NEA-NEW MEXICO and NEW MEXICO’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
Proud of Our Shared History

The history of the National Education Association of New Mexico (NEA-NM) covers more than twelve decades of pride and accomplishment. Since our active participation in the creation of the state’s public schools, the efforts of NEA-NM have continued to shape and improve public education in New Mexico. Share our story with your colleagues.

In 1880, more than 60% of New Mexico’s population over the age of 10 could not read or write. In those days, there were only 162 private and church-run schools, with a student attendance of 3,150. There was no public school system in 1880.

Attempts to establish a public school system failed to pass the territorial legislature in 1876, 1878, and again in 1880. In 1878, the legislature passed a statute authorizing the Jesuits to own unlimited land for educational institutions without taxation. The U.S. Congress unanimously annulled the act.

In the fall of 1886, Professor Elliot Whipple, superintendent of the Ramona Indian School at Santa Fe, joined with Principal F.E. Whittmore and Professor C.E. Hodgin, both of Albuquerque Academy, to call for the formation of an education association of New Mexico teachers. On November 26, 1886, during the Thanksgiving break, a group of mostly Santa Fe educators met and adopted a resolution calling for a convention to establish the “Territorial Education Association” (TEA). The first convention of the TEA assembled on December 28, 1886. After statehood, the TEA became the New Mexico Education Association (NMEA) which later changed its name to the National Education Association of New Mexico (NEA-NM).

The founding convention of the TEA elected Professor R.W.D. Bryan of the Albuquerque Indian School as its first president. The first accomplishment of the convention centered on political action. The convention called for a territorial superintendent of public education, a normal school to prepare teachers, and women’s suffrage in school affairs on equal terms with men’s suffrage.

The legislative session of 1888-89 narrowly defeated a comprehensive schools bill drafted by legislator R.A. “Chet” Kistler. The bill was reintroduced in the 1891 session and passed. Only five years after its founding, the Association succeeded in getting its first priority enacted into law.

Following this struggle for the establishment of public education in New Mexico, the battle then shifted to the establishment of professional and educational standards, including the certification of teachers and the adoption of a statewide curriculum and text book selections. In 1903, two normal schools in Las Vegas and Silver City were successfully lobbied through the legislature. In 1904, the Association adopted a program called the “Ringing Resolutions,” which called for central policy making by the Territorial Superintendent and Board, removal of county superintendents from political elections, statewide standards for teacher training, certification of teachers, increased school funding, and better pay for teachers.

In the mid 1940’s, the Association successfully lobbied for passage of a teacher tenure law to provide statutory due process protection for teacher employment rights.

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The first serious efforts to create a pension plan for New Mexican educators took place in 1925 when Gov. Arthur Hannett and the Legislature passed landmark legislation establishing the first pension plan of any kind for public servants. On March l9, House Bill 178, An Act Relating to the Retirement of Faculty Members in State Educational Institutions, and Providing for the Payment of Annuities Thereto, was passed marking the beginning of an 81-year history that has formed the present New Mexico educational retirement system. NEA-NM has led those efforts to improve on this early attempt to create an adequate system over the years. That effort included supporting various pieces of legislation in the 1930’s. In the post World War II years, numerous policy changes were made in the Educational Retirement Act, primarily in the way the retirement act was administered by the Educational Retirement Board (ERB), and to its amendments. Chief among these changes was bringing all educational agencies under one retirement act which was accomplished in 1945. Full credit was given to returning service men and women for the time they spent in the armed forces, and the ERB was finally made a legal entity. By law, composition of the board was to be; the state superintendent of public instruction, the state educational budget auditor, the state treasurer, the president of the New Mexico Education Association (NEA-NM) and the president of the Emeritus Employee’s Association of New Mexico. The board’s makeup remains essentially the same today (except the NEA-NM Delegate Council elects our representative) with the addition of a member elected by the American Association of University Professors and two people appointed by the governor, minus the budget auditor, a position that no longer exists. With the support of the NEA-NM behind it, the New Mexico Legislature passed the Educational Retirement Act of 1957, a true retirement plan with policy in place that would put the fund on a firm actuarial footing for the next several decades. At NEA-NM’s urging, the legislature eventually added all school employees to a retirement system that originally covered only teachers and administrators.

