Education
21 killed at Uvalde elementary in Texas’ deadliest school shooting ever
Nineteen children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County on Tuesday, making the massacre the deadliest school shooting in Texas’ history. “My heart is broken today,” Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said while holding back tears during a press conference Tuesday evening. “We’re a […]
Confronted with mass shootings, Texas Republicans have repeatedly loosened gun laws
In the past few years, Texas Republicans have been quick to consider a crackdown on gun violence after a mass shooting. They did so in 2018 after a 17-year-old entered Santa Fe High School and killed 10 people. Then again in 2019, when two mass shootings weeks apart occurred in El Paso at a Walmart […]
Freedom of speech is under attack in public schools, U.S. House panel told
Students and teachers told U.S. House members during a Thursday hearing that their right to talk about race and LGBTQ+ issues in public schools is being silenced due to an onslaught of new state laws as well as pressure on school boards from right-wing advocates. “To be crystal clear, this is about disrupting and destroying […]
PED calls for input on a plan to improve equal access to public education
State officials want people to give their opinions on the action plan to reform New Mexico’s education system. The plan comes in response to the Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit that unveiled a history of failures by the state in providing adequate education for a majority of public school students. The case resulted in the court ordering New […]
Congress explores creation of truth commission for U.S. Indian Boarding Schools
WASHINGTON — Survivors of a U.S. policy that forced Indigenous children to attend boarding schools where they were abused, died or went missing, detailed to members of a U.S. House Natural Resources panel during a Thursday hearing the need for Congress to establish a truth commission dedicated to unveiling the traumas Indigenous children experienced at […]
Interior Department report details the brutality of federal Indian boarding schools
The atrocities committed at boarding schools designed and run by the federal government to eradicate Indigenous people were outlined by the U.S. Interior Department for the first time in a report published Wednesday. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland held back tears as she described the scope of the investigation that identifies 408 federal Indian boarding schools […]
We have the tools to pull COVID out of the air in NM schools, but are we using them?
Using existing technology like filtration and ventilation, it is possible to reduce the amount of coronavirus aerosols in the air in our schools, workplaces and indoor public spaces. New Mexico requires local schools to install the best possible filters to accomplish that, and the federal government has allocated millions of dollars in pandemic relief to […]
NM Republicans inflate curricula fears at education hearing
The purpose of a presentation Thursday by New Mexico Public Education Department officials for members of a legislative committee was straightforward: Provide a detailed update about proposed revisions of statewide K-12 social studies standards. But that agenda item veered quickly into a passionate exchange between Democratic lawmakers, who applauded the changes, and Republican representatives gripped […]
COVID-19 in the air remains elusive disability rights issue, experts say
The coronavirus that hangs in the air inside New Mexico’s schools isn’t tracked at any level by state officials, and hasn’t gotten the same attention in New Mexico courts as school mask mandates. But interviews with health and legal experts show that it could still be a disability rights issue because without clean air in […]
Leaders in tribal education center language preservation
Except for towers of smoke from the Cerro Pelado wildfire billowing over the horizon, Wednesday was a perfectly clear, mild spring morning in the mountain valley where New Mexico lawmakers visiting Jemez Pueblo were greeted by several of the tribe’s educational leaders. Surveying the distant smoke from an overlook, Democratic state Sen. Benny Shendo, Jr., […]
PED says school districts promised to follow COVID rules. So where’s the proof?
The New Mexico Public Education Department said superintendents and school boards agreed in writing in 2021 to follow COVID-safe practices, including requirements by PED to install the best possible filters in school buildings to remove COVID-19 from indoor air. But two weeks after Source New Mexico asked to see these written promises from the schools, […]
State risks losing federal money if it’s not spent soon
Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has allocated more than $26 billion in funding to New Mexico, but much of that money has yet to be spent, and some of it could be lost if the state government fails to appropriate it, the Legislative Finance Committee heard Wednesday. This includes more than […]