New Mexico Mercury

El Machete: Nelson Mandela

El Machete: Nelson Mandela

Weekly Poem: We Considered Ourselves

The towers on Sandia Crest transmit
through sunset    in some other home, Smokey
Bear is dead like a pop song
on a distant radio      I keep
toying with the dials   flipping the brights in a code
here no one remembers     the first fire,
distant suns or one close star...

Reflections on Mandela by a South African who was there

"I was not born with a hunger to be free," Nelson Mandela writes in his autobiography. He immediately explains, "I was born free - free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God."

This is part of his reflection and frank assessment of how his life unfolded. Like all of us, Mandela was free in every way that was within his imagination or visible in the world he inhabited...

Mannyism

If you are a Manny, you probably won’t like what I am about to say one damn bit because it’s the Mannys of this world that are spoiling it all for everyone else. In fact, it is the very name Manny that is the probable suspect cause for all misery in the Universe, to say nothing of good ol’ NM.

During 2012 in the United States, the name Manny ranked 2044 in popular baby names. Compared to Bill, say, which is wildly popular, the name Manny has experienced a plummeting decline that could be graphically compared to the collapse of the NYSE in 2008, and it’s no wonder why the name Manny is going to the dogs...

Democracy or Safety? America’s Strategy in Central America

Democracy or safety? Which do you want? This isn’t a reasonable question for us Americans because we can have both. For many countries, it’s a wrenchingly difficult choice.

Take the tiny Central American countries of Honduras and Nicaragua. Honduras just held its Presidential elections and they offer some important lessons about our role in Central America, the impact of drugs and violence, and the factors that make a country viable...

The Invasion of Corporate Education Reform - Part 2

In this second installment we look at education reform in New Mexico and how outside interests are dictating our policy and narrative. 

Fighting over funding is hindering real education

In response to my colleagues’ recent op-ed column, “Stop the Cycle of Failure,” let me first say that I think our New Mexico public schools are good, our teachers are great and our students are performing well. I know, that’s not what you’ve read, but please hear me out.

We can argue about test results; let’s look at test design. All standardized-based tests spread children out on a continuum, a bell curve, by design. In every state, children from poverty, with rare exception, score at the bottom, by design. Children learning English as a second language tend to score at the bottom, by design. Does this mean they can’t learn or teachers aren’t working hard enough?...

The Invasion of Corporate Education Reform - Part 1

This is the first in a two-part series from New Mexico Mercury and La Jicarita.  The series looks deep into the so-called “reform” movement in education across the country and in New Mexico.

Over-testing Takes Focus Away from Curriculum

Over the last few years our state has seen a massive push from the governor’s administration to drive education improvements through an increase in testing in our schools. In isolation, this might seem like results-minded reform, but in conjunction with the testing efforts already in place, the resulting “over-testing” is taking the learning right out of our schools...

Provincial Matters, 12-9-2013

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.