My Agenda
Since taking office, we've remained really focused on improving the quality of life in New Mexico, and I think four areas really make up quality of life: (1) improving our educational system, (2) growing the economy and creating better jobs, (3) reducing crime, and (4) making government more efficient.

I think we've been pushing the envelope in all of these areas. We have two new privately run prisons, for about two-thirds of what it costs us to run state prisons. And that's in the face of a crime problem that had criminals out on the street rather than behind bars.

We're building 500 miles of new four-lane highways in the state of New Mexico. That's almost doubling the four-lane highway system in the state.

We reformed welfare in New Mexico. We reformed Medicaid saving $500 million by moving to a managed care system from fee-for-service.

As for government efficiency, we reduced the number of state employees by about 1,200. And what I argue in New Mexico is, if you haven't noticed a difference in service, then certainly we have to be doing a better job because we're doing it with 1,200 fewer employees. And that's never happened in the history of the state.

There hasn't been one single tax raised in the last five years in New Mexico. We have reduced taxes, but not as much as I would like.

Prior to getting elected, I promised to bring a common sense business approach to state government. I always thought that government passed too many laws. That's something that I still believe.

So, as governor, I have vetoed more bills than all the other 49 governors combined. I have vetoed about 500 bills during my five years in office.

In the spirit of no regrets, I think there are three issues that really remain in New Mexico and in the country that need to be resolved. One is the need to give a school voucher to every single student in this country. I think that this is the reform that's most needed when it comes to schools. I think we need to reduce personal income taxes in this country. And I really think that we need to reassess our war on drugs; it has been a miserable failure.

With regard to taxes, simply put, I think that we need to allow people to keep more of the money they make. Taxes are a real incentive or they're a disincentive. If you want people to drive a pickup truck, just give them a credit for buying a pickup truck. See what happens to pickup truck sales. You want to reduce pickup truck sales, put a heavy tax on them.

You want people to be productive, just reduce their income taxes. Depending on our income level, we're paying 50 percent of what we make to the government. What message are we sending to our citizens?

My Number One Priority
I think that we need to issue a voucher to every single school-age student. I realize this sounds frightening to a lot of people at first, but for a moment consider New Mexico. We add more and more and more money into a system, yet we continue to struggle with higher dropout rates, lower test scores, increased school violence...and the list of problems goes on and on and on.

We're dealing with a monopoly and our goal here is to give our kids a better chance to succeed. I think that the reality of public school systems today is that they are not providing the opportunities children need. I think that schools in this country are in a state of crisis. It's time to consider dramatic reform.

In my opinion, the system will only react and improve through the influence of vouchers. And I've heard many, many criticisms of vouchers. We need to open education to competition and we need to do that through vouchers. So, let's take a few minutes and consider the objections I hear all the time:

• Aren't vouchers going to take money away from the public schools?

Well, in New Mexico, we're proposing to give every single student a voucher--and in our state that's 330,000 vouchers.

This would not take money away from public education. We valued our vouchers at $3,500 each, when in fact we're spending about $5,500 a year to put a child through public school. So, if you do the math, you'll see that any child, who found an alternative to public education and used our voucher to leave public school, would leave $2,000 behind. This would actually increase the per-pupil unit value for students who remain in public schools. That's our proposal.

• Don't you understand that all we need to do is just spend more money? I mean, all you have to do is pay teachers more, lower classroom size, and provide some good professional development for our teachers.

I have a feeling that argument is going to stay with us for the next 20 years, unless we enact vouchers.

Did I mention that in New Mexico, since I've been governor, we've increased spending for K-12 education from $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion? By all measurements, however, just like public school systems around the country, we are doing a little bit worse from year to year. Do you know of any other aspect of our lives where we would allow this to continue?

• Aren't vouchers going to help only the rich?

My answer is that the rich have already made a choice. The rich have moved into neighborhoods that have the best schools. That's the reality. Those who can't afford to live in the nice neighborhoods and who live in neighborhoods where they don't have a choice, most often have the worst schools. Vouchers give the poorest kids a chance to escape the worst schools and go to better schools by choice.

• Isn't parental involvement the important ingredient in this? Some parents just aren't interested in their kids' education.

Well, I say that's baloney. I say that it doesn't matter whether a parent is a cardiothoracic surgeon or a mother on welfare, parents care about their kids. It's just that some parents are in economic situations where they can't make a difference, where they can't help their kids, and their kids just drop out.

• Won't vouchers mean the best and the brightest are going to leave public schools? We're going to leave the public schools with the dregs.

Well, I take offense when you say that the kids who stay in public schools are all under-performers. Many of these children just don't have the opportunities they need to excel. And given a chance, given a choice, they do perform. At least with vouchers you're giving kids an opportunity to do better, something that doesn't exist today.

• Don't public schools have to take all kids while private schools can pick and choose their students?

Don't kid yourselves. Public schools don't take all kids today. They don't and they shouldn't, because it just doesn't make sense to.

Public schools in many cases are contracting out those kids with very special needs. So, in essence, vouchers are already in use today. We need to understand that public schools do not take all kids.

And did you know that today federal money follows a special needs child whether that child is in public school or private school? This would not change under a voucher system.

• What about the kids with disabilities? Aren't they going to be left behind?

Again, understand, that a kid with a disability does not have a $3,500 unit value. In New Mexico, we're not spending $5,500 for each child with a disability. We might be spending $10,000 or $15,000. We have a formula based on the amount of money that we have to spend.

So children with disabilities, under a voucher formula in New Mexico, might receive $10,000 each for their education. Let's give a kid with a disability a choice too.

Now, if the public schools are doing the best possible job that they can, why would these kids want to go anywhere else?

• Aren't vouchers unconstitutional? You can't give money to private schools.

There are 66 voucher programs nationwide, and I would think every single publicly funded program has been challenged constitutionally. The question is not are we giving money to private schools. What determines the constitutionality is that we're giving the money to kids. We're giving the money to parents, not to private schools. That constitutional argument has survived in all of these test cases.

And I've got news for you. If it doesn't survive constitutionally, we've got a whole lot of constitutional-like questions that will need to be answered. What about the vouchers we give to mothers to use for child care? There are a whole lot of government programs that could be equated with school vouchers, where we don't provide the service, where we give parents the money, and they go out and they find the service.

Arguably the most successful voucher program of all time was the GI bill, which helped make America what it is today. It gave GIs returning from the war the ability to choose which public, private, religious or vocational institution they wanted to attend.

• What makes you think a voucher is going to cover the cost of tuition? Thirty-five hundred dollars isn't going to do it.

Well, surprisingly, New Mexico right now has 256 private schools and over half of them would accept a $3,500 voucher. If there are no alternatives to public schools, then what have we lost by giving every single student in the state a voucher?

• Can't we get schools back to the way they were when we were growing up?

Many in my generation say we were treated really well by the public schools and that it was so much better then. Well, that may have been so, but we didn't have a choice then, and wouldn't it have been better for us if we'd had a choice?

• Won't vouchers mean a return to segregation?

The fact is that segregation still exists in public schools. The fact is that private schools are more integrated than public schools. You have segregation in the public schools because of the "non-choice" that gets made for so many families whose only affordable housing happens to be located in the worst school districts.

• Don't public schools have rules and regulations that the private schools don't have? This is not a level playing field.

There is no reason why public schools can't do away with many of their senseless rules tomorrow and adopt the rules and regulations that we want--no reason in the world. Whether we're talking about discipline, higher academic standards, or longer hours, there is no reason why any single school district in this country can't adopt new rules and regulations--none.

Why don't they? Because there is no incentive. Implement school vouchers and watch how quickly public schools change their rules and regulations to compete for students.

• What is going to happen to teachers?

Well, I would hope that the best teachers get paid more. And I would hope that the worst teachers might actually lose their jobs, something that does not happen today in public schools.

Why is there a fear among public school teachers that private education is going to somehow threaten their salaries when, in every example that I know of, the private sector pays more than the public sector? If students choose private schools, more high-paying teaching positions will be created.

• How are private schools going to be held accountable?

Well, right now in New Mexico, we have standards that you have to adhere to in order to become a private school and these standards will remain intact.

We have passed legislation that is going to require testing of all kids in public schools, and we added to the bill a provision that private schools accepting state-funded vouchers would have to implement the same standardized testing

• What about the rural areas? There aren't any choices in rural areas. These vouchers aren't going to do us any good.

Tomorrow there may not be alternatives in rural areas, but issue a voucher to every single student in the state, give it a little bit of time, and there will be alternatives. Then all schools will improve because there will be competition, and that could include competition from rural cyber-schools.

What is to prevent Internet delivery of education to K-12? Well, there are states right now that have implemented that. In Oregon, for example, you can get a certified high school diploma over the Internet for about $1,800 a year.

Give vouchers to every single student in the State of New Mexico or in any state, and you will see more of that kind of innovation. Today, there's little incentive.

I think that all the objections I mentioned can be overcome and that we can make a better life for our kids by bringing competition to public schools. How have we come to think so much "in the box?" When we talk about resources for education, why don't we question if we need to go to school for twelve and one-half years? How many of us have spent time in class that wasn't as productive as it might have been?

For a lot of kids it's a sentence to go to school for twelve and one-half years. Why aren't we testing competencies to get kids out of the school system sooner and into higher education? Why aren't the resources that are left redirected at kids who truly need them?

We have a system today that is so "in the box" that I'm convinced the only way to get it out of the box is to issue vouchers and bring competition into the mix. "Bring your brightest kid to my school because we can get him out of school in 11 years rather than twelve and one-half, or nine years rather than twelve and one-half."

In closing, I would argue that education reform is the biggest challenge facing this country. Only by opening the current system to competition--with vouchers--will we truly be able to make a difference. And with that, I would be happy to entertain any questions or comments that any of you might have.