MLG: When in doubt, spend more money

It’s true, New Mexico performs poorly when it comes to literacy. For two cycles in a row New Mexico’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores have been the very worst in the nation across both reading and math categories. While never a high performing state MLG’s COVID lockdowns had a devastating impact on student outcomes in New Mexico.

So, you’d think that policymakers in New Mexico would have at least a game plan for improving student outcomes, right? Not really.

Certainly, school choice is off the table with unions in control of education policy. A full-throated embrace of the successful Mississippi model for early childhood reading would be worth trying, but it’s not. What IS New Mexico doing to advance reading? Mostly spending ever increasing amounts of money with little to show for it. Whether it is the costly and ineffective pre-K program which spends $284 million annually for dubious results or the K-12 system that has seen massive spending growth, New Mexico is spending more money than ever on education. And, of course, between state and local funding New Mexico already spends hundreds of millions of dollars on libraries (the original “literacy institutes”) which (in parts of Albuquerque) seem double as homeless shelters.

Rather than reforming the education system or imposing accountability on a system that is not getting the job done instead MLG and the Legislature have spent a whopping $30 million for a new “literacy institute” being built in Albuquerque. It is hard to say exactly how will this facility improve literacy in New Mexico, but according to the story it will “the have state-of-the-art technology and indoor and outdoor learning spaces.”

New Mexico has a long track record of wasting money, especially on failed capital projects. Not too long ago the taxpayer-funded $4 million “Camino Real Museum” was slated for demolition. What will happen with this “Literacy Institute?” Who knows, but we aren’t counting on it doing much for New Mexico’s flagging literacy rates.

Click on the image below to watch the KOB 4 story.