Comments for Saturday

I've heard there may be another candidate who's going to announce their intention to run against Sharon Wooden (in addition to Connie Phillips). Finally, our community is talking about the School Board, about the school district, and how we can improve things. I'm so grateful that Diaz is gone --- but more importantly, we need good Board members who are responsible for picking the next superintendent. Anyone who's not registered to vote - get 'er done!
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"Love and marriage..." "Horse and carriage..." "Peanut butter and jelly..." "Diet soda and chocolate..." "Green eggs and ham..." Some things just naturally go together, like "students and teachers..." We cannot have one without the other! When we say we must "do something for the kids", we must, also, remember to include the teachers. Simply put, we can't have one without the other!
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I can't believe we should have to buy out Diaz to get her to leave. There has to be some criminal wrongdoing somewhere for us to have been forced into the Houghton Mifflin reading series in the middle of the year. Can we not prove that there was "money under the table" and into her pocket somewhere? Are there no regulations on her expenses that she violated by staying in honeymoon suites, etc.??? Buy her out? ha! Seems to me she should run before we press criminal charges against her for taking taxpayer money!
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Message to NMSU Student Paul Jaramillo: It's clear that you are a REALLY uninformed idealist on this topic and I REALLY should have patience with you, but when you start throwing the Rush Limbaugh definition of "liberals" around to blame the victims of Diaz for her bad behavior, well, it REALLY ticks me off. I am a parent of four kids: one who graduated thanks to the dedication of his teachers and AES facilitators with the "crazy liberal" idea that when a bright kid performs below his abilities it's important to never give up on him. He's now a science major at NMSU, one of the very few of his peers who can claim the same, even though they started off in college with much higher high school GPA's. I especially give praise to one really liberal high school Creative Writing teacher, Phyllis Wright, for helping him find the light inside that still carries him to class every day.I stll have three others in the elementary, middle and high schools who are on a daily basis exposed to some of the finest and most dedicated "liberals"--teachers who may have never made enough to pay their own bills on time but who purchase the educational materials for their classrooms, come to work everyday, focused and cheerful and dedicated to being leaders for the children in their classes. They're easy to identify: they are usually dragging a wagon full of kid's papers and activities to their cars, which are in the lot way past 5pm. These bleeding heart-liberals will still stop to give their former students a big hug and carry on a conversation with you, regardless of the time because they have dedicated their lives to the "liberal" idea of education. Maybe my kids are lucky, but I could count on one hand the number of teachers and administrators who I have known over the years who were "bad" or "lazy" or "unaccountable"--yes they existed but they were far and few between and often didn't seem to hang around very long. And I guarantee you they were not the ones with a "liberal agenda that hates accountability and responsible governance". Quite the contrary: good teachers and administrators THRIVE under fair, inspiring and accountable leadership. While you still have the chance at NMSU, take two more classes: one in Educational History and one in Classical Political Philosophy before you decide that "liberalism" is behind Ms. Diaz's necessary departure. Oh yeah, add an effective leadership class to those two. The entire idea that we can educate people from every ethnic group, race, religion, gender and economic class is part of the same Classic Liberalism that was the underlying principle in the Enlightenment, the concept of Democracy, the Constitution, the civil rights movement..I could go on and on. Paul, your rosy view of Diaz is squarely in contrast to the experiences many, many good people had under her tenure. INFORM YOURSELF. Highly educated as she is, Diaz didn't know how to lead people without using all the worst management and communication techniques known to mankind in the 21st century. It was SHE who ruined her reputation--everyone else was openminded, happy to "give her a chance" from her first day, but SHE chose her strategies and SHE created her legacy. Unlike the teachers I described above, her motives were about her needs, not anyone elses. I don't care how good a person's ends are, they don't justify the means of being a power hungry, disdainful and dishonest person--and since this woman has a DOCUMENTED track record of doing the same thing over and over in her past work, and since she is getting up there in years, it's obvious that these are here natural tendencies and time and patience by her victims won't change a thing. Wake up, Paul. Simple common courtesy eluded her --my God, she couldn't go to a restaurant or get her hair done without leaving a path of destruction in her wake!! She is no "desert flower", Dude, she's more of a "desert scorpion".LMG