Allen Sanchez of the Catholic Bishops and the leading advocate of tapping New Mexico’s permanent fund for new pre-K and “early childhood” programs has another missive in the Sunday Albuquerque Journal. He doesn’t really defend his assertion that “racism” had anything to do with the failure of his pet legislative proposal, but he again asserts that such programs have all kinds of great outcomes when the reality is that plenty of real-world experience shows otherwise.
Sanchez also falls for the simple fallacy that disparate outcomes between races “MUST” be driven by racism (such as educational performance). Again, he has no evidence to buttress his point. On the other hand, free market economist Walter Williams (who also happens to be black) has repeatedly dismantled this faulty logic. The aforementioned article notes the racial dominance in the world of sports and how certain racial groups dominate the NBA and other sports leagues. There are plenty of other fields where racial and ethnic groups predominate with few blaming “racism” as the cause.
Now, we at the Rio Grande Foundation DO want every child of every racial and ethnic background to succeed. That’s why we support school choice and economic reforms that would create more jobs in New Mexico. But, with racial minority children so often the product of broken homes and families with limited economic opportunity, it would seem that these might be major factors in their struggles (as opposed to racism).
It appears that Sanchez and his allies are overlooking obvious solutions staring them in the face in favor of more costly and questionable solutions. Perhaps it is because the Catholic Church is a religious organization without the understanding of economic policies and principles. We’d LOVE to sit down with the Archbishops to explain why their proposed policies are likely to hurt more than help, but we’re not holding our breath.
