New Mexico drops back to 50th in “Kids Count” report

The latest “Kids Count” report has just been published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation with the assistance of the left-wing New Mexico Voices for Children. Sadly, New Mexico again comes in 50th, dead last in the report for overall child well-being.

At the Rio Grande Foundation, we have long held that the “Kids Count” report, while imperfect, is  a useful and largely accurate reflection of where New Mexico stands (it is a national report), but Voices for Children consistently tries to use the report to boost Democrats’ big-spending, economically-destructive, and failed policies regardless of their actual impact on children.

So, despite sliding back to 50th we get a defense of Gov. Lujan Grisham’s policies with Amber Wallin of Voices undermining her organization’s own report saying, “What’s not reflected in the data book is ‘great policy progress in the past few years that put kids first,’ she said, noting a number of legislative changes made from 2019 forward (when MLG took office).”

Attempts to defend failed policies of New Mexico’s Democrat politicians are nothing new from Voices as we noted last year. And, while RGF may not buy into pre-K as a driver of improved educational outcomes, Voices certainly does, yet they gave former Gov. Susana Martinez zero credit for her massive spending in that area. You can check out the results for yourself below: