Debra L. White

Ok, so here I am one day sitting on the couch and I realize I’m screaming at the television. Why, you ask? Well, it’s like this: I’m so frustrated with the way the country’s going; the state is out of money; folks are losing jobs left, right, and center; and businesses are leaving the state in droves. Our schools are broke, teachers are being furloughed, you have to wait three hours to get a new driver’s license, state government is corrupt, and if that’s not bad enough let me catch my breath and I’ll add some more to the list.

That’s when I decided I’d either sit here and be part of the problem or do something that would let me be part of the cure. That’s why I’m running for District 36, State House of Representatives.

No, I don’t have any experience that specifically relates to being a public official, but what I do have is a solid grasp of right and wrong, common sense, principals and integrity. Do I have all the answers? No, but I know I can help find them.

Henry Ford was once given an IQ test. He read through the test, threw it down on the table and told the test giver, “I don’t one answer to those questions however, give me five minutes and I’ll find someone who does.” That’s me. I know where to get the answers; it’s something I learned when the military trained me to be an instructor.

You don’t have to have all the answers, you just need to know where to find them and have the motivation to do so.

Education

Now, having said that, I am a 58 year old woman, retired from the United States Air Force and I am married to my best friend and love of my life, TD, for the last 32+ years. We have two grown children, Joshua 29, and Jessica 26. Both have undergrad degrees from NMSU and our daughter is working on her masters in sociology with an emphasis on terrorism.

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We tell folks our children went to public schools in Clovis, then came home to receive an education. They learned more about the early history of our country and the founding fathers at home than they were ever taught in public school. They are both politically savvy now, and think for themselves.

The more I listen to them and to the other young people I meet while walking my district the more I am saddened by the lack of education our public schools teach our children these days. Teaching one’s children right from wrong, commonsense values, respect for one another and basic life principals are the direct edict of the parents/parent, not the job of the teachers. The teacher’s/school’s job is to impart knowledge, not life lessons.

Our schools are still dealing with “No Child Left Behind” and in doing so they have to socially progress students who are leaving the 3rd grade unable to read. If a child is unable to read by the time they enter 4th grade they are profoundly disadvantaged, perhaps permanently. Thus begins the decline of the child. By the time they reach 8th grade and unable to keep up with their peers they’re pretty much lost.

We have to help the schools, and I’m not talking with more state funding either. We must make the schools more effective from the top down. Already the state allocates more than 50 percent of its budget to our failing school system. The schools must be held accountable for where and to whom the monies are given and spent.

Overburdened at the top

I feel the system is overburdened at the top. Why do we have so many administrators and superintendants (who have never taught or who just never quite cut it in the classroom), making decisions with an Olympian detachment that the teachers have to live with? Our teachers in the trenches need and deserve a hierarchy that has more than a passing idea of what they deal with day in and day out.

When elected I will work hard and diligently to help my fellow legislators turn this mess that is our current school system around. Our teachers need to be lifted up with direct access to the resources needed to run a good and complete classroom. They need text books for all the children in the class, more teachers, so classes are smaller and more efficient, and the right to keep children back a grade so that the child has a better chance at furthering their education in the future. We need not cut AP classes and band; the children who take these classes score higher on their SATs and ACTs and they have better math scores because they use both sides of the brain.

I’m not just spouting rhetoric, I spent seven years watching the benefits reaped from some of these classes, and they work.

So in closing, I thank you, Heath, for giving me the opportunity to share a few of my ideas and core values with you and your readership. I would look forward to sharing more at a later date.

White is the Republican candidate for the District 36 seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives.