Font Resize
SANTA FE - State Rep. Joseph Cervantes, pressing for a 200-day school year in New Mexico, kept his long-shot legislation alive Monday.
Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, also wants to eliminate the three-month summer vacation that he says strangles any momentum schools build.
His proposal cleared the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, but has little chance of becoming law this year. The legislative session ends at noon Saturday.
Cervantes said New Mexico asks too little of its students. The state education code calls for a 150-day school year, some 30 days below the national average for American students. Students in other countries go to school for as many as 204 days a year.
The extended summer break, established in an era when students had to work on farms, is another tradition that must end, he said.
"The last month of school is a wind-down. Then it takes a couple of weeks in the fall to get started again," Cervantes said.
Committee members moved his bill forward to the House Education Committee, though Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, said its enormous cost gives it little chance.
Each school day in New Mexico costs taxpayers about $12 million. Cervantes' goal of adding 50 school days would be a $600 million undertaking.
Cervantes conceded that his bill probably would die for lack of money and time. But, he said, he planned to continue his campaign for more school days, saying it is the most obvious way to improve education in a state where more than 40
Cervantes said he had spoken to Republican Gov. Susana Martinez about raising taxes exclusively to add 20 days to the school year.
"She would be a hero if she did it," Cervantes said.
Martinez, though, ran on a platform of no tax increases.
Cervantes said the governor's education reform plans, such as giving every school an easy-to-understand letter grade, would not have the impact of demanding more work from students.
His bill calls for the school calendar to increase to 180 days this fall, and then to 200 days in 2012-13. The measure is HB 407.
Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com.
