Editorials

Federal Education Findings Alarming
By Rebecca Dow

New Mexico parents and families are aware of the myriad failings of New Mexico's K-12 system and sadly, often resigned to the expectation of awful outcomes. While Gov. Lujan Grisham and legislative Democrats tout more spending, policymakers refuse to embrace reforms that have worked in numerous states from Education Savings Accounts in Arizona to the "Mississippi Miracle."

A new study from the U.S. Department of Education, contains findings that SHOULD push policymakers to reform New Mexico's failed education system. According to the "Consolidated Performance Review Report for FY 2023," New Mexico is failing to meet most federal requirements related to statewide educational services, with most implementation methods in need of correction.

By Rep. Gail Armstrong

It's infrequent that House Republicans and Santa Fe Public Schools agree on anything. This week, however, has demonstrated politics sometimes does make strange bedfellows. On April 18th, 60% of New Mexico's school districts – including Santa Fe - filed a lawsuit against the Public Education Department (PED) for mandating 180-instructional days beginning next school year.

New Mexico House Republicans have been banging the drum on this very issue for more than 5 months because this new rule is unworkable, unfunded, and will likely lead to fewer teachers in the most rural parts of the state. In fact, House Republicans objected to the proposed rule when it was first proposed in 2023 and just weeks ago asked PED to delay implementation until the 2025-26 school year.

By: NM House Republican Leader, Rod Montoya

The failure of the government to secure our southern border is the number one issue for my constituents.

They want policymakers to stop the tidal wave of illegal immigration and illicit drugs flowing into our country. Most counts have the number of new "undocumented" arrivals at over 8 million since President Biden took office. While most immigrants are not dangerous, human traffickers, drug cartels and terrorists are clearly taking advantage of our leaders' failure to protect the border. We have allowed some of the world's most dangerous people and 27 tons of fentanyl to come into our communities over the last four years.

By Paul Gessing

What if I told you that one federal government policy could do the following:

1) Undermine Russia's war against Ukraine (without the US spending a dime);
2) Strengthen economic ties between the US and Asian and European nations;
3) Reduce CO2 emissions;
4) Increase US tax revenues and American jobs (including in New Mexico).

The policy I'm referring to is to allow American exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Thanks to American technological prowess the US is producing enough energy not only for itself, but for the world as well.

By Justice David K. Thomson
New Mexico Supreme Court

This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. President John F. Kennedy proposed this legislation in 1963, but he was assassinated before its enactment. The legislation became a priority of his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, who signed it into law one year later. In 1969, Governor David Cargo signed House Bill 142 and thereby enacted the New Mexico Human Rights Act. This state law protecting individuals from discrimination is the subject of our Court's fourth annual "Rule of Law" program.

Parents, students have opportunity to help choose high school graduation requirements
By Mandi Torrez

With the governor's signing of a new law updating the state's high school curriculum, New Mexico families now have a prime opportunity to shape your local high school course requirements in a way that will reflect your community's values while ensuring that your graduates are college and career ready.  

While high school students still must complete 24 credits to graduate, two of those credits will now be determined locally in each district.

Think New Mexico, a nonpartisan, results-oriented think tank, has researched courses that would be engaging and provide students with relevant, lifelong skills, as we detailed in our report, "A Roadmap for Rethinking Public Education in New Mexico." We encourage parents and students to reach out to your school board members and urge them to select two local course requirements that will provide a well-rounded school experience. We hope that you might advocate for some of the following options:

By Paul Gessing

Recently, Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, after pushing the Legislature for a 25% tax hike on New Mexico oil and gas producers made the decision to pull those "highly valuable" tracts of land and not lease them. That decision has raised concerns that her actions may violate her fiduciary responsibility to maximize revenues from the lands under her control.

Garcia Richard told the Albuquerque Journal, "It's worth it to temporarily forgo the dollars (from leasing immediately) to make billions more in the future by leasing out the land (at a higher rate)."

By Howard Hutchinson

Legislative Efforts on Clean Fuels Standards

Legislation is now making the rounds of state legislatures setting up the means to create a carbon credit market process to support reducing or removing greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation fuels. The process creates credits for fuels that reduce the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of fuel energy. The measurement is expressed in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of fuel lifecycle. 3.6 megajoules equals 1 kilowatt hour. This calculation is used to establish the carbon intensity for each transportation fuel that then would generate a standard.

If that is not confusing enough imagine creating a computer model to track every fuel's lifecycle to include indirect land use change, all stages of fuel and feedstock production and distribution, feedstock generation or extraction through the distribution, delivery, and use of the finished fuel by the consumer, including consideration of storage, transportation, and combustion.