Wednesday, July 2, 2014 THE NEW MEXICAN
OPINIONS
The West’s oldest newspaper, founded 1849 Robin M. Martin Owner
COMMENTARY: PETULA DVORAK
Hobby Lobby, it’s time for parental leave
O
K, Hobby Lobby. You can still fix this. There’s one way to come out of this looking decent, walking that righteous, pious and moral path you talk about. The Supreme Court has decided that you have the right to deny covering contraception for thousands of your female employees. Now you should provide the most fantastic, bang-up, paid and protected parental leave in the United States. Think about it. Your craft stores can become American corporate pioneers, showcasing your Christian values by giving your more than 13,000 employees paid time off when they have children. America ranks dead last in the world when it comes to paid parental leave, according to a recent United Nations report. Wait, actually, we are tied with Oman and Papua New Guinea, both of which also offer no paid maternity leave. And yet here we are, a nation hostile to working families, whose highest court just ruled that corporations can skirt federal law on what health plans offer women seeking control over their reproductive lives. More babies! Less support! “Family leave. Child care. Flexibility. These aren’t frills — they’re basic needs,” President Obama said in an address last week about America’s abysmal record on family policy. “They shouldn’t be bonuses — they should be the bottom line.” A bonus? Monday’s decision allowing a corporation to deny federally approved benefits will make it even harder for American families who rely on the Affordable Care Act — especially those with low-wage, hourly workers employed at retailers such as Hobby Lobby. When it comes down to it, this decision is even uglier because it is primarily an economic one, another way to beat down our nation’s struggling families. Most of the thousands of women who work in the silk
A-7
Robert M. McKinney Owner, 1949-2001 Inez Russell Gomez Editorial Page Editor
Ray Rivera Editor
OUR VIEW
Taos teacher sets example
N flower sections or at the cash registers at Hobby Lobby are there for a steady paycheck with health care. And for many of them, health care includes contraception. Of course, Hobby Lobby can’t stop its workers from getting a prescription for birth control pills. And if there are women in their corporate suite, they can surely afford to buy the pills or an IUD on their own. But with the cost around $50 a month for pills, $60 for a single Plan B dose and around $100 for a shot of Depo-Provera, many American workers can’t afford birth control without the help of the Affordable Care Act. So to save money, women may start skimping, taking pills only every other day or relying on less reliable methods. And that will inevitably lead to more abortions. About 61 percent of American women who have abortions are already mothers to at least one child, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Many of them fear that another child will devastate their fragile family, pushing them into poverty, unemployment and government assistance. Denying them affordable birth control on religious
grounds makes no sense. It’s also funny how the religious righteousness melts away when it comes to money. Turns out that Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) employee retirement plan, according to documents filed with the Labor Department and written about by Mother Jones, is heavily invested in the very pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the products the company refuses to cover for its employees. Yup, Hobby Lobby has about $73 million invested in the company that makes the Plan B morning-after pill, another that makes a copper IUD, the maker of the abortion-inducing drugs and health companies that cover surgical abortions. In her 35-page dissent, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoted from another case that underscores the importance of birth control to women: “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives” (1992’s Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey). But the five male justices who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby just handed employ-
ers a powerful tool to opt out of laws they don’t like. Hear that, everyone? If you want the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, you better check out the religious beliefs of your bosses. How do they feel about your sex life? Are they cool with the monthly birth control pills you take to control your endometriosis? Do they think you or your children should be immunized, or is that against their religion? The door is now open for all that. This was a dangerous decision and the first time that the Supreme Court has said a profit-seeking corporation can hold up religious beliefs as a way to opt out of federal law. The only way this Supreme Court decision can avoid becoming a complete catastrophe is if Hobby Lobby breaks new ground with family-friendly leave policies. This company can set a standard for the rest of corporate America and follow through with some of the other stuff the Bible preaches: compassion, kindness and Jesus’s way of refusing to judge while offering aid. Petula Dvorak is a columnist for The Washington Post.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Make decisions with aesthetics in mind
I
t might be a really good idea, especially in an area that has developed a strategic economy based on values appealing to the more good-looking aspects of architecture and lauding the arts and crafts — in fact it would be a great idea — to make decisions that begin with an aesthetic filter and then make careful compromises knowing how things look. That way, we do not have to fight constantly against 50-acre blemishes on what should be sacred — La Bajada querencia and cell towers as we approach the town. Make beautiful things and sell beautiful things in beautiful places with beautiful landscapes. What is wrong with “walking the beautiful trail” the Navajos talk about and stop cutting down peach orchards to achieve our goals, as Kit Carson did, or torching our forests? Thor Sigstedt
Santa Fe
PNM’s motives? Recently, I received a letter from the Public Service Co. of New Mexico suggesting that I convert from evaporative cooling (swamp cooler) to refrigerated air conditioning. I could not believe my eyes. The utility that is supposed to be looking after the public interest is sug-
gesting that I increase my electricity costs significantly. On PNM’s website, it stated that the average user would see electricity costs for air conditioning increase from $38 to $179. PNM has just proposed to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission that it wants to buy more coal. A significant part of its justification is increased peak energy demand, which comes from refrigerated air conditioning. If PNM adds more coal capacity, the water usage by the company will increase by about 500 million gallons per year. More coalburning electricity to meet air-conditioning demand seems as though it will increase water usage. Let’s choose cost-competitive renewable energy, instead. Robert Vladem
Santa Fe
Teacher feedback Your editorial regarding teacher evaluations (Our View: “Teachers deserve better feedback,”) did not give the whole picture of the evaluation problems. As a National Board certified teacher, I welcome constructive criticism on my teaching practices. I strive to improve professionally.
