to be a hero when her administration does something unusual ... just to cover up her failure to put together a plan that works," Townsend said. "They're not teachers. That's not what they were trained to do."
Amid longstanding teacher shortages, the Democrat-led Legislature is weighing proposals to recruit and retain teachers with a minimum 7% pay increase for all public-school staff, increased minimum teacher salaries at various career stages and spending to pay off teachers' student debts.
"Even before COVID, I had a big need for substitute teachers," said state Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus, formerly a school district superintendent at Los Alamos. "Now we've got the omicron variant."
Indigenous woman to lead Smithsonian American Indian museum -Associated press
An Indigenous New Mexico woman has been named to lead the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
Cynthia Chavez Lamar will be the first Native American woman to serve as the museum's director when she takes over on Feb. 14. She's currently the acting associate director for collections and operations.
An enrolled member at San Felipe Pueblo, Chavez Lamar is an accomplished curator, author and scholar whose research has focused on Southwest Native art. Early in her career, she was a museum intern and later an associate curator from 2000 to 2005.
"Dr. Chavez Lamar is at the forefront of a growing wave of Native American career museum professionals," said Lonnie Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian. "They have played an important role in changing how museums think about their obligations to Native communities and to all communities."
Chavez Lamar, whose ancestry also includes Hopi, Tewa and Navajo, will oversee the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the museum's George Gustav Heye Center in New York and the Cultural Resources Center in Maryland, which houses the museum's collections and its curatorial and repatriation offices.
The museum has one of the largest and most extensive collections of Native and Indigenous items in the world. It includes more than 1 million objects and photographs and more than 500,000 digitized images, films and other media documenting Native American communities, events and organizations.
Chavez Lamar said in a statement that she looks forward to leveraging the museum's reputation to amplify Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in the interest of further informing the American public and international audiences of "the beauty, tenacity and richness of Indigenous cultures, arts and histories."
During her tenure as assistant director for collections, Chavez Lamar established partnerships with tribes and developed a loan program for tribal museum and cultural centers that provides training and technical assistance to enhance stewardship and reconnect tribal descendant communities with the museum's collections.
Vacation rentals and Texans’ second homes would be taxed more under proposed bill - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A bipartisan bill introduced this legislative session aims to collect more in taxes from owners of properties used for AirBnB, and as second or third homes here.
New Mexico caps the increase on assessed property value at 3% each year. It’s a policy meant to prevent owners from being driven out of their homes by high property taxes, which are based on the value of their houses.
The 20-year-old cap has meant that longtime homeowners have not seen sudden, huge increases in their property taxes if they live in a neighborhood that is suddenly popular, like in parts of Albuquerque or Santa Fe.
But critics say it is also a giveaway to property owners who can afford the property taxes and are often driving that neighborhood change. And it burdens low-income property owners with an unfair share of the tax levy, said Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Santa Fe), the bill’s sponsor.
Residences that are used for short-term rentals like AirBnB — which can drive up property values and displace residents — shouldn’t get the benefit of the tax, McQueen said.
“To me, it’s a fairness issue,” he said, and if people can afford that second home out in a gated Santa Fe community, they don’t need the benefit of this 3% cap.
“I mean, that’s not what it was intended for,” McQueen said. “It was intended to protect people who were struggling to stay in their homes — not buying up investment properties.”
The bill would increase the cap on assessments from 3% to 10% on “a residential property that is not occupied as a principal place of residence,” beginning in 2024.
McQueen has introduced versions of this bill over the last several years, though 2022’s is slightly different. Last year, it passed the House of Representatives as part of a suite of tax changes, though it did not pass the Senate.
Past versions would have increased the cap on properties not lived in by the owner, which would include rental properties. But McQueen said housing advocates and others fought against that provision, saying that owners would simply pass any property tax increase onto tenants, many of whom are already struggling to pay rent in a hot rental market here.
About one-third of all residences in the state are not occupied by the owner, according to a Legislative Finance Committee evaluation of McQueen’s 2020 bill. There were 943,208 residential properties in the state in 2018, according to the analysis, and 637,609 of them were owner-occupied.
The analysis also concluded that the bill’s effect on local tax revenues would vary widely across the state, which has many towns and counties where market values are increasing less than 3%, anyway. The bill’s effects would overall be “very moderate” on local governments’ revenues, according to the report.
A 2021 report on a similar version of the bill found that the changes could generate $8 million for local governments when it goes into effect.
This year, McQueen took out the language that would have made his bill applicable to rental properties, and he found a Republican co-sponsor — Jason Harper (R-Rio Rancho.) Harper did not respond to a request for comment.
McQueen said he hopes the bill will have a better shot this year, though he acknowledged that the 2022 session is packed. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has included one housing reform bill on her call but has not listed housing as one of her major priorities.
This year’s bill has not yet been evaluated for how much tax revenue it would generate.
The housing bill touted by advocates this year gives tenants more time to come up with rent once they are served with an eviction notice, among other changes, and has the support of tenant advocates and the Apartment Association of New Mexico, which advocates for landlords and property owners.
Airman gets life in prison for death of Mennonite woman - By Felicia Fonseca Associated Press
An Air Force airman will spend the rest of his life in prison for kidnapping a Mennonite woman from northwestern New Mexico, fatally shooting her and leaving her body in the freezing cold in a forest clearing hundreds of miles away.
Mark Gooch, 22, was convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder in October. He was sentenced Wednesday, nearly two years to the date that Sasha Krause went missing while gathering material to teach Sunday school.
Gooch expressed no emotion when Coconino County Superior Court Judge Cathleen Brown Nichols handed down the sentence. Brown Nichols said the case was one of the most senseless she's handled and was perplexed by a motive that never was revealed.
By all indications, Krause and Gooch were strangers who shared an upbringing in the Mennonite faith.
"Even if he knew the person, it wouldn't be justified," Brown Nichols said. "But the fact that he didn't even know her was so very senseless and mind boggling."
Authorities used cell phone and financial records, and surveillance video to tie Gooch to the crimes. The records showed he left Luke Air Force Base where he was stationed in metropolitan Phoenix, drove north past Flagstaff and through the Navajo Nation to Farmington, New Mexico, where Krause worked in the publishing ministry.
Gooch acknowledged he took the trip in a search for the fellowship of Mennonites but he denied taking Krause on Jan. 18, 2020, or killing her.
The community's frantic search for Krause turned up nothing.
Authorities discovered Gooch left Krause's body in a remote area on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona, that had no cellphone service, under the cover of night. The records showed he tried to cover his tracks, asking a friend to hold a .22-caliber gun, getting his car detailed and deleting the location history on his phone.
A camper found Krause more than a month later and alerted authorities. Krause was laying face down with her hands bound with duct tape. The 27-year-old had been shot in the head.
Prosecutors argued Gooch was driven by a disdain for the Mennonite faith that he grew up with in Wisconsin, exhibited by text message exchanges with his brothers. Gooch never joined the church and enlisted in the Air Force where he worked as a mechanic.
"Now, instead of honorably serving his nation, he is going to serve a humiliating life term in prison," Coconino County Attorney William Ring said in a statement after the sentencing hearing. "The victim's faith was important to her, so as guided by Proverbs, we all do right by caring that justice gets done for the vulnerable ones."
Gooch's parents, Jim and Anita, declined to comment after the hearing other than to say they are praying for Krause's family whom they communicated with during the trial.
Gooch's attorney, Bruce Griffen, said he was disappointed Gooch won't have a chance at life outside of prison decades from now. He, too, struggled to understand any motive. Gooch's family and friends described him in court documents as hardworking, respectful, inquisitive and kind.
He had no criminal history.
"I call it the unanswered question," Griffen said. "Still think there's a disconnect. I don't understand it. I don't think anybody understands it at this point."
Gooch briefly spoke during the hearing for the first time, expressing condolences to Krause's family and thanking his family for their support. His eyes scanned the courtroom gallery as sheriff's deputies led him out.
Krause's parents, who live in Texas, didn't attend the hearing in person but asked a representative to read a letter to Brown Nichols. In it, they said Sasha Krause was a good sister, conscientious, eager to read at a young age and determined. She had a sense of confidence that her sisters sometimes took as "bossy," they wrote.
They shared pictures of Krause reading to children, with her family and on a snowy outing in Colorado so the judge could see her as more than a victim, Robert Krause told The Associated Press.
Her parents said they will never understand why their daughter was kidnapped and murdered but said it had to be part of God's plan.
"God will use her death for His glory, and I am convinced He has eternal purposes for Sasha that we can only guess about, from here," they wrote.
The Farmington Mennonite Church Community addressed a letter directly to Gooch ahead of the sentencing hearing, although it's unclear if he saw it. They described Gooch's crimes as heinous but wrote that they believe he has some remorse and urged him to repent fully.