Daily Lobo new mexico
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Tuesday February 17, 2015 | Vo l u m e 1 1 9 | I s s u e 1 0 4
Educators protest proposals Participants rally against education legislation By Marielle Dent
Educators from across the state rallied at the Capitol on Monday to protest legislative proposals dealing with third grade retention rates, changes to the teacher licensure process and the proposed right-to-work law. Participants marched from the Santa Fe Railyard to the Roundhouse and weathered cold winds outside while multiple speakers rallied the crowd and encouraged them to visit their legislators’ offices inside. The “United Voices for Our Students” rally was organized by the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico and the National Education Association New Mexico, two groups that represent public education and higher education employees in the state. Protesters also spoke out against legislature linking students’ standardized test scores to teacher evaluations and Education Secretary Hanna Skandera’s role in the government. Skandera has served in that position since 2010 and was reconfirmed by the Senate on Monday. “What’s happening in our classrooms is child abuse when it comes to testing. There is no more
time for anything else and our evaluations are based on it, which is insane,” said Ewa Krakowska, a former teacher from Shiprock, New Mexico currently working for NEA-NM. House Bill 41 and Senate Bill 66 both deal with holding back thirdgraders who cannot read at grade level, but neither bill allows for input from a parent or guardian. Current state law gives parents the final say over whether their child is held back. According to a pamphlet from the NEA, summer school and the opportunity to work one-on-one with teachers has been found to be more effective than retention for student achievement. “New Mexico is pulling the socalled corporate reforms that have not worked anywhere they have been tried,” Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, said. “How is it possible that a Secretary of Education would not listen to the parents and teachers of the state? How is it that someone who is not an educator would impose this kind of formula [for teacher evaluations]?” Another concern for the protesters was House Bill 76, which would give teachers an alternate way to move up a level in the licensure system. According to the bill, teachers who have received an evaluation rating of “exemplary” or “highly effective” for two consecutive years would be able to move up. This type of evaluation pressures teachers to “teach to the
test” as 50 percent of it is based off of student test scores, according to the NEA pamphlet. Protesters said educators should not advance based off of an alternative model that has not been tested and is not reliable. “We spend too much time testing children and do not have enough time to teach. According to our testing coordinator, from January until May there are only five weeks where we are not testing children in some way,” Kathryn McGill-Peters, a teacher from Gallup said. House Bill 75 and Senate Bill 92, better known as the right-to-work legislation, would prohibit employees from either being forced to join a union or pay representation fees to unions. Protesters said this legislation is, “unfair, unnecessary and bad for the middle class in New Mexico.” “I want to make sure as we continue to advocate today that we can talk about realities …We’ve still got the power but we’ve got to unite,” said Sen. Howie Morales, D-NM. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re not going to compromise when the fourth floor (the Governor’s Office) has demonstrated that they’re not willing to compromise. We’ve got to make sure that we’re going to stand strong and put the truth out there.” Marielle Dent is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. You can reach her at mdent@unm.edu or on Twitter @Marielle_Dent.
Marielle Dent / Daily Lobo / @Marielle_Dent
(top) Educators participating in the “United Voices for Our Students” rally marched from the Santa Fe Railyard to the Capitol building where they visited with legislators. (bottom) Teachers gather on Monday afternoon at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe to protest legislative proposals that could be detrimental to the education profession.
Q&A with Dr. Emile Nakhleh
Lack of international communication path to terrorism
Dr. Emile Nakhleh
By Jonathan Baca Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a retired Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a research professor and coordinator of national security
programs at UNM, a National Intelligence Council/IC Associate and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has worked with the CIA as a senior analyst and director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program. He is also the author of several books and articles, and has won several awards and accolades. As the White House prepares for a major summit discussing how the root causes of terrorism and violent extremism, the Daily Lobo talked with Nakhleh about why people become terrorists, and what governments and communities can do to deal with the problem.
What are the main factors that contribute to a person turning into a terrorist?
“This is a pretty complicated question, and there are many layers to the answer. There are global terrorist groups, regional terrorist groups and then there are individuals who become radicalized whom we call ‘lone wolves,’ who plan attacks. In my research, I have written a lot of books on the Middle East, political Islam, Islamic activism and radicalization, and I have followed this whole process on how a normal teenager or a young man becomes radicalized, especially in Western society.
It’s important to keep in mind that here in the U.S., unlike in France, Germany or the U.K., we do not have what we call an ‘Islamic problem.’ They have a problem in those countries because generally many Muslims live in ghettos, poor areas and neighborhoods. They tend to be uneducated, unemployed or underemployed, and these are young men and women who are born and raised in those countries. In fact, the two recent incidents here in the U.S., the three Muslim college students killed in North Carolina, and the attack on a mosque in Albuquerque last year, the response was fantastic in that the community, regardless of
religious affiliation, came out in support of the victims. The conference in Washington that is held this week at the White House is a conference on CVE, Countering Violent Extremism. The purpose is to look at the root causes that make a person or group turn to terrorism. Basically, you can reduce them to two groups of root causes. One group is policies — that is, in countries like Egypt, Syria, Yemen or Libya — these are regimes that have been dictatorial, autocratic, many of their people are unemployed and human rights
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Nakhleh page 5