I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
New Mexico’s gubernatorial candidates disagree over how often to test the state’s schoolchildren, the Associated Press reports.
The Santa Fe New Mexican profiles an Arizona high school graduate who is undocumented and recently came to New Mexico to…
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez promise not to cut spending on education at the same time they will not raise your taxes if elected governor. But the economic realities that will confront the winner of the governor’s race…
Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Florida, Rhode Island, D.C., Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio won money Tuesday in the second round of the Race to the Top federal grant program, which is sending more than $4 billion to reform-minded states…
The biggest winner of Thursday’s gubernatorial debate on education may have been someone not even in the room: state auditor Hector Balderas. In a rare meeting of the minds Thursday night, both Denish and Martinez said that schools need to be more financially responsible and that more and better auditing is necessary. The State Auditor’s Office is charged with an oversight role in how taxpayer money is spent, but has not always gotten the money it needs to do that. “Everybody publicly supports the concept of auditing,” Balderas said Thursday night, noting that his agency has been cut more severely than the rest of state government.
Is Secretary of State Mary Herrera playing the snoop? It appears that way, writes Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican. Herrera submitted a public records request for e-mail correspondence by several individuals, including critics of her office.…
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez will tackle education at a debate hosted by APS tonight. Martinez says she’d focus on getting more money back into the school classrooms if elected governor. Denish says she’d continue the work she’s already done on improving K-12 education in New Mexico.
New Mexico ranks 47th among states in the number of 25 to 34 year olds with an associate’s degree or higher and 48th when it comes to students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to a new report from the College Board‘s Advocacy and Policy Center.
According to the organization’s 2010 Progress Report, roughly 28.5 percent of New Mexicans aged 25 to 34 possess an associate’s degree or higher, which compares unfavorably to the national average — 41.6 percent. Likewise, 41.8 percent of New Mexicans graduate college with a bachelor’s degree within six years, again substantially lower than the national average of 56.1 percent. More …
Public school teachers, administrators and teacher’s aides will benefit from $2.5 million in federal stimulus funds meant to offset the costs of increased insurance premiums and to expand professional development opportunities, Gov. Bill Richardson announced Monday.
Roughly $2 million…
New Mexico’s first gubernatorial debate has been scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 19 at Eldorado High School in Albuquerque, and the topic will be education. Albuquerque Public Schools is hosting the debate, which will be moderated by Superintendent Winston Brooks.
The…
Albuquerque Public Schools‘s share of extra education dollars Congress approved Tuesday is around $15 million according to latest estimates, a district spokesman said Wednesday.
Under a complicated scenario that assumes APS might be staring at a $19 million budget hole…
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a $26 billion bill that includes extra health care funding — a projected $126 million — and additional education money — $65 million — for New Mexico at a time when the state is in desperate need of a cash infusion. But State Rep. Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, said the move is a Band-Aid that only masks the need to make more cuts.
Some Albuquerque Public Schools teachers fear the district plans to increase class sizes claiming that their classrooms are already so packed that they violate fire codes daily, reports KOB-TV.
The Rio Grande Sun reports the Española City Council approved an additional $360,000 budget cut for…
The Taos News reports on Tuesday the Taos Municipal Board of Education rejected a contract from the teacher’s union that would have prevented salary cuts while taking away rewards for education and experience.
The Santa Fe Public Schools District…
New Mexico’s students might have improved their math, science and reading skills over half a dozen years, but state officials announced yesterday that three-fourths of the state’s schools failed to meet this year’s goal for student improvement, according to…
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez have agreed to the first gubernatorial debate and it will tackle education.
The debate will occur Aug. 19 at Eldorado High School in Albuquerque, according to a news release sent out…
New Mexico’s permanent endowment trust funds took a beating in the stock market between March and June, losing three-quarters of a billion dollars.
The state Land Grant Permanent Fund, the state’s largest endowment, lost 6.4 percent of its…
KOB-TV reports a former employee of a Wells Fargo in New Mexico has been accused of embezzling money from a customer’s escrow account.
An employee of New Mexico State University filed a lawsuit against the university accusing it of retaliation after she…
Even though New Mexico didn’t win the money, the state will continue to pursue the education reforms spelled out in its 200-page application for federal Race to the Top education funds, Gov. Bill Richardson‘s new education secretary, Dr. Susanna Murphy, said…
New Mexico once again apparently has missed the cut in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, which is doling out federal dollars to states adopted innovative approaches to K-12 education, The Wall Street Journal reported ahead of…
Despite bucking a national trend of increasing child poverty and a reduction in school drop-out rates, New Mexico ranks last or near-last in seven of 10 measures of child welfare, from teen deaths to proportion of children living in poverty, according to a report released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Overall, the 2010 Kids Count Data Book shows that New Mexico lost ground, slipping to 46th place from 43rd in last year’s report.
Only for infant mortality did the state rank better than the national average, at 13th place, with 6.3 babies dying per 1,000 live births, compared to a U.S. average of 6.7 deaths per 1,000 births. Here are some of the other major findings:
NM teen birth rate is highest in the nation
New Mexico continues to rank worst in the nation for teen birth rates, with 2007 numbers (the most recent available data) showing no change from 2000 in New Mexico; 66 girls aged 15 to 19 gave birth for every 1,000 girls in New Mexico, compared to 43 per 1,000 nationwide.
Teen death rate also high
The state continues to have one of the worst teen death rates in the U.S. Although New Mexico’s teen death rate dropped slightly — 3 percent — between 2000 and 2007, at 96 deaths per 100,000 teens, the state’s rates are markedly higher than the national average of 62 per 100,000.
Single-parent families growing faster than average
The percentage of children in single-parent families grew seven times as much from 2000 to 2008 in New Mexico as the rest of the U.S., the report states. The percent of New Mexico children living in single-parent families grew from 33 percent in 2000 to 40 percent by 2008, compared to 32 percent nationwide in 2008.
The Kids Count report includes single-parent households as an indicator of child welfare because children in households with one adult do not have access to the same economic or human resources as children in two-parent families, the report states. In 2008, nearly a third of single-parent families lived in poverty, compared to just 7 percent of children in households run by married couples, according to the report.
Poverty affects one-fourth of NM kids
Nearly a quarter of New Mexico children, 24 percent, live in poverty (defined in 2008 as a four-member household income below $21,834). The situation is much worse for the state’s Native American (39 percent) and Hispanic children (30 percent), according to the report.
Nationwide, 18 percent of children live in poverty, according to the study.
Drop-out rate dips, but NM still ranks 47th
The percent of 16 to 19 year-old New Mexicans who were not in school dropped from 16 to 10 percent between 2000 and 2008, but that still placed the state in 47th place nationwide.
The U.S. average drop-out rate was 6 percent in 2008, the report states.
Child death rates rise while national rate drops
New Mexico’s number of deaths per 100,000 children under age 15 increased between 2000 and 2007, while the U.S. average child death rate declined. For 2007, New Mexico’s child mortality rate was 24 deaths per 100,000 children, compared to a U.S. average of 19 deaths per 100,000 according to the report.
The new report comes on the heels of a report in May that New Mexico children rank low on reading ability and school performance.
