ATTORNEY GENERAL RAÚL TORREZ’S MOMENT OF TRUTH: IS HE COMMITTED TO OPEN GOVERNMENT?

      New Mexico’s Attorney General and likely future candidate for governor, Raúl Torrez, faces a challenge to his commitment to open government.

In December 2024, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) received my complaint about a Las Cruces City Council committee, the Public Safety Select Committee (PSSC), with its three city councilors, operating in secret for years.  OAG directed my complaint to the Government Counsel and Accountability Bureau (GCAB), which took my complaint so lightly that it assigned it to an “Honors [read: entry-level] Attorney” Isabelle Lopez.  Her flaccid questions elicited anodyne and evasive answers from Las Cruces City Attorney Brad Douglas; Ms. Lopez accepted them at face value and dismissed my complaint.  When I criticized her cursory handling of my complaint, the GCAB reassigned it to Rebecca M. Guay, GCAB Deputy Director, who ratified Ms. Lopez’s dismissal in October 2025.

 

Meanwhile, in May 2025, I notified FOG of my complaint to the OAG.  Executive Director Christine Barber was impressed with my complaint and the amount of evidence which I had to support it.  That evidence resulted from my Inspection of Public Record Act (IPRA) request which City Clerk Christine Rivera, advised by then City Attorney Linda Samples, resisted until my lawsuit forced the release of (presumably) all relevant records unredacted and a $95,000 settlement in August 2024.  For the next year, FOG thoroughly investigated my complaint in light of my evidence and other evidence which it uncovered.  In May 2026, FOG concluded its investigation with a seven-page letter to the four city councilors who sat on the PSSC, with copies to current Council members, Mr. Douglas, and Ms. Rivera.  At the same time, FOG sent the OAG a copy of this letter and a more detailed statement with abundant documentary evidence to recommend a re-opening of my complaint.

 

I have some hope that AG Torrez will re-open my complaint.  If he does, he runs two risks.  One, he might offend the political establishment by investigating two current candidates: Gabe Vasquez (D) for Congress and Ken Miyagishima (I) for governor.  Two, he might offend staff by reversing the previous dismissals of my complaint by two GCAB lawyers.  However, if he does not re-open my complaint, he runs the risk of appearing to be protecting politicians of his party and not to be taking open government seriously.  FOG’s exhaustive analysis suggests egregious violations of open meeting provisions in local ordinances and state laws.  The need to pursue these violations, repair the damage, and punish the perpetrators is great.

 

So that interested readers can judge for themselves, I provide copies of Douglas’s replies and FOG’s letter, which summarizes the alleged violations.  Obviously, these included documents make my blog very long.  I add concluding remarks after these next two sections.

 

•      •      •      •      •

 

Douglas’s replies to OAG queries (my typescript of the pdf file):

 

Thank you for your communication dated May 1, 2025, regarding the subject matter above [Open Meeting Act Complaint].  In the interests of cooperation and transparency, I will answer your inquiries to the best of my ability.  To be candid, I agree with your initial assessment that several of the complainant’s allegations fall outside the scope of the Open Meetings Act (“OMA”) but will do my best to assist you with a determination as to whether the Public Safety Select Committee meetings were properly closed to the public.  I have conferred with the City Clerk (the city’s records custodian) along with other city officials to answer your inquiries to the best of my ability.  Below are the City’s enumerated responses:

 

Request No. 1: Please confirm or deny, and provide any and all documentation, that the purpose and duties of the PSSC was [sic] only to provide input, comment, or make recommendations to the City of Las Cruces City Council.

 

Answer:  It is the City’s position that the purpose of the PSSC was only to provide input, comment, or make recommendations to the City Council.  Attached please find the agenda for the very first PSSC meeting, taking place on July 21, 2021.  The agenda references the authority and scope of the PSSC, pursuant to L.C.M.C Sec. 2-1101, and paragraph A(1)(d) states that, “The recommendations of a select committee shall not be binding and are subject to approval of the city council or the city manager in accordance with the city charter.”

 

Also attached, please find an email from the City’s chief administrative officer, stating that the Mayor determined that council membership would be Mayor Miyagishima, Mayor Pro Tem Gandara, and Councilor Vasquez.  Please note that a quorum of the city council was never present for any of these meetings.

 

Request No. 2: Please confirm or deny, and provide any and all documentation, that the PSSC did not make any decisions, or take any final action, on behalf of the City of Las Cruces City Council.

 

Answer: After a records check of all resolutions and ordinances during the relevant time period, I have found no actions taken by the PSSC on behalf of the City Council.  Upon information and belief, the PSSC never made decisions or took final action that would have been within the. purview of the City Council.

 

Request No. 3: Please confirm or deny, and provide any and all documentation, that the PSSC did not formulate recommendations that were binding in any legal or practical way on the City of Las Cruces City Council.

 

Answer: After a records check of the relevant time period, I have found no evidence that the PSSC made any presentation to City Council.  In any event, even if the PSSC had made presentations, these recommendations would not have been binding pursuant to L.C.M.C. Sec 2-1101(d), which states that, “The recommendations of a select committee shall not be binding and are subject to approval of the city council or the city manager in accordance with the city charter.”

 

Request No. 4: Please confirm or deny, and provide any and all documentation, that the PSSC did not establish policy for the City of Las Cruces City Council.

 

Answer: Please see the City’s response to Request No. 3.  There is no documentation that the PSSC ever established policy on behalf of the City Council.

 

Request No. 5: Please provide the names of members who served on the PSSC during 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Answer: Upon information and belief, in 2020 the membership of the PSSC included Councilor Gabe Vasquez, Mayor Pro Tem Kasandra Gandara, and Mayor Ken Miyagishima.  When Councilor Vasquez left office in 2021, he was subsequently replaced by Councilor Tessa Abeyta.  The rest of the council membership remained the same thereafter.  Other members included former police chief Miguel Dominguez, former fire chief Jason Smith, former city Manager Ifo Pili, former city attorney Jennifer Vega, and for a brief period in 2023, former city attorney Linda Samples.

 

Request No.6: Please provide the names of members who served on the City of Las Cruces City Council during 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

 

Answer: Please see City’s answer to Request No. 5 (above) with regard to members of the PSSC who were members of City Council.

 

Please let me know if the information I have provided answers all of your questions.  In the event that any of my responses are unclear and/or unresponsive, please let me know as soon as possible so that I may clarify.  If you should need any supplementary information, I would be happy to provide it if I can.  I hope you are doing well.

 

•      •      •      •      •

 

FOG’s letter:

 

RE: Violations of the Las Cruces Municipal Code and Open Meetings Act

 

Dear U.S. Rep. Gabriel Vasquez, former Mayor Ken Miyagishima, former City Councilor Kasandra Gandara, and former City Councilor Tessa Abeyta:

 

I write to provide notice of multiple violations of the Las Cruces Municipal Code and the New Mexico Open Meetings Act (“OMA”), NMSA 1978, § 10-15-1 et seq., which occurred between 2020 and 2023 while you served on the City of Las Cruces Public Safety Select Committee (PSSC).

 

The violations include, but are not limited to, the following:

1.     Violation of Las Cruces City Code § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(B);

2.     Violation of Las Cruces City Code § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(A), and Section 10-15-1(B) of the Open Meetings Act by Operating as an Exempt Committee

3.     Violation of Section 10-15-1(A) of the Open Meetings Act by Conducting Public Business Through Closed-Door Votes;

4.     Violation of the Open Meetings Act Through the Use of a Closed Committee to Control Public Policy Discussions;

5.     Violation of Section 10-15-1(B) Through the Use of Committees to Circumvent OMA; and

6.     Failure to Provide Public Notice and Permit Public Attendance.

 

Background

 

On January 6, 2020, the Las Cruces City Council unanimously amended Ordinance 2908 to revise the requirements governing “select committees,” which “may be established by the mayor or city council to provide the mayor and city council with information and advice on the goals and objectives stated in the city charter or the city's strategic plan.” [LCC § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101].

