Education
Spending bill with money for county hospitals clears the state’s House
New Mexico’s effort to divvy up $1.1 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act money is another step closer — and spending is a little bit bigger. Lawmakers are hammering out the details of allocating roughly half of that pot during this special session. The rest will likely be sorted out during January’s regular 30-day […]
Four more children dead, and a nation shrugs. Is enough finally enough now?
Families in Michigan will set an empty place at the table this holiday season in the wake of the mass shooting at Oxford High School in southeast Michigan that left four children dead and seven more injured. The deaths at Oxford this week came a little more than two weeks before the ninth anniversary of […]
Republican congressman says background checks and anonymous reporting can curb gun violence
The day before 17 people died in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) was visiting Portage Central High School while it held a live shooter drill. “That never happened when I was a student,” Upton said during a phone interview with the Advance Monday afternoon. “It was […]
Is your state ready to handle the influx of federal funds for expanding broadband?
The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into expanding broadband internet access. But it’s at the state level where the financial rubber meets the fiber-optic road. History suggests some states are ahead of the game while others will have to play catch-up. The recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes significant funding to expand […]
Grad workers occupy UNM administration building
In a camp chair on the lawn of Scholes Hall, Sarah Worland was grading papers. The teaching assistant and Ph.D candidate instructs two English classes at the University of New Mexico: a fully online class that she designed, and an introduction to composition class. “I have a lot of grading to do,” she said Tuesday, […]
Custodial staff rallies for fairer pay at UNM
Hundreds of people lined up for hot chocolate and posole after students at the University of New Mexico decorated their campus with 13,000 luminarias, as they have for decades as part of the Hanging of the Greens. The annual holiday event is billed by the university as “UNM’s oldest student-run tradition” meant to “unite the […]
Neighbors glad for memorial planning at 4-H Park
Orange plastic fencing now lines the entire northeast area of 4-H Park, the location where at least 100 students and staff from the early Albuquerque Indian School era are buried. Toy Baldwin lives across the street from the park and said he is happy to learn the city blocked the area. He wants to see […]
Biden to unveil plan to blunt potential COVID surge this winter
WASHINGTON — Reimbursements for at-home rapid COVID-19 tests. Tougher testing requirements for international travelers. More emergency response teams to aid states combating infection spikes. And another big push to get Americans vaccinated. Those are the latest steps to fight COVID-19 that President Joe Biden will be announcing today, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters […]
NMSU’s local labor board no longer exists
New Mexico State University’s local labor board dissolved after two of its three members resigned in October. The dissolution means an effort by the school’s graduate students to form a union will instead be considered by the statewide labor board in Santa Fe. Graduate students there see it as a step toward reaching the bargaining […]
Grad workers ask regents to call for UNM to drop legal fight
When representatives of the UNM graduate workers union tried to talk to the school’s governing council on Wednesday afternoon, one regent quickly drove away while four others refused to intervene. The regents gathered Tuesday, Nov. 23, for lunch at Los Poblanos, a high-end restaurant, inn and organic farm in Albuquerque’s North Valley that boasts a […]
UNM appeals grad worker union case to District Court
A year after grad student workers at the University of New Mexico started the process of certifying a workers union to fight for fair wages and health care, the state’s board still hasn’t filed a final order. That’s partly because rather than voluntarily recognizing the union and getting on with bargaining over graduate students’ working […]
Embracing all the bad and the good of U.S. history is how we move forward
The Public Education Department held a virtual meeting so that the public could state their support or opposition for the proposed changes in our social studies curriculum for the state of New Mexico last week. I sat in on the Zoom meeting to offer my opinion and listen to all the feedback provided. And I […]