Advocacy

Our Services

Advocacy

We have a long legacy of advocating for the children of New Mexico. Before New Mexico became a state, Sister Blandina Segale came to New Mexico where she started the first public schools. She lobbied the territorial legislature to fund their own public school system. In 1882 she was the advocate for and pass a bill that established the Industrial Schools or Public Schools.

The bill stated the following:

“Whereas, The advancement and prosperity of this Territory are largely dependent upon the education of its people; and, Whereas, There are within its limits numerous orphans and other indigent children without home, influence or moral protection and destitute of the means of education and decent livelihood; and, Whereas, The same children, who, if left to ignorance, destitution and misery, would become elements of serious evil in our midst and entail great public expense in the prevention and suppression of crime, will, if protected and fostered, become a source of wealth, intelligence and moral support to the commonwealth, therefore, Be it Enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico: There shall be created a Board of Charities and Industrial Schools in this territory.”

The bill stated the following:

We continue this legacy by advocating for all of the children who do not have access to high quality early childhood services like Joyful Parenting Partnership, child care assistance, and pre-school. In New Mexico we have the highest rate of child poverty in the nation. The cycle of poverty in our state is endemic, but we have the solution. High quality early childhood education for all children has the power to solve poverty. We do not receive government funding and therefore are in a unique position to prioritize child well-being above all else when it comes to our advocacy work. If we need to take on hard issues to reach our goal, we do so.

Be a Champion for the Children

High-Quality Early Childhood Education

We can transform our state into a place where all children can grow up to be happy and healthy by creating a comprehensive, high quality system of early childhood across the state in every community and for every child in need. The unmet need, as demonstrated in our most recent study by Catherine F. Kinney, is $405 million per year for the following kinds of services: Joyful Parenting Partnership, Enhanced referral services, Child care assistance, Pre-Kindergarten, Quality improvement, Accountability and Evaluation.

New Mexico is a resource rich state. Our children are beneficiaries of one of the world’s largest reserves of natural resources. Royalties from these resources, mostly oil and gas, go into our Land Grant Permanent Fund (Fund) which currently totals $15 billion. When the Fund was created in 1910 it was dedicated to the education of our children. Now, we are advocating to update the antiquated understanding of education to include the formative early years. Permanent Funds for Early Childhood, Constitutional Amendment is a proposal which asks that legislators send a constitutional amendment to the voters to approve investing an additional 1% from the Fund into high quality early childhood education programs. Since this campaign started in 2010, the Fund has grown by $5 billion, surviving the Great Recession and the drop in oil and gas prices. The fund is healthy, but our children are not. During this same time period child well-being in New Mexico has gone from 46th in the nation, according to the Annie E. Casey Kids Count Progress Report, down to 50th and has remained at 49th for the past several years. We can do better by our children, but we need to make our children’s well-being a priority.

Considerable research has gone into our advocacy position. The following are economic studies, early childhood systems analyses, legal memos and polls that demonstrate the feasibility of this policy solution to fund early childhood education. To learn more visit InvestInKidsNOW.org.