Southwest Forum Legislators Oppose School Vouchers in New Mexico

As the push for vouchers in New Mexico intensifies, members of CPA’s Southwest Policy Leaders Forum are fighting back. In April, CPA held a forum for Latino legislators and community leaders to address Gov. Johnson’s plan to allocate $2.2 million from the public education budget into vouchers for private schools. The threat in New Mexico is particularly intense; the governor twice vetoed the state’s budget because it lacked a voucher provision.

Southwest Forum participants, along with seventy percent of the New Mexico legislature, have many concerns with educational vouchers. Besides the question of constitutionality, voucher opponents argue that publicly funded vouchers would take much-needed funds from public schools — which the majority of Latino children attend.

"We are such a poor state that a voucher system would take away public resources that are available to public schools, especially in border communities, predominantly populated by Latinos, which do not have strong tax bases," said C. Silvia Sierra of the United Way of Southwest New Mexico. "This is just another attempt to divide and oppress Latino communities."

New Mexico State Representative Rick Miera, Chair of the House Education Committee and a Southwest Forum member, believes the governor’s plan is unconstitutional. Miera is also concerned that the voucher debate is unfairly consuming the agenda in the Education Committee.

Recently, federal courts blocked Cleveland’s four-year-old school voucher program on the grounds that the school voucher program violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

Research compiled by the National Education Association-New Mexico reports that both public and private vouchers have drained funds from public school districts. Studies also found that students attending private schools on vouchers did not perform better than public school students; accountability is difficult because private schools are not subject to the same regulations as public schools; and voucher programs are not necessarily more cost effective than public schools.