In January 2005, the Legislature’s House Education Committee was told that the ERB projected a $2.4 billion shortfall; its asset-to-liability ratio was about 75 percent and that, if uncorrected, the fund faces “severe problems.” News of the projected shortfall spread rapidly throughout the state to public school employees, legislators, and the general public even though the ERB made clear that the pension fund is able to pay the current level of benefits, without contribution changes, for the next 20 to 25 years. In response to the projected shortfall, NEA-NM supported the Legislature’s decision to increase the state’s contribution 0.75 percent a year for five years, thereby insuring the solvency of the fund.

Amendments to NEA-NM’s governance documents in the early 1980’s made educational support personnel full participating members of the Association. With this action, we truly became the education family.

Although the Association continued to advocate for more school employee participation in decision making, collective bargaining is a relatively recent tool. In 1966, the State School Board passed a resolution that was interpreted to mean that school districts were encouraged to enter into collective bargaining with their Employees. Several school districts entered into bargaining agreements, although most were short lived. Albuquerque, Taos, and Bernalillo were the only districts with bargaining agreements prior to the 1992 passage of the Public Employee Bargaining Act. Freed from statutory or regulatory requirements, many school districts just decided they would no longer honor bargaining relationships. This happened in Los Lunas, Belen, Raton, and other school districts.

The 1986 legislature, controlled by a right-wing coalition of republicans and conservative democrats led by Senator Les Houston, decimated teacher due process. The teacher tenure bill was repealed and replaced with legislation which allowed school districts to terminate teachers for almost any conceivable reason; NEA-NM was the lone education organization voice against this travesty in the halls of the Roundhouse.

Over the next four years NEA-NM and other labor organizations worked to change the legislature back to one with a more moderate view. In January 1991, a legislature led by a democratic leadership much friendlier to school employees was once again firmly in control. At NEA-NM’s request, newly elected Governor Bruce King placed restoration of teacher due process rights in his call to the short session of the legislature. Senator Carlos Cisneros, again at NEA-NM’s urging, sponsored legislation that restored just cause standards and the requirement that school districts prove their reasons for termination by “a preponderance of the evidence” to the teacher due process statute. Thanks to NEA-NM, the state’s teachers once again enjoyed some of the strongest statutory job protection in the country.

In 1993, New-NM followed through on its commitment to extend due process rights to classified school employees. We once again asked Governor King to place school employee due process in his call to the legislature. Former NEA-NM President Ima Lee Wells, then a state representative from Las Cruces, sponsored legislation extending just cause protection to all school employees, except administrator/supervisors. With the passage of this NEA-NM initiated legislation, New Mexico became the first state to extend equally strong statutory job protection rights to both teachers and support personnel.

During the 1992 legislative session, NEA-NM in coalition with other public employee unions, lobbied successfully to get the legislature to pass and Governor Bruce King to sign the Public Employee Bargaining Act (P.E.B.A.). Since its passage, almost half of New Mexico’s 89 school districts have become engaged in collective bargaining with their employees. NEA-NM had struggled for 25 years to get this law passed.

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After working together to pass New Mexico’s Public Employee Bargaining Law, NEA-NM and its former rival, the AFT New Mexico (AFT NM), ended decades of competition and joined together in a united front to fight for the betterment of public education in New Mexico. In the Rio Rancho Public Schools, New Mexico’s newest school district in New Mexico, an historical event occurred in 1994; the first local jointly affiliated with both NEA-NM and AFT NM, the Rio Rancho School Employees Union, was formed. Shortly thereafter, Rio Rancho school employees voted for collective bargaining rights and chose the RRSEU as their bargaining agent. The following year, classified employees in the Las Cruces Public Schools formed the Las Cruces Classified School Employees Council, our second unified NEA-NM and AFT NM local association. The cooperation continues with movement toward the eventual consolidation of NEA-NM and AFT NM into one united school employees organization for New Mexico.

