SANTA FE - Teachers must demand more from students who are at the bottom of their class, Gov. Susana Martinez said Tuesday.

In a speech to both houses of the state Legislature on Hispanic Culture Day, Martinez said expectations are higher than ever, and they should extend to every student.

She told of growing up in a home of modest means and deciding that her drive, not her skin color, would determine how far she went.

Now Martinez is the nation's first Hispanic female governor and a source of inspiration, said House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe.

Martinez, 51, said today's students must be challenged by teachers to reach higher and do better. This, she said, is especially important in motivating those in the bottom quarter of their class.

"We should strive to inspire the future generations through our work ethic and determination to do what's right, so that they can make their own discoveries and leave their own imprints on history," she said.

But for this to happen, she said, New Mexico must reform its school system. Specifically, teachers and the rest of a school's staff must be more aggressive in intervening to help students before they fall so far behind that they lose hope.

"By focusing our time and resources on students who are performing at the bottom 25 percent of their classes, we'll equip them to master the basics," Martinez said.

These students also must embrace learning by staying after school for academic help and by attending summer school

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for remedial instruction, she said.

Martinez promised that the state would provide additional teacher support and training to make sure that students who need the most help get it. Otherwise, she said, children who cannot read well in the early grades will continue to falter as classes get more advanced. Those kids, she said, frequently become dropouts without much of a chance at a happy, fulfilling life.

The reformed New Mexico education system must give every student the help he or she needs to graduate from high school and go on to college or the workforce, Martinez said.

This, Martinez said, means "giving them what our parents and grandparents dreamed for us - opportunity."

Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.