Reports about NM Public Schools; approaches to problem solving

New Mexico, despite the current flood of oil/gas royalty payments to the state’s general fund, is a poor state, with desperate needs for economic development.

Approximately 73% of the state’s entire student population are reported as being economically disadvantaged. In 2019, 25% of Native American students tested proficient in reading and 12% in math. The percentage of English learners on track toward achieving English proficiency within five years decreased from 40% in 2018 to 29% in 2019. The four-year high school graduation rate for students with disabilities was 66.4% in 2020.

 

Such requires a fully realized capability of it’s citizens, and this requires a superb public and private school system. Few states have such an outsized challenge to education present in NM. Students, and communities that are often ESL if that, with low incomes, and low tax bases for schools, start out “behind” and “in a hole”.

The problem is so huge that it realistically won’t be fixed anytime soon without abundant/ huge support from the Federal Government, and foundations. It would also be very apropos for NM PED to develop efficient and superbly effective online tools for learning that could be distributed state wise to ALL the needy communities.

That along with various educational support programs, and poverty reducing social services at a much larger scale than currently available, might give hope of a turnaround in NM education. Perhaps the Community Schools model may be invoked statewide.

Community schools are an evidence-based strategy for increasing student success.