Unfortunately, the administration of Governor Gary E. Johnson lasted from 1995 until 2003 and brought many setbacks to education including his veto of legislation that would have prevented the sunset of the P.E.B.A in July of 1999. Johnson tried unsuccessfully to get the legislature to pass school vouchers and tuition tax credits. NEA-NM once again was in the forefront in preventing these bad ideas from passing the legislature. During this time period, however, New Mexico teacher salary rankings plummeted to near the bottom of the rankings of the nation’s states.

In 2002 NEA-NM recommended the candidacy of former Congressman and Federal Cabinet Member Bill Richardson for Governor. Re-elected in 2006, Governor joined NEA-NM in leading positive change for New Mexico. During this time period teacher salary rankings have moved from a ranking of 46th in 2002 to a predicted 29th for 2006-07.

NEA-NM, together with a coalition of supporters of public schools that included the business finally convinced the legislature to pass and the Governor to sign major education reform legislation in 2003. In 2001, the Legislature passed a comprehensive education reform; however, the legislation was vetoed by then Governor Johnson. The reform recommendations were the work of the two-year (1998-2000), 64- member Education Initiatives and Accountability Task Force (EIATF). NEA-New Mexico’s president, Mary Lou Cameron served on the EIATF, which was appointed jointly by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and the Executive. The Legislative Education Study Committee appointed the Ad Hoc Subcommittee for Education Reform to continue the work of his group. NEA-New Mexico President Eduardo Holguin served on this group. The Education Reform Act that passed in the 2003 legislative session was largely the work of this committee. During this period NEA-New Mexico worked to make sure that increasing salaries was a major priority in the reform legislation. We also worked to protect employee due process from several weakening efforts as the legislation was revised several times. The reform legislation finally passed in the 2003 regular legislative session. House Bill 212, Public School Reform, took effect immediately upon signing by Governor Richardson on April 4, 2003.

The major intent of the reform act was to elevate the teaching profession and help New Mexico expand the supply and improve the quality of New Mexico's teachers. First, the system enhances the profession of teaching by allowing teachers to rise in respect, responsibilities and remuneration as they gain increasing competence throughout their careers. Secondly, the three-tiered licensure system mandated by the legislation, addresses accountability (and moves New Mexico teacher evaluation into compliance with federal requirements) by implementing a highly objective uniform statewide standard of evaluation for all teachers.

The Southeast Center for Teaching Quality attested that New Mexico is the “notable exception” nationally to the failure by states to “to engage policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners in a discussion about what teachers need to know and be able to do systematically.” NEA-New Mexico monitored and enhanced the evolving legislation at every stage of its development. After passage, the State Department of Education (Now the Public Education Department) created the Three-tiered Implementation Council to oversee the implementation of the new licensure system for teachers. President Eduardo Holguin served on this panel, with Government Relations Director Charles Bowyer serving as an alternate member. The panel created several implementation work groups; NEA-NM was well represented on these groups. The Professional Development Dossier Workgroup was a small group that completed its work early in process; Charles Bowyer served on this group. The Local Annual Evaluation Workgroup created the criteria for the uniform local evaluation system; Vice President Sharon Morgan, Carol Teweleit, Michael Page, Charles Bowyer, and Leslie Fritz served on this group. The Teacher Training Workgroup created the training materials and process for the new system now in use across the state; Vice President Sharon Morgan chaired this group and, Mary McGowan, Mary Lou Cameron, Helen Davis, and Charles Bowyer served on the workgroup. Progress through the system guarantees minimum salary levels for teachers at different licensure levels. The minimum salary levels were phased in over a five-year period:
• minimum salary of $30,000 for Level I, II, and III-A teachers in 03-04
• minimum salary of $35,000 for Level II & III-A teachers in 04-05
• minimum salary of $40,000 for Level II & III-A teachers in 05-06
• minimum salary of $45,000 for Level III-A teachers in 06-07
• minimum salary of $50,000 for Level III-A teachers in 07-08

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Additional success occurred when the legislature passed and Governor Richardson signed a new public employees’ collective bargaining act. On Friday, March 7, 2003 the Governor signed collective bargaining legislation sponsored by House Speaker Ben Lujan and Senate President Pro-temp Richard Romero. Once again NEA-NM was in the lead as this legislation was written by a small task force that included the Association’s Government Relations Director. The law restored public employees’ rights to negotiate agreements with management. Public employees lost those rights in 1999 when Gary Johnson vetoed legislation that would have extended collective bargaining rights. State and local governments, including school districts, will now be required to bargain with labor organizations representing public employees. The legislation, which took effect on July 1, 2003 contains language that:
• forces local board policies adopted since 1991 to comply with most provisions of the new law;
• adopts a scope of bargaining that forces school management to talk about professional and instructional concerns; and
• requires an impasse resolution procedure that ends in final binding arbitration if the parties cannot reach agreement on a successor contract.

On signing the legislation, Governor Richardson stated, “As we saw during 9-11, public employees courageously put their lives on the line for all of us. Yet, even in New Mexico we took our public employees for granted. Those days are gone. Every day there are hundreds of State Police officers, corrections officers and others who provide public safety and security for all of us. We have thousands of educators who have tremendous responsibilities to teach our children. And there are thousands of public employees who keep our state and local governments running and working for the people of New Mexico every day. All of those valued employees deserve a fair shake when it comes to negotiating salaries, workplace safety and other aspects of the jobs they perform.”

Continuing to lead, NEA-NM joined with other Public School Organizations in 2005 to form the New Mexico Education Partners, made up of the AFT-NM, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, the NM Coalition of School Administrators, the NM Parent Teachers Association, the NM School Boards Association and NEA-NM, this group reinvigorated a previously loose-knit group of advocates into a powerful force for public schools.

Armed with polling data and the painful sting of having public schools short-changed in past years, the Partners agreed to work together in developing a concerted agenda, message, and proposed state school budget for the following legislative sessions. Between the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions, New Mexico saw that agenda, message, and budget unfold and take hold in community activities, 10,000 petition signatures, 89 local school board resolutions, newspaper coverage, interim legislative committees, and in those committees’ proposed budgets.

The NM Education Partners budget had 18 funding proposals for the 2007 legislative session and 14 of those were included in legislative action and have been signed into law by the Governor. While we did not get the full 50 cents of every new dollar that we requested, we did make inroads into under-funded line items, finished funding the 3 Tier system’s minimum salaries, addressed ISP salary shortfalls, funded principal salaries in a better manner than outlined in the Education Reform Act, and made significant strides toward closing our achievement and opportunity gaps through better funding of mentorship, professional development, technology and distance learning. To top it all off, we were successful in pushing through the Partners’ initiative for K-3 PLUS—a program which will allow as many as 12,000 students in high poverty schools to receive at least 20 days of extra instruction before and/or after K to 3rd grade.

Again in preparation for the 2008 legislative session, NEA-NM and its education partners prepared an ambitious agenda aimed at sufficient funding for New Mexico’s public schools. The proposal was in support of the findings of a two year long study conducted by the New Mexico Public School Funding Task Force. The task force was created by the legislature and NEA-New Mexico’s executive director represented public school employee organizations on the body. The task force recommended increasing public school funding by some 15% or more than $350 million. The legislature did not pass the funding request, instead choosing to keep within available revenues, without raising the necessary taxes to properly fund public schools. In the summer of 2008, NEA-NM and the New Mexico Education Partners began an intensive campaign intended to increase public awareness of the need for sufficient funding of public schools and to raise public education as a major issue in the November 2008 election and for the 2009 Legislature. Unfortunately, the worst recession since the “Great Depression” drastically effected the state’s ability to fund public education. Coupled with the election of a fiscally conservative Governor in 2010, school funding was cut some 8% from the high appropriated by the 2008 legislature. As with our historic accomplishments in creating public schools in New Mexico, gaining and then restoring employee rights, creating a suffcient retirement system, and the providing affordable health insurance for school emplloyees, our work to repair these cuts and achieve sufficient funding will continue until accomplished

As New Mexico’s first public employee organization, we have a proud history. Today, well into our second century, we continue our historic struggle for the rights of New Mexico’s children to a quality public education and for the fair and just treatment of New Mexico’s public school employees!

Updated June 2011

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