Baby steps are still steps.
New Mexico moved up one place — to 49th among states — in rankings assessing child well-being throughout the nation, according to the annual Kids Count Data Book released Monday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The improvement, based on 2024 data, snapped a four-year streak of dead-last rankings for the state’s outcomes for kids.
The gains largely were fueled by economic improvements, such as a reduced rate of child poverty. Still, New Mexico continues to fall far behind in educating its children, the data shows; the state ranked 50th in education for at least the ninth report in a row.
“It’s always exciting to see us move up a little bit in the rankings. It’s always hard earned,” Emily Wildau, policy director for the nonprofit advocacy organization New Mexico Voices for Children, said in an interview. “… We saw really important improvement in economic well-being and health, [but] still continue to really struggle in the education domain.”
Michael Coleman, the chief spokesperson for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, wrote in an email the new data is outdated, as it reflects measurements of child well-being in 2024. He argued the state’s students have made significant gains in reading proficiency levels, especially among those with higher academic challenges, and that in 2024, New Mexico reduced child poverty “faster than any other state.”
“We’re far from satisfied with this latest ranking — but the trajectory is clear,” Coleman wrote.
He added, “We hope the next administration is committed to continuing and building on these significant gains for New Mexico’s children.”
This year’s data brought gains where last year’s brought backsliding.
After improving the statewide child poverty rate to 23% in 2022, last year’s report showed the rate worsened to 25% of all children. But in this year’s report, New Mexico made up the gap and improved its child poverty rate to 22%.
New Mexico improved in multiple other areas. For example, the percentage of teens not in school and not working declined from 11% in 2019 to 8% in 2024, and the number of teen births declined from 24 to 18 births per 1,000 teen girls in the same time frame.
The state also took some steps backward: The child and teen death rate rose from 36 deaths per 100,000 kids in 2019 to 37 in 2024, and the percentage of children living in households with high housing costs also rose during the same time frame, from 26% to 27%.
While not directly reflected in the data, Wildau said statewide initiatives such as universal childcare and tax credits can contribute to children’s economic well-being by relieving their parents’ and guardians’ financial burdens and allowing them to focus more on essentials.
“Things like the rate of children in housing with a high cost burden — we’ll start to see that improve as families don’t have to spend as much of their income on housing, because they’ll be saving that money elsewhere, getting that money back in tax credits,” she said.
But where New Mexico continued to falter the most was in education.
New Mexico students have improved their reading and other proficiency levels in recent years, according to statewide assessments from the 2024-25 school year.
Third through eighth graders saw a 9-percentage point jump in reading proficiency rates, to 43%, since 2022, according to results released in the fall of the New Mexico Measures of Student Success and Achievement test. Meanwhile, statewide math proficiency levels largely stagnated at 25%.
However, Wildau said the Kids Count Data Book relies largely on national test scores.
According to The Nation’s Report Card, a congressionally mandated assessment given to students around the country, just 19% of eighth graders in 2024 were deemed to be proficient or better at reading. Fourteen percent were proficient or better in math.
The Kids Count Data Book found similar results, with 80% of fourth graders not proficient in reading in 2024 and 86% of eighth graders not proficient in math. Both rates were several percentage points higher than they were in 2019.
Additionally, 60% of 3- and 4-year-olds were not in school, with the foundation noting early attendance can help boost future skill development and learning.
New Mexico does have plenty of company in its educational woes — the data book notes 47 states were worse off in 2024 than they were in 2019.
Still, Amanda Aragon, executive director of the nonprofit NewMexicoKidsCAN, highlighted the state’s long-standing status as the worst in the nation in education in the foundation’s reports.
New Mexico has ranked last for about a decade, she noted.
“This year, the news is even more devastating,” she said in a statement, “with a new index score that shows New Mexico as the worst not just in overall scores, but last in progress. On a scale of 0 to 1,000, our score is 1. This is heartbreaking.”
Coleman, the governor’s spokesperson, highlighted New Mexico students’ gains on the statewide test, and noted the state recently has made significant gains in graduating high schoolers. In February, the state Public Education Department announced the statewide graduation rate had risen to 80.6%, a high in more than a decade.
Aragon also said the state has made improvements, including through initiatives like universal childcare. However, she said in a statement, “we cannot stop there.”
“While New Mexico has done some nation leading work in areas, we cannot continue to ignore our K-12 education system,” she said. “This data is a glaring alarm, and it calls for immediate, bold and strategic reform driven by our state’s educational leaders and future governor.”
