The public schools of Albuquerque, New Mexico, plan to save money by eliminating middle school sports teams.
Be it noted that Republican Governor Susanna Martinez has refused to raise taxes and has threatened to defund state universities.
The one potential cut that gets parents’ attention is sports teams.
New Mexico doesn’t want to pay for educating its children.
“Parents reacted with dismay to 3,400 students in Albuquerque Public Schools losing a traditional training ground for high school athletics. Basketball, volleyball and track and field teams in the district’s 28 middle schools are set to be disbanded next school year, leaving families to find private leagues for children in grades 6, 7 and 8.
“Some worry that low-income families in particular may be hard-pressed to find teams and facilities outside public school, while others say the opportunity to play sports is critical for students at such a formative age.
“Vanessa Petty, president of the parents association at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School in Albuquerque, said her daughter was looking forward to playing volleyball next year.
“Their first introduction to sports for a majority of children is middle school,” Petty said. “It’s huge not just for their personal health but more for social aspects. They learn teamwork, they learn respect for others.”
“Under the athletic cuts, teachers would lose coaching stipends and short-term coaching contracts would go away. The changes will save $580,000 and help avoid classroom cuts, district spokeswoman Monica Armenta said.”
That is a small fraction of the $26 million in reductions that the district says may be needed as New Mexico wrestles with a downturn in tax income linked to oil prices, a sluggish economy and the highest U.S. unemployment rate. Public schools in New Mexico rely on the state for nearly all their operating budgets.
Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and the Democratic-led Legislature are in a standoff over how to fill a $156 million budget shortfall and protect the state’s credit rating. Martinez vetoed tax increases that she called reckless and plans to call lawmakers back to the Capitol to renegotiate.
Lawmakers are preparing to sue the governor to block vetoes that would defund all state universities, the Legislature and other core government services.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Along with other programs, like the performing arts, athletics are a way to develop student, family, and community engagement and meaning with the public schools. But that’s not as high a priority in public education these days.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
I can guarentee that sports is the number one priority in my area. Parents will literally move, selling their house and changing jobs, just so their son or daughter can play a sport at a particular school or for a particular coach. I know of few parents who behave the same way where a particular history or math teacher is concerned. This is not as it used to be. A century ago, some people moved to my hometown to be near Miss Ida Hunter, who had a reputation as a task master.
The threat of removing sports from school will send the many into their keyboards to light up the local newspaper. The threat of removing chorus or an elective history class will hardly cause a whisper.
If Albuquerque were my community, I would forecast a tax hike. Or a riot. Maybe both.
Being from New Mexico I have watched over the last six year with amazement how Martinez has failed time and time again to provide the proper education for the students of this state. Not just in the Public School System but also those Students attending our Universities and Colleges. Her stance on not raising taxes is beyond me and the majority of the people of this state. She has led us down the disastrous path to lower economic/financial status, the highest unemployment rate in the US, failed to bring new businesses/corporations to the state, etc., etc., etc. Because of all this ALL social and health services have decreased and in some areas of the state are totally lacking. Martinez stance on no new taxes while giving taxes breaks to the wealth and big corporates is more important than truly serving the people of New Mexico. She is cut from the same material as Kansas Governor Brownback. Remember, Martinez is also the one that appointed Hanna Skandera as Secretary of Education. Another loser.
Perhaps she is a true believer of the Republican maxim that government doesn’t work and therefore set out to ensure that it won’t.
Government will not work for the people as long as we have fools in leadership positions like Martinez and, do I dare say, Trump.
Finally, Someone is thinking! Cut interscholastic Middle School Sports before you cut the arts, vocational education, increase class sizes to unmanageable numbers! Don’t tell me these kids will drop out if they don’t have interscholastic sports! These kids are 11 to 13 years old! They cannot drop out! This is the most dangerous time that a kid can play interscholastic full contact sports. Their “professional” coaches are really pure amateurs whose experience with the sports was when thy played in middle school, high school, or college. These “want-a-be” coaches are the ones who tell injured little kids when they are hurt to “toughen up” and go back out and play through the pain! These kids are in a rapid growth spurt and many of the injuries they receive in middle school will last their lifetime. If we have to cut a school’s budget cut this sacred cow first! You’ll be doing the kids a service by saving them from life long injuries. They will still have plenty of time to participate in interscholastic sports in high school and college.
Ed reformers are lousy for public schools. I have yet to see one of them do anything that benefits public school kids.
It’s all loss. They plug this gaping hole by exclusively focusing on charters and vouchers, but if you were to look at PUBLIC SCHOOLS in any of the states they run it’s a litany of unfunded mandates and the loss of everything that makes school enjoyable.
It’s a really grim “movement” if you’re in a public school. There’s never an upside.
Public school parents need to pay attention not to what ed reformers say, but what they do.
If state lawmakers are spending all their time weakening public schools while funding and promoting charters and vouchers they are not “agnostics” and they should be called on it.
This isn’t a mystery. It can be measured. Look at what comes out of the state legislature – if the exclusive focus is charters and vouchers public schools will take hit after hit.
That’s just how political priorities work.
“Plus/and” is a lie. That isn’t real. It’s a business slogan that people use when they want to avoid accountability for prioritizing one thing over another.
This is how school budgets work. They cut one thing to save another and that’s how state budgets work too.
“The one potential cut that gets parents’ attention is sports teams.”
And that statement unfortunately gets to the heart of the problem: A lack of appreciation and understanding by most (perhaps caused by the insipidness of the media to which people choose to take in) of the more important aspects of education and the learning in all subject areas of the very “human” and “natural” world. (although I generally do not like to separate the two onto-epistemologically speaking)
In many communities, including mine, sports r us. There is generous coverage of high schools sports in the print media and on television. We have the high school sports hall of fame, special dinners for winners, student athlete of the week awards, official press coverage for signing days when students are recruited for college teams and so on. The public is quite willing to make investments in high school sports facilities–lighted football fields with stadium seating, electronic scoreboards, basket-ball courts. Add the cheerleaders and marching bands. Of course these are perks that charter schools want without paying for them, unless the district and school board fell for the Bill Gates bait and signed one of those “be nice to charter school” compacts.