MALLARd FiLLMoRe
Section editor: Inez Russell Gomez, 986-3053, igomez@sfnewmexican.com, Twitter @inezrussell
But many areas of the evaluation system are flawed. In the Santa Fe Public Schools, 10 percent of the teacher evaluation is based on student surveys. I welcome thoughtful student feedback to improve my teaching, but this is excessive. There are kids who are mad because they haven’t done what they need to do — and blame the teacher. The outside evaluator component does not allow for the evaluator to know the context of a situation. At my school, one teacher was given a low score because her room was too small — claustrophobic (the evaluator misspelled it, by the way). Another was minimally effective because she didn’t call on two out of 26 children. I was dinged because I didn’t use technology — my Internet connection was down — and because I didn’t have enough whiteboard space. That’s just dumb. I challenge the state and district to form a committee to address glitches in the system. Sign me up to participate. Terri Blackman
NBCT middle childhood generalist Wood Gormley Elementary School New Mexico National Board Certified Teacher Network Northeast Region co-representative
ot many people would have the resolve to turn down a $5,000 professional bonus — especially one that rewards and recognizes excellence at a job. But English teacher Francis Hahn of Taos High School said no to the New Mexico Public Education Department, which offered the bonus because his Advanced Placement students did so well on 2012 tests. The bonus is an incentive to reward individual teachers who inspire, cajole and otherwise push their students to greater success; in this case, success as measured by AP test results. Hahn’s response, though, reminds us that education is a collaborative effort with many contributing to success. In rejecting the stipend, he reminded us that “it takes an entire district to educate students to the highest levels of high achievement that they reach by the time they take the AP test — therefore, a bonus system should be devised that rewards all staff, not individual teachers.” A bonus system for AP teachers, he pointed out, ignores other teachers (not to mention staff members from principals all the way to janitors). “The work that teachers do with regular and special education students is every bit as important as the work that is done with the highestachieving students,” Hahn said. What’s more, the possibility of winning a bonus wasn’t available to great elementary or middle school teachers, or even to the English teacher down the hall who didn’t teach AP courses or to the inspiring band instructor whose skills keeps students motivated and in school. Francis Hahn sent his $5,000 back, modestly saying that he wouldn’t take so much credit for his students’ success. Married eight years, putting the check in the mail means he still won’t be taking a honeymoon. That’s quite a sacrifice. Hahn did, however, manage to teach his students a lesson even with school out of session. His students know that their English teacher isn’t motivated by money. By including all who had a hand in shaping his students’ skills and knowledge, Hahn set an example. Now, top education officials should follow the lead of a great teacher. His views of education, and his notions of how best to reward teachers, should be food for thought — and action — as the state tries to get its evaluation systems up and running.
The past 100 years From the Santa Fe New Mexican: July 2, 1914: Cañon City, Colo. — Although nets have been stretched across the Arkansas River, near this town and scores of searchers are following the banks of the stream in the hope of finding the bodies of Miss Grace McHugh, moving picture actress, and Owen Cartez, picture machine operator, who are thought to have been drowned in Grape Creek, while staging a scene yesterday afternoon. No trace of the bodies had been found up to an early hour this afternoon. Rumors today were heard to the effect that the entire affair was a press agent scheme, cleverly worked up, but no confirmation of this report could be found. July 2, 1964: Original records of the Trujillo treason case trial of more than 100 years ago, long believed by historians to have been lost, have been found in Santa Fe County territorial records recently transferred to the archives vault of the State Records Center, administrator Joseph Halpin disclosed today. Scholars had long searched in vain for the records of the 1847 trial in which wealthy and distinguished Antonio Maria Trujillo of Rio Arriba County was condemned to death by Judge Joab Houghton for treason in the new U.S. government after the assassination of Gov. Charles Bent in January of that year. Trujillo later got a presidential pardon. July 2, 1989: The state insurance superintendent said it isn’t clear how or why an insurance license was issued to the son of the top aide to a state corporation commissioner even though the son flunked the licensing test. Insurance Superintendent Fabian Chavez said he canceled Frank Griego’s license last week after he discovered a discrepancy between his actual score and computer records that gave him a passing score. Griego is the son of Eloy Griego, administrative assistant to corporation commissioner Louis Gallegos. Frank Griego said he figured he was granted the license by mistake and that he left the insurance business last month.
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