Stuff you need to know, 8.15.23

6 Comments

1. I’m suspecting that many of those over-25s w/o a high school education actually know how to DO something- probably a lot of things many college graduates who wind up working in Starbucks can’t. Very subjective study, presented with statistics that seem objective, but leave out all the contributing factors. Wallethub? There’s an authority on social science! What kind of social services do Louisiana and Mississippi provide for its lower income residents compared to NM? I’ll take rural NM over suburban Ohio any time. How do you objectively rank the beauty one can see every day?

2. To better judge the validity of the study, click on the link in the first paragraph of the posted story to see WalletHub’s itemization of the 51 metrics used to make comparisons among states and the relative weight assigned to each metric.

3. Let’s hope it maintains this rank. Helps keep it a great place to live.

4. I moved to NM in 1977, having grown up in Mississippi, escaped MS in my mid-20’s, and arrived in NM after a mercifully brief stay in eastern Oklahoma. I knew I was home the moment my feet hit the soil of the Sacramento Mountains. I’ll never willingly live anywhere else. Different strokes….

5. I totally support what Chris just said. Wallethub is the LAST place I would use to judge the kids who went to the Children’s Workshop, all from the almost ghost towns of Cerrillos/Madrid along with a few from Santa Fe. While I can’t say I’ve followed the lives of even most of the kids who went to our school, the ones I AM aware of ARE quite happy with their lives here in NM or somewhere they chose to move to. And they are everything from mechanics to PhD museum directors to University instructors to actors/musicians/techs. I am not intrusive enough to pry into their personal data, most of the ones I know about are VER Y happy with how their lives turned out!!
   The school did NOT have traditional “grades” (like first, second…. etc) nor “grades” (A,B,C,…F). NO ONE FLUNKED ANYTHING. You just kept on until you ‘got it’. Each KID had control of the basic 3 R’s by way of “programmed learning kits” (SRA – Science Research Associates) that they, INDIVIDUALLY, proceeded to the next level as they learned the previous one. Anyone who needed help got it from either the teachers or fellow kids (this was one room full of up to 32 kids from preschool to 9th grade) – sometimes the younger helped the older but, usually, it was pretty traditional.) The student/teacher ratio was about 10 to 1 with some volunteer community members or parents involved where they wanted to. We had a dedicated period for actual “reading aloud” to the entire bunch. We read things like “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “Watership Down” to “The Secret Garden” and “A Wrinkle in Time”. LOTS of varied stuff. We all lived in the same community so we all knew each other outside of class.
   The entire school would go on field trips – Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, the public swimming pool in Santa Fe, etc. Sometimes parents or members of the (hippie) communities of Cerrillos/Madrid had a particular skill they were willing to show them or just hang out during the day helping where needed. These are NOT conditions that would cost anymore than what “traditional” schools now cost. Granted back in the day us grownups worked for much less than ‘average’ pay. We had legit credentials but we were also parents and felt that it was worth our time to ensure our kids got a good start in a society we knew was going to be hard from personal experience. All this for $17 per month (1970’s). Given what the annual budgets for most (mainstream public) schools these days is, they could easily support a living wage for qualified teachers and the simple facilities with this approach. All the “STUDIES” include the WAY overblown administration costs. If the ‘administration’ were localized rather than piled up with layers and layers of admin, it could be done. Because we were ‘local’ the parents had absolute control without any intermediaries!
   PS: and Bytheway: to Florida: I was the openly gay founder (1972)/teacher/parent and NONE of these kids are other than straight that I know of – as much as I role-modeled a happy queer/ teacher/ parent/ citizen/ human being!
   I don’t know how much they make/made but they all seem to be happy and fulfilled here in NM, or Scotland or California or France or Bejing !

6. Mine is a very biased opinion. I pay little heed to polls and surveys, and skewed statistics. That said, I landed here in the area at 53 years old. I chose it, as a snowbird, to spend my retirement. The items expressed in article matter little to me, as a retiree. Although, I do care about “bringing up” our statistics, I’m happy just where I am, coming up on 16 years. I have recommended New Mexico to people, and its pluses far outweigh the negatives. EB is building, growing like a weed; it kept building right through 2008-10 and in more recent downtimes. And, more and more, retirees constitute more of the population here, supplanting the “tourism” goal of the past.

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