 

On December 20, 2020, the City Council received written notice from Mayor Ken Miyagishima establishing the Public Safety Select Committee. The notice stated that the committee would include Mayor Miyagishima, Mayor Pro Tem Kasandra Gandara, Councilor Gabriel Vasquez, the city manager, and the city attorney. Additional participants included the Chief of Police, the Fire Chief, and other city staff. In 2022, Councilor Vasquez was replaced by Councilor Tessa Abeyta.

 

According to PSSC agendas, the final meeting of the committee was November 10, 2023.

 

Violation of Las Cruces City Code § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(B)

 

Under the Select Committee Ordinance, the mayor was required to provide written notice to the City Council upon establishment of the PSSC. The ordinance expressly states: “if the mayor establishes a select committee, the city council shall be given written notice of the establishment.” [LCC § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(B)].

 

Substantial evidence indicates, however, that the PSSC existed and operated months — and possibly years — before such notice was provided to the City Council, and that it was previously referred to as the “Community Mitigation Committee” or “Public Safety Committee.”

 

During the twelve months preceding the committee’s formal establishment:

·       Mayor Miyagishima, City Attorney Jennifer Vega-Brown, and Mayor Pro Tem Gandara referenced the PSSC by name on ten occasions during four separate City Council meetings and indicated that the committee was already operational;

·       City staff, Mayor Miyagishima, Mayor Pro Tem Gandara, and Councilor Gabriel Vasquez participated in thirteen email chains referencing the PSSC; and

·       City Attorney Vega-Brown included in a PowerPoint presentation to the City Council the statement: “allow Public Safety Select Committee the opportunity to vet options.”

 

These references occurred despite the fact that the PSSC had not yet been formally created.

 

Further, campaign materials published in 2023 by mayoral candidate Kasandra Gandara stated: “The City of Las Cruces established its Public Safety Select Committee in December 2015 to address issues related to safety and well-being in our community.” If accurate, this would mean the committee had been operating for approximately six years before either the City Council or the public received formal notice of its existence.

 

Violation of Las Cruces City Code § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(A), and Section 10-15-1(B) of the Open Meetings Act by Operating as an Exempt Committee

 

The Select Committee Ordinance authorizes select committees solely “to provide the mayor and city council with information and advice.”

 

This limitation mirrors longstanding guidance from the New Mexico Attorney General regarding committees exempt from OMA. According to the Attorney General, an exempt committee is one that:

1.     Engages solely in fact-finding

2.     Simply executes the policy decisions or final actions of the public body; and

3.     Does not otherwise act as a policymaking body.”

[The Inspection of Public Records Act: A Compliance Guide on Government Transparency for New Mexicans and Their Public Officials, N.M. Department of Justice 2024, pg 8]

 

There is no evidence that the PSSC functioned in this limited advisory capacity.

 

A review of agendas and minutes from 252 City Council meetings between 2019 and 2025 revealed that the PSSC was mentioned only three times, and never in connection with providing facts, information or recommendations to the City Council. Likewise, a review of City Council transcripts and communications between city officials produced no evidence that the committee ever submitted formal or informal recommendations to the Council.

 

Instead, available records demonstrate that the PSSC actively formulated, discussed, and controlled public policy matters, including but not limited to:

·      rewriting ordinances concerning domestic violence and civilian police oversight;

·      drafting RFPs for police auditing services and crisis response units;

·      discussing police policies, including use-of-force standards, officer mental health evaluations, and crisis intervention procedures; and

·      deliberating issues relating to homelessness, speed enforcement, fentanyl, gun safety, police case closures, and pending litigation.

 

The committee’s policymaking role was expressly acknowledged by city staff. In a November 13, 2023, email, Sergio Ruiz, policy analyst for the city manager’s office, described the Public Safety Committees as “an integral part of the policy-making process.”

 

Violation of Section 10-15-1(A) of the Open Meetings Act by Conducting Public Business Through Closed-Door Votes

 

Section 10-15-1(A) of OMA provides: “The formation of public policy or the conduct of business by vote shall not be conducted in closed meetings.”

 

Nevertheless, the PSSC made substantive policy determinations in closed meetings and, in at least one instance, prevented rejected policy proposals from reaching the full City Council for public consideration.

 

At a November 10, 2022, PSSC meeting, Mayor Miyagishima and Councilors Abeyta and Gandara considered a proposal concerning a citizen police review committee. Each expressed opposition to the proposal, and the matter was not forwarded to the City Council.

 

At the subsequent December 5, 2022, City Council meeting, another councilor attempted to place the matter on the agenda. Mayor Miyagishima refused to permit the issue to proceed, and PSSC members actively discouraged further discussion.

 

Violation of the Open Meetings Act Through the Use of a Closed Committee to Control Public Policy Discussions

 

Section 10-15-1(B) of OMA requires meetings to be open to the public when held for “formulating public policy” or “discussing public business.”

 

The record demonstrates that the PSSC operated as a policymaking body and further acted to prevent public discussion of public safety policy matters by the full City Council.

 

For example, during a November 23, 2020, City Council work session concerning police accountability, City Attorney Vega-Brown advised that proposed policy changes “would be vetted through … the Public Safety Select Committee.” Mayor Miyagishima repeatedly instructed councilors who wanted to discuss policy to “follow procedure” and allow matters to proceed through the PSSC first.

 

A similar pattern occurred during City Council meetings on April 3 and April 17, 2023, when four councilors requested a special public safety work session. Despite having sufficient votes to call such a session, Mayor Miyagishima stated that any proposal for a work session first needed approval from the PSSC before reaching the City Council.

 

These statements and actions demonstrate that the PSSC functioned not as a limited advisory body, but as a gatekeeping body, controlling which public safety issues could be publicly discussed by elected officials.

 

If we reconsider the Attorney General’s Definition of a committee that is exempt from OMA, it is clear that the PSSC:

 

1.     Did not solely do fact finding

2.     Did act as a policymaking body

 

Thus, the committee was required to follow OMA.

 

The PSSC’s actions as described above rebut the findings of the Attorney General’s Office in its October 20, 2025, disposition letter, where it reasoned that “the the absence of evidence to the contrary”…”that that the PSSC made decisions on behalf of, formulated recommendation that were binding in any legal or practical way on, or otherwise established policy for the City Council”…”our office finds that the PSSX’s meetings were not subject to the provisions of OMA.”  Since we have evidence to the contrary, we will be asking the Attorney General’s Office to reconsider their findings.

 

Violation of Section 10-15-1(B) Through the Use of Committees to Circumvent OMA

 

The final sentence of Section 10-15-1(B) states: “No public meeting … shall be closed or dissolved into small groups or committees for the purpose of permitting the closing of the meeting.”

 

Additionally, our state appellate courts have held that, “[i]t is patently contrary to the OMA’s purpose to permit a public body to avoid the OMA’s requirements simply by delegating its responsibilities to a [committee].” [N.M. State Inv. Council v. Weinstein, 2016-NMCA-069, ¶ 75, 382 P.3d 923, 10 N.M. 287]

 

The legislative history surrounding the amendment of the Select Committee Ordinance strongly suggests that avoiding public scrutiny was a motivating factor behind creation of the PSSC.

 

During the January 6, 2020, City Council meeting where changes to the select committee ordinance were approved, City Attorney Vega-Brown stated that select committees were needed because “there are instances in which we have to discuss potential litigation, things like that, that would be better kept in a more confidential setting.”

 

Similarly, at a February 27, 2023, City Council meeting, City Clerk Christine Rivera stated that select committee meetings “are not subject to OMA” and that discussions included attorney-client privileged matters and unreleased audit reports.

 

These statements indicate an intent to utilize select committees as a mechanism for conducting public business outside public oversight.

 

Failure to Provide Public Notice and Permit Public Attendance

 

The Select Committee Ordinance requires that “[t]he membership, purpose, duties, and duration of the select committees … shall be made available to the public.” [LCC § 2-IV-7, Sec. 2-1101(A)].

 

Likewise, OMA provides that “[a]ll meetings of any public body … shall be public meetings, and all persons desiring shall be permitted to attend and listen to the deliberations and proceedings.” [Section 10-15-1(A)].

 

The available evidence demonstrates that the City actively resisted public disclosure concerning the PSSC’s existence and activities.

 

In response to a June 25, 2023, Inspection of Public Records Act request submitted by Michael Hays seeking records related to the PSSC, the City initially produced only thirteen documents, declared the request excessively burdensome, and later released heavily redacted records. Following litigation, the City ultimately produced the requested records after incurring approximately $95,000 in legal costs. [See Hays v. City of Las Cruces, D-307-CV-2023-02167 (N.M. Dist. Ct. 2023)]

 

The public repeatedly requested transparency regarding the PSSC during City Council meetings, including requests for agendas, minutes, and public access to meetings. Those requests were consistently denied or ignored.

 

Even City Council members who did not serve on the committee were denied access to meeting notices, agendas, and minutes, prompting them to repeatedly lodge complaints regarding the committee’s secrecy and lack of accountability.

 

For example, On Feb. 27, 2023, Councilor Yvonne Flores stated: “I just want to share with everybody in this room that … I know as much about [the public safety committee] as you do. … nothing gets reported to us, so I want the public to know that.”

 

Conclusion

 

The factual record establishes the following:

1.     The Select Committee Ordinance was amended to facilitate discussions of public policy in a confidential setting;

2.     The PSSC operated before the City Council and public received formal notice of its existence;

3.     The PSSC formulated and controlled public policy outside public view;

4.     The committee acted to prevent broader City Council discussion of certain policy matters; and

5.     The City repeatedly withheld information regarding the committee’s activities from both the public and non-member councilors.

 

Taken together, these facts support the conclusion that the Public Safety Select Committee was intentionally structured and operated in a manner designed to permit the formulation, discussion, and control of public safety policy outside the view of the public and outside the requirements imposed by the Open Meetings Act.

 

In effect, the PSSC functioned as a secret policymaking committee.

 

Such conduct is a violation of both the letter and spirit of New Mexico’s transparency laws, which exist to ensure that public policy is debated openly and that governmental decision-making remains accountable to the public.

 

Rectifying the harm done to the public

 

Given the substantial harm caused to the public by denying its fundamental democratic right to observe elected officials discuss and make decisions on matters of public policy, we believe the City Council should take immediate corrective action.

 

One meaningful step toward restoring public trust would be to repeal the Select Committee Ordinance from the Las Cruces Municipal Code. The ordinance’s practical effect was to facilitate the creation and operation of committees that conducted public business outside public view. Repealing the ordinance would demonstrate to the public that the City Council recognizes the seriousness of these violations and is committed to ensuring that similar conduct does not occur again.

 

We have been informed that no current committees operate under the Select Committee Ordinance. If that is true, repealing the ordinance would impose little to no operational burden on the City Council while serving as an important first step toward restoring transparency, accountability, and public confidence in local government.

 

•      •      •      •      •

 

My concluding comments: Both Ms. Lopez’s questions and Mr. Douglas’s answers assume that the PSSC did not operate in a rogue fashion concealed by its secrecy—the contrary being the point of my complaint.  Secret operations, if any, would be unlikely to have documentation, the lack of which in such operations is no proof of PSSC compliance with relevant Las Cruces Municipal Code (LCMC) or OMA requirements.  The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Mr. Douglas cites the LCMC as if an ordinance proves compliance.  If so, laws against speeding would prove compliance with speed limits, as if there were no speeders.  FOG’s specification of OMA violations gives the lie to Mr. Douglas’s anodyne and evasive answers, and suggests that the City as represented by the City Attorney does not take either the OMA or the OAG and its lawyers seriously.  The Attorney General’s decision to re-open or not my complaint will clearly indicate whether AG Torrez himself respects the rule of law, takes the OMA seriously, and regards governmental transparency as important to democracy in New Mexico.

In this context, I cite a passage from a 20 December 2024 letter from Blaine Moffatt, Division Director, Government Counsel and Accountability Division to Mayor Enriquez, Councilor Bencomo, and City Attorney Douglas that OAG will be especially attentive to future complaints.  It advises them that “Future complaints related to your public body will be examined with increased attention, and further information regarding your public body’s training and policies may be requested to determine what additional intervention may be needed and whether an enforcement action may be necessary to ensure government accountability.”  As my mother would say, “we shall see what we shall see.”

AI NEEDS TO BE REPLACED BY AI FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO SUCCEED IN LIVES AS WELL AS LIVELIHOODS

      I am absolutely not one to seek out reading to confirm prior opinions, but I do not reject such reading.  By chance, I came across an article which caught my eye, then confirmed my beliefs about AI and lent indirect support to other beliefs about related aspects of higher education.  In “Bosses Horrified as ‘AI Native’ College Graduates Hit the Workplace,” Joe Wilkins recapitulates major studies on the effects of AI on college education.  The article is not analytical, but it is alarming, as shown in three (lightly edited) passages. 

Wilkins cites a New York financier who says that “new hires who were seen as ‘AI natives’ are turning out to have alarmingly shallow ideas. So much so … that his firm now actively avoids seeking out AI-literate STEM graduates, and opts to comb through humanities students instead.”  He added, “We want critical thinking, not just AI.”

 

Wilkins summarizes, “Over the past few years, a veritable tidal wave of headlines, studies, and think pieces have flooded the internet with horror stories about the decline in literacy rates, social skills, and critical thinking abilities of the country’s college students.” Noting these factors have existed before AI was adapted, AI “only seems to be accelerating the drop-off in real-life abilities, particularly among young people for whom it can serve as a cognitive crutch.”

 

Wilkins concludes, “students who go all-in on AI at the expense of other skills will likely find themselves ill-prepared for the actual demands of life after college.”

 

Nothing about this article surprises me, and nothing about it should surprise anyone with half an education, which is less than what one gets from a largely, if not exclusively, technical education.  For, ultimately, technical subjects are centered on numbers, merely the quantitative dimensions of reality.  As William Bruce Cameron, not Albert Einstein, wrote in 1963, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”  The quotation circumscribes the technical subjects encompassed by STEM: science, technology, engineering, mathematics.

 

I do not say this as a foe of technical subjects and a friend of the humanities.  I have walked on both sides of the science/humanities divide and am much the better for both journeys.  I hope that you will excuse me if I adopt an autobiographical approach to this topic.

 

I spent my first 18 years preparing for a life in science.  In elementary school, I was a “nature boy.”  In junior and senior high school, I was a science “brainiac,” a good student in math and science.  I earned good grades, praise, and awards.  Nevertheless, in my junior and senior years, despite having excellent teachers, I began to lose interest in these subjects.  Fortunately, I had not let success in math and science divert me from my interests in the humanities.  I continued my love of history from my earliest years and slowly came to appreciate literature but, ironically, not Shakespeare, whom I thought a bore and a fraud; the irony, of course, is that, a decade-and-a-half later, I became a Shakespeare scholar.  There is a moral here: one never knows how interests will evolve, and early success is no guarantee of future interest or success.

 

I was lucky.  When I arrived at my university as an engineering physics student, I knew that I did not want to design nuclear weapons or spaceships—which is what I thought EP graduates did (computers were on the horizon only because they were huge)—, soon transferred to liberal arts, and ended up, four degrees later, with a Ph.D. in English.  Others were not so lucky.  As a dormitory counselor, I saw many freshmen who were successful in math and science in high school encounter difficulty in college.  They had good analytical skills in technical courses but poor critical thinking skills because they had loafed through courses in the humanities.  For some, the failure was too great to reverse, and they dropped out, to what future I never knew.  For others, the failure spurred them to repair the deficit, and they found a path to fields in which they had a genuine interest, not one based on external rewards: high grades, praise, awards, and expectations of future earnings, high status, etc.  I have had some of those things throughout my education and since, but I did not let them make decisions for me, and, so I opine, no one should.

 

Although I had no more education in math and science, my career had its ironies.  I became a consultant to high-tech companies and did a lot of work on civilian and military uses of nuclear energy.  In one instance, after organizing a research schema to evaluate the effectiveness of a nuclear power regulation, the project director asked me if I wanted to be a nuclear engineer.  A few years later, I persuaded the Secretary of Commerce that a White House proposal to merge six DOE energy labs into the DOC was not in the national interest; the proposal was dropped.  As I said, I have been better off with an education in both technical subjects and the humanities.

 

Although I know little about AI, I know that it is a threat to students for whom it plays a dominant part in their education as nothing more than vocational training.  AI can survey vast tracts of information, digest it, and deposit it into papers and reports (GIGO: garbage in, garbage out) to which the student has contributed little.  (Teachers can use AI to grade papers—really, grade the AI which generated them.)  AI becomes an addiction for the lazy who avoid grappling with the subjects or the thinking which should go into a good education.  As many STEM-type graduates are finding these days, in the title of a folk song, “easy’s gettin’ harder every day.”

 

I have not looked at recruitment ads for a long time.  In my day, employers would state a requirement for good writing.  The statement was mostly empty talk; they rarely considered an applicant’s writing.  But, as Wilkins’s article indicates, employers want applicants who can think across a broad range of subjects, which is what critical thinking involves, and are finding that those whose skills are limited to AI and associated technical subjects do not fit their needs.  Understandably so: AI makes many entry-level positions demanding in terms of non-technical issues.  Those ignorant about or unskilled in dealing with the multi-dimensional, multi-factored, multi-layered issues involved are not going to do their jobs, their employers, their customers, or themselves much good.  I titled this blog “AI Needs to Be Replaced by AI” as a puzzle to the reader.  I really mean Artificial Intelligence Needs to Be Replaced by Actual Intelligence.

 

Finally, those “critical thinking” issues are the kinds which permeate life away from work.  They are part of family and social relationships, and civic, political, and religious life.  In my experience, most people who limit themselves to technical fields and dismiss the humanities turn out to be boring to everyone except their fellow bores.  And their ignorance of the humanities makes them dangerously prone to be dupes for demagogues.

NEW MEXICO’S CONTINUING SLIDE IN READING AND MATH

      I have lived in Las Cruces for nearly two decades.  In that time, I have seen few changes and little improvement in K-12 public education as well as social services, both of which position New Mexico near or at the bottom of national rankings.  In that time, I have heard no voices calling for the kind of change, not just tinkering, required to improve these government services to the citizenry.  I have inferred that state and local officials and leaders prefer to support the status quo; it defines their comfort zones in government offices and civic organizations.

Case in point, a brief exchange with an officer of a local civic organization.  I disagreed with his conventional positions on public education, most notably, higher salaries for teachers and poverty as an excuse for poor student performance.  When I suggested that the major cause is the incompetence of elementary school teachers, he said that there are many factors involved, with poverty the main one.  I agreed that many factors are involved but disagreed that poverty is a decisive factor.  When I noted that teacher competence is a factor never considered, he looked distressed and excused himself to talk with someone else.

 

For officials and leaders, to consider the qualifications of teachers is to commit political or civic suicide.  Nothing can disturb the status quo in which the purpose of public education at all levels in New Mexico is employment, with its benefits to reflexive supporters of teachers.  The state has the same number of public institutions of higher education as Massachusetts, a state with a population over three times larger.  By inference, New Mexico teachers constitute a share of the state population over three times larger than Massachusetts teachers do.

 

Moreover, these large numbers of teachers, aides, and auxiliaries are members of a state union with local chapters.  As a labor organization, not a professional organization, its obligation is to its members, not to their profession, with standards of competence and ethics.  As such, it uses its influence in the state legislature and with the Public Education Department to oppose educational reforms which might threaten the status quo of credentials and seniority, to control entry into and placement in the profession, and to protect members from efforts to raise the professional standards of teachers.

 

At the same time, New Mexico schools of education devote too much attention to worthy, but educationally derivative, concerns.  I entirely favor diversity, equity, and inclusion (see my blog), but these schools should not make them the primary focus of teacher education.  That focus should be on ensuring that prospective graduates have subject-matter mastery of the courses which they expect to teach.  I recognize that such a focus places a special burden on prospective elementary school teachers, who must provide the foundations of all four basic subjects: English, math, history, and science.  Unfortunately, too many, over 90%, choose to concentrate in English and rely on teachers’ manuals in the other subjects.  Even in the English concentration, few of the courses cover the kind of materials taught in elementary grades.  Not surprisingly, the result of misdirected focus and inadequate preparation is that fourth-grade proficiency scores in English and math are in the 30s- and 20s-percent ranges, respectively.

 

Matters are made worse by current course curriculums and associated texts books  In 2010, the collective wisdom of 45 state and a few territory departments of education, most with staffs having Ph.D.’s in education, appeared in the Common Core State Standards in English and math.  I read the K-12 English standards, found them fundamentally flawed, and criticized them in Sun-News columns and my blogs (no longer available on my website) in 2013.  The most important of my many criticisms is that the standards are not standards at all; they are statements of performances without any metric or scale of achievement.  Understandably, this anything-is-good-enough approach led to a slide in student achievement which continues to this day.

 

A recent study by researchers at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Stanford has found that the national decline in literacy and numeracy began, not with the Covid pandemic, but a decade earlier, about 2012, just after CCSS went into effect.  The same decline in proficiency scores in New Mexico dates from that time.  Its Public Education Department, like departments in many other states, adopted not only the CCSS English curriculum, but also textbooks which provided snippets of literature and smatterings of grammar and composition instruction to boost test scores.  These efforts do not provide students with a solid education; instead, they aim for results placating parents, enhancing real estate values, and suggesting a workforce attractive to business.

 

Notwithstanding, test scores continue to decline throughout the state.  And they will continue to do so because the state either does not care or dreads far-reaching remedies.  Well-intentioned leaders of civic organizations might care, but they are underinformed about education.  It goes without saying that elected officials are derelict in their duties.  Both parties are wrong to refuse to address the sorry facts about public education and their implications.  The brief exchange which I had with one officer of a civic organization is not unlike similar exchanges which I had years ago with Lt. Governor Howie Morales and Senator Bill Soules, and have had since with LCPS School Board members.  My views, especially about elementary school teachers, alarm them because they imply very different policies and practices in public education.  They too raise the all-purpose excuse, poverty, to explain the state’s poor performance and emphasize it as a hindrance to improved education.  If they were right, if improvement in education were hindered by poverty, then they should explain why the state spends increasingly large sums on education without first having reduced or eliminated poverty.

 

But they were wrong in the past, and they are demonstrably wrong in the present.  Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, all three about the economic equals of New Mexico and with large, poor, minority populations, have lately adopted new policies, revised curriculums, and enhanced teacher preparation, the results of which have led to dramatic, measurable improvements in student literacy.  (Liberals and progressives initially slandered the results as biased or rigged, but they have since accepted their improvements as valid and, swallowing their pride, now consider following the lead of these states.)  Yet I doubt that New Mexico will consider their example.  The state is too insular and too lethargic, too indifferent to public service, and too controlled by interests vested in the status quo to reform the only public service which can help end the state’s reliance on its third-world economy of agriculture, mining, and tourism (film-making—are you kidding?); end its permanent status as a welfare client of the federal government; and make it attractive to young people, including professionals, and businesses and industries of the future.

 

I offer a few suggestions for reforms without elaborate arguments in their behalf.  I invite responses to this blog on my website: https://firstimpressionssecondthoughts.blogspot.com/.

 

·      Base teacher certification, not on the completion of an education major or degree, but on passing an independently developed, administered, and scored (85% or better) subject-matter competency test in each subject to be taught (like the nursing NCLEX).

 

·      Make teacher certification and this testing available to any applicant, regardless of education or employment history, so that non-teaching professionals, including retired military personnel or retired professionals in fields related to academic subjects, may be considered.

 

·      Require schools of education to revise curriculums to emphasize, and ensure graduates have, subject-matter mastery in the courses which they expect to teach.

 

·      Adopt English textbooks in literature which provide whole-work reading, and require more whole-work reading during the school year and over the breaks.

 

·      Give teachers transferring into the state full credit for education and education-related experience.

 

·      Eliminate seniority-based salary increases after 6 years; provide COLA increases thereafter.

 

·      Do not give across-the-board salary increases to current teachers to attract better teachers.  To attract or retain excellent teachers, establish a Master Teacher salary scale for those who pass (95% or better) on a one-try-only, rigorous competency test in their fields.

 

·      Limit degree-based salaries and salary increases to degrees directly relevant to courses taught or to be taught.  Do not fund education administration courses for teachers.