Problems with school “systems” — which include everything from broken furnaces to mildewed carpets and shredded electrical wires — are rampant across the state, according to a Searchlight New Mexico analysis of data collected by the agency charged with awarding money to help keep the public schools running.
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Posted inEducation, Full Archive
Years of frustration lie behind landmark school lawsuit
For Wilhelmina Yazzie, joining the groundbreaking lawsuit against New Mexico wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was the only thing to do.
Posted inFull Archive
How the Yazzie lawsuit could be a ‘game-changer’
Behind the recent ruling in the New Mexico school funding lawsuit is nearly a decade of evidence that the state’s public schools are not only failing children, but that children will be “irreparably harmed” if schools aren’t improved.
Posted inFull Archive
College-focused charter network eyes New Mexico
EL PASO, Texas – The kindergarteners of IDEA Edgemere walked quietly single-file down the hall, their uniforms embroidered with the school logo, left hands behind their backs, right fingers over their lips. Shh. Emblazoned on the wall above their heads, a sign read: “We do whatever it takes.”
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Charter schools target New Mexico’s at-risk students
Sara Tafoya never pictured herself as one of New Mexico’s at-risk students. She came from a supportive, college-educated family in Albuquerque, had once earned good grades, and entertained dreams of going to college and becoming a physical therapist.
But in her sophomore year, Tafoya “attracted bad situations,” skipping classes – sometimes for weeks at a time. By the time she found out she was pregnant at age 15, she faced a hurdle that typically derails a girl’s education.
Posted inFull Archive, Politics
Native communities harnessing the power of data
Like indigenous peoples around the world, they are today reclaiming their place as data researchers.
Posted inFull Archive, Politics
Where trust counts: The census and NM’s border cities
In the last 10 years, so much has changed in Sunland Park and elsewhere along the border that observers are girding themselves for what may prove to be a damaging undercount in the 2020 census.
Posted inFull Archive
Underfunded, undercounted: New Mexico at risk in 2020 census
You won’t find James Ironmoccasin’s house on Google Maps. To get to his place on the northeastern edge of the Navajo Nation, head east from the 7-2-11 gas station on Highway 64 in Shiprock, take the sixth turn into “Indian Village,” a neighborhood of small, unnumbered houses on a winding, ungraded and nameless dirt lane, […]
Posted inFull Archive
For contracts, New Mexico increasingly looks elsewhere
A Searchlight investigation finds billions of taxpayer dollars have flowed out of state since 2013 due to government purchases that are not filled — or cannot be filled — by New Mexico companies.
Posted inFull Archive, Politics, Your Right To Know
Here’s how we learned where New Mexico’s vendors are located
The data don’t exist in an easy-to-grasp form, so we decided to create and share it.