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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A slight drop in New Mexico's high school graduation rate shows a lot more has to be done for students at all grade levels, Gov. Susana Martinez said Friday.
Martinez proposed several ideas on how to boost rates, which declined from 70 percent in 2013 to 68.5 percent in 2014. They include expanding reading programs for early education and combating student truancy by suspending driver's licenses.
"We can't be satisfied with where we are," Martinez said at a news conference at Highland High School in Albuquerque with Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera and Albuquerque Public Schools officials.
Graduation rates last year were more than 5 percent higher compared with four years ago, Martinez said. Yet thousands of children are falling through the cracks. State numbers show that 16 percent of students, or 48,000 children, missed at least 10 days of school during the last academic year, the Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/1zjippf ). Furthermore, 24 percent of seniors were habitually truant.
One strategy Martinez is pushing for is legislation that would allow driver's licenses for truant students to be suspended. The bill would let school districts work with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
"Urge our legislators in both the House and the Senate to do the right thing and send these bills to my desk," she said.
Another move Martinez's administration is making is channeling more funds into education from pre-kindergarten to third-grade. Martinez said fourth-grade is when children begin to find subjects harder and start to fall behind. Her fiscal year 2016 budget calls for $3 million for the New Mexico Graduates Now! Initiative. The initiative would place college counselors in high schools and be another safeguard to preventing high school dropouts.
In all, more than $12 million has been set aside for schools, districts and students in need of more support.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
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