Education analysts are saying New Mexico is well on its way to being last among states in student test scores, which they attribute to the one-two punch of the COVID-19 pandemic and the indifference of state legislators to school reform.

Edwin A. Lopez, director of education coalitions for the Opportunity for All Kids New Mexico (OAKNM), an education reform nonprofit run by the Rio Grande Foundation in Albuquerque, said New Mexico students are losing ground in a guest column for the Albuquerque Journal.

He referred to the state’s ranking of 50th in the country according to a “Students’ Count Report” issued by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based nonprofit tasked with improving the well-being of American children.

“This doesn’t even take into account the impact of COVID, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s lockdowns and over a year of lost schooling,” Lopez told the Albuquerque Journal.

Patrick Brenner, an advocate with the Rio Grande Foundation, agreed.

“New Mexico's youth, my own children among them, deserve better,” Brenner said in a tweet. "The time for school choice is now."

The Albuquerque Journal report said a study done by Chicago consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that the average child in New Mexico had lost five to nine months of learning, fueled by high poverty rates and lack of internet access, with more lost classroom time because of the pandemic.

Problems among fourth graders, considered a pivotal age because reading skills transfer into learning skills, is particularly severe in New Mexico, advocates said.

Mississippi, formerly among the lowest of states in fourth grade skills is improving while New Mexico at 50th place remains stuck, Lopez maintained.

“By 2019, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading scores rose to 219 while New Mexico’s barely budged to 208," he wrote. "Mississippi has opened up a growing gap between itself and New Mexico in reading skills acquisition.” 

Lopez also blamed state legislators for the problems, saying that Mississippi and Florida had enacted reforms to help improve test scores, while Gov. Michele L. Grisham (D-New Mexico) abandoned the Florida model after she took office from former Gov. Susanna Martinez (R-New Mexico).

Florida, under Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, enacted a system of test-based “accountability” and a “school choice” program that lifted the cap on establishment of charter and private schools.

“New Mexican children need a high-functioning school system now,” Lopez said. “New spending proposals aside, we can’t be myopic about solutions that have worked elsewhere. This approach has left the Land of Enchantment (New Mexico) dead last in educational outcomes. We must be open to new approaches. Perhaps the governor could try her own version of the Florida/Mississippi model? Hopefully.”