New Mexico organizers rally to pass historic amendment guaranteeing right to early childