Since Julie at School of Blog scooped me in blogging on some good education happenings in New Mexico that I was hoping to get to next week, I’ll do it now.  Lots of states claim to have part-time legislatures.  New Mexico really does, with a session that lasts just 60 days – among the shortest in the nation. That means the entire session is a nonstop roller coaster ride. It's like nothing I’ve seen in any other state capitol.

A lot of good things have come out of New Mexico in recent years including a three-tiered pay plan for teachers based on licensure, the restoration of collective bargaining rights for public employees and some important improvements in school financing.  There’s also been a pretty big expansion of state support for early childhood education.  

One of the pieces of this was the passage, a couple of years ago, of a pilot extended year program called Kindergarten-plus.  The idea was to give at risk kids a leg up on kindergarten by bringing them in early, so that when the year started some of the gap between them and the other students had closed. You also kept them longer at the end of the year to reinforce what they had learned and to cut down on opportunities for summer learning loss.  K-plus was championed by AFT New Mexico and its President, Christine Trujillo. The bill was sponsored in the legislature by Mimi Stewart, who, in addition to being a legislator. is an Albuquerque reading teacher and AFT member. The initial evaluations were promising. 

You should check out Julie’s post on how this year the program was expanded to grades K-3.  And the minimum wage was increased to boot. For those wondering, the changes described here all were signed into law by Governor Bill Richardson.