A BRIEF CRITIQUE OF THE LAS CRUCES PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT’S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

      I have read The Bulletin’s 21 November coverage of re-elected School Board members and their current thinking about educational problems to be addressed and the educational solutions to be adopted.  I am appalled.  Their greatest concerns are matters of accommodating students on the basis of their feelings of belonging and comfort.  So they decry the discomforts of students facing tests or having homework.  Not surprisingly, not one of them shows the least concern about the lack of educational attainment by K-12 students.  Not one mentions the persistent decline in proficiency scores in basic subjects, namely, reading and mathematics. 

An etymological note: “education” derives from a blend of two Latin words, “educare” (to bring up, rear, train) and “educere” (to lead out).  Semantically, the blend means a development from an exclusive responsiveness to one’s inner world (infantile narcissism) to a comprehensive responsiveness to and mediation of one’s inner world and the outer world (adult maturity).  The Las Cruces Public School District has no awareness of this meaning of “education.”  In fact, its philosophy amounts to a rationalization of infantilism.

 

The School Board and the Superintendent yield to the many parents who complain about the number of tests and the homework assigned to their children.  There is too much homework, it is too time-consuming, it is too hard—one re-elected Board member said that not all students can get the multiplication table and urged that the schools should settle for whatever learning happens—, it upsets their children, and it causes too many problems at home.  They also yield to the many teachers, especially elementary school teachers, who cannot teach what the state curriculum requires.  Past Superintendents Stan Rounds and Karen Trujillo admitted to me that none of them knows grammar; neither meant to remedy this professional deficiency.

 

As a result of accommodating these complaints, the standards of educational attainment are simply whatever the student does, without regard to subject-matter mastery.  Board members with many years experience as teachers have no more sense about education in public schools than people with none at all, and perhaps less.  Worse, these Board members act on the soft bigotry of low or, in their case, no expectations of a school population predominantly Hispanic.  They conceal their bigotry with a show of sympathy for the students facing tests and homework, not a commitment to them as future adults who will have lives to live as citizens with personal needs, social obligations, and economic responsibilities.

 

To show the slackness of the educational philosophy of the Las Cruces Public School District, I analyze and evaluate its overarching statements of vision, mission, and values.

 

First, its “Vision Statement: Where all learners thrive.”  This vision is blurred by its vagueness.  Thriving suggests to me potted plants in an environmentally controlled greenhouse.

 

     Second, its “Mission Statement: The Las Cruces Public Schools provides a safe, caring, equitable, and student-centered learning environment that cultivates civic and community engagement, promotes excellence, and honors diversity.”  This statement fails to state a mission usually expressed as a purpose, that is, to do something.  Providing a “learning environment” suggests ensuring only suitable classroom conditions, sufficient furniture, and functioning equipment.  Such environments per se do not cultivate engagement, promote excellence, and honor diversity; there is no need to encourage them.  Engagement and diversity are tangential to and distractions from education; they give teachers and students excuses to do something besides teaching and learning something.  The idea of promoting excellence in an education regime which has no standards other than accepting as good enough whatever the student does is risible.  For student-centered learning dilutes, filters out, or limits learning subject matter.  The main purpose of public education is the transmission of knowledge and skills from teacher to students; once students acquire them, they have enhanced capabilities to pursue their interests, without guidance, direction, or indoctrination by the schools.

 

Third, its “Core Values: Our expectation is that our schools are diverse, equitable and provide [sic] opportunities for the development of critical thinking and democratic ideals and that our schools will uphold these core values:

• Be accountable for every child.

• Foster growth and innovation, grounded in research and evidence.

• Guide all decisions through the lens of equity, sustainability, and respect.

• Commit to the inclusion and success of every student.

• Maintain a safe, healthy, and caring environment.

• Cultivate and maintain partnerships with parents, students, staff, and community members.

• Embrace the power of collaboration.”

 

I note that this statement is devoid of any reference to the schools’ obligation to foster educational achievement in terms of knowledge and skills except for a reference to “critical thinking.”  I doubt that, at the moment of reading this blog, any member of the School Board or the Superintendent can give a cogent definition of critical thinking.  Moreover, they apparently assume that critical thinking can occur in the absence of knowledge or skills.  For nothing in these core values suggests that they believe in the importance of the acquisition of knowledge and skills in academic subjects, whether in the various trades, the various arts, history, literature, mathematics, or science.  Finally, their idea of “excellence” allows an anything-goes standard and accepts annual average proficiency scores in reading and math much below fifty percent.

 

The bankruptcy of the Vision Statement, the Mission Statement, and the statement of Core Values goes a long way to explaining the abysmal education provided by the Las Cruces Public School District.  So long as its leaders maintain their bovine indifference to an education focused on knowledge and skills, they will continue to support and defend teachers who are incompetent and unmotivated—in a word, not committed to teaching their subjects for the good of their students.  But it will celebrate the many LCPS graduates who will continue to lack the education to achieve personal enrichment, constructive civic participation, and professional satisfaction, and tout the teachers who make their educational deficiencies possible.

WHAT J. D. VANCE’S HOPE FOR HIS WIFE’S CONVERSION TELLS US

      I do not think that Vice President J. D. Vance is much good for anything but political self-advancement and expressions of retrogressive political views, personal attacks on opponents, and denigrations of multi-faceted bigotry.  He celebrates the robber-baron and KKK America of the 1920s and excuses the antisemitic and pro-fascist expressions of fellow Republicans. 

Vance’s perverse propensities make his public comment about his hope that Usha Vance, his Hindu wife, will adopt his Catholicism intriguing.  Many have wondered why he made this odd comment in public.  They wonder whether he was undermining his marriage.  They even wonder whether he meant to undermine it.  If so, they would have to wonder why he would.  After all, an annulment would be highly unlikely at this point, and adultery would be contrary to his professed faith and possibly detrimental to his political ambitions.  (I am unsure about the latter point since the MAGA tribe disregards misconduct on their side of the political divide and might approve of his discarding a Hindu wife.)  Some have implied that his public, seemingly intimate embrace of Erika Kirk, Charlie’s ex-wife, at a Turning Point USA gathering in Oxford, MS, on 29 October suggests that he might have an extra-marital romantic interest or intend a post-divorce courtship.

 

I believe that Vance’s remarks and conduct reflect lapses in judgment.  I also believe that they reflect tensions in his marriage arising from rapidly changing circumstances in the past dozen years of his life.  Consider his major life events of those years.  He graduated from Yale law school in 2013, married Usha in 2014, worked in different law and finance jobs, fathered three children born between 2017 and 2021, converted from atheism to Catholicism in 2019, was elected to the Senate in 2022, and became vice president in 2025.  Notable is his conversion after his marriage and between the births of his children.  Understandings and assumptions before his conversion and the birth of a child might change or lapse after them because of new perceptions of, feelings about, and relationships with his wife.  When he was an atheist and childless, his wife’s religion might not have mattered to him; his conversion to Catholicism and his fatherhood might have made her religion a matter of concern.

 

I have no idea how J. D. and Usha’s marriage will evolve.  It is none of my business, and it is none of yours.  It is only their business and the business of their families and perhaps their closest friends.  There I and we should leave it.

 

But for one thing: Vance brought his hope of her conversion into the public domain, not once as a slip, but several times: once, shame on us for making anything of it; more than once, shame on him for what is likely a political motive.  For marriage is a personal and private matter, not a political and public one.  By making his hope public, Vance is likely not only jeopardizing his marriage, but also attempting to advance his political standing.  He seems to be trying to be more than he is, more Christian than most by pushing his faith on his wife and presenting himself as the male head of the family—aspects of virtue to the MAGA tribe and evangelicals.

 

Vance is practicing what most or all of us do at one time or another, but he is practicing it at all times: fashioning oneself to give an advantageous appearance of himself to others.  Most of us have moments of weakness when we worry about how we present ourselves to others.  Do we pretend to be more successful than we are?  Do we give a false but favorable impression of ourselves on social media?  Do we worry that our clothes are not suitable for the occasion or that we speak ungrammatically?  Do we worry about which spoon to use for the soup?  (I recall the old joke about the punishments of those tortured eternally in Hell for their sins: Jews for eating pork, Catholics for eating meat on Friday, Episcopalians for using their salad fork to eat the entrée.)  What we do on a small scale, politicians do on a large scale.

 

Many, if not most, politicians like Vance—in fact, many politicians not like Vance—make a professional practice of fraudulent self-presentations.  The most notorious example is, of course, Donald John Trump, who would have us believe that he is the best at anything, smartest, most stable, most successful, most popular, and on and on.  Aside from the necessary hypocrisy of such self-presentation, there is the threat of self-delusion.  Trump probably does believe himself to be the “est-iest.”  The possibility that he might believe that “Trump is always right,” thereby mislead himself, and endanger all of us should scare the bejesus out of everyone.

 

Environmental influences can effect the same sort of self-delusion.  Rumor has it that, after acting in so many westerns, John Wayne came to adopt the proto-Republican philosophy and its “rugged individual” posture of the cowboy.  Likewise, Ronald Reagan, who began life as a Democrat but, hired as a salesman or spokesman for Republican-owned companies, came to believe his scripted lines and became a Republican.

 

The problem with adopted or induced identifications is a loss of true identity—will the real Vance or Trump or Wayne or Reagan please stand up—and a loss of integrity.  Again, Vance is an interesting specimen.  The many life changes in his short life, from hillbilly to high-tech entrepreneur, suggest his chameleon-like adaptability.  After being an atheist most of his life, he converted to Catholicism and makes a public display of it.  Yet his new-found faith gives no hint of benign influence on his political beliefs or conduct; his professed identity does not square with personal integrity.  Given his conversation, it is remarkable, the more so in view of his narrative of childhood abuses and deprivations, that he shows no concern for the disadvantaged and the discriminated against, and no respect, not to mention love, for his political opponents.  So the question is, who is J.D. Vance?  What is core except personal ambition?  We need answers to these questions because he is more than likely to be a candidate for the presidency in 2028 (and an occupant of the White House even sooner if impeachment or cheeseburgers do not remove Trump from office before then).

MEDIA SILENCE ENABLES LOCAL OFFICIALS’ INCREMENTAL MILITARIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

     Dona Ana County Detention Center (DACDC) in Las Cruces has been notorious for years, if not decades, for mismanagement, fiduciary deficiencies, and carceral abuses.  On 16 October, a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of six detainees added to its notoriety.  On that date, KTSM and KVIA/ABC, two El Paso television stations, posted reports on that lawsuit.  On 20 October, I distributed my blog, “ICE-Like Abuses at Dona Ana County Detention Center Implicate County and Center Leaders,” to over 300 people and posted it for many more.

 

I am unaware of any public response to the television reports.  I received exactly one comment by a local citizen from my over three hundred readers, many of whom are local and state officials.  Since then, local media—Las Cruces Sun-News, The Bulletin, KRWG, and KTAL—and our more prominent media commentators—Peter Goodman, Walt Rubel, Shaunna Pfeiffer, and Heath Haussamen—have ignored the story for two weeks (and counting).

 

In fairness, I have to consider that I am impatient about, not the tardiness of media coverage, but the lack of it altogether.  In fairness, I can dismiss that consideration.  The lawsuit claimed that the DACDC used detainees, some awaiting trial—that is, innocent unless and until convicted of an offense—, as guinea pigs for prisoner control exercises by violent and humiliating means.  The two TV reports should have prompted front-page or first-lead stories and featured editorials in the local media.  But, to paraphrase a line from the movie The Big Easy, this is Las Cruces, darling, and we have a certain way of not doing things here and not talking about not doing them.

 

The usual response of public officials to such horrific reports is the pious claim that “this is not who we are.”  The statement implies the officials’ innocence and denies the facts.  But DACDC abuses, the silence covering them up, and the refusal to confront and correct them are who we are.  The media and their columnists are accessories after the fact.  The members of the Board of Commissioners are accessories both before and after the fact.

 

The elected representatives of Dona Ana and Las Cruces citizens represent a moral laxity though they act with malice aforethought.  Two years ago, the Board approved the acquisition of 150 tasers and other equipment for law enforcement and detention.  DACDC employees have used tasers, not to control riots, but to threaten, punish, and torture detainees.  Although legally limited to work within the confines of the DACDC, members of its Special Operations and Response Team (SORT) have been deployed at Board of Commissioners’ meetings.  SORT is morphing into an off-the-books police force under the control of the County Manager.

 

Meanwhile, as I have noted several times, Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story requested that the Las Cruces City Council seek state funding for five Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) vehicles.  Council did so.  My inquiries about the rationale for them to Story directly or through my District 1 Representative Cassie McClure have received no responses, and State Representatives Joanna Ferrary and Nathan Small have promised to inquire but either have not done so, received no response, or refused to share any information obtained.  With little or no public discussion, much less approval, elected officials are funding training of law enforcement personnel in military tactics, and equipping them with military-style weapons and vehicles

 

Their use and abuse become more likely every day.  President Trump and major federal departments and agencies (DHS, DOJ, FBI, ICE, CBP) are equating peaceful demonstrations or protests with riotous disturbances, even insurrections.  Such incendiary language might prompt poorly qualified, poorly trained, over-equipped, over-eager law enforcement personnel to maim or kill people, damage property—actions far more harmful to the communities in which they operate than anything which demonstrations might do—, and violate laws and constitutional rights in the process.  ICE and CBP agents are already acting like the goons which unaccountable law enforcement personnel invariably become.  Accordingly, they sweep up, assault and batter, and jail even citizen bystanders witnessing their street muggings and abductions—and charge them with offences against government agents.  Just weeks ago, Las Cruces Police Department (LCPD) officers trained rifles on peaceful demonstrators, mostly Hispanic, at the Albert N. Johnson Park.

 

Situations in which federalized National Guard or active-duty troops are stationed in cities already exist.  They and officers from the aforementioned agencies patrol streets, suppress demonstrations, and support arrests and abductions.  Other situations might arise in which states use their National Guards or state police in similar actions.  Notably, the federal government is trying to persuade state and local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal agencies in their daily operations.  In the end, federal law enforcement will influence, if not direct, state and local law enforcement with little sensitivity to state and local conditions.

 

These trends in law enforcement suggest that Dona Ana County and Las Cruces might be no exception; they are already militarizing their law enforcement departments.  Although it is not too late for them to take control of their local constabularies, they are unlikely to do so.  They would have to explain spending public funds and then reversing their decisions on training and arming police officers for military-style operations.  Instead, they are more likely to prepare pious public statements of surprise or concern, or lame, after-the-fact excuses.  The local media’s silence about the ACLU lawsuit ensures the public’s silence and thus precludes political pressure to rectify a potentially dangerous situation.  In that event, officials will continue to acquiesce in the incremental militarization of local law enforcement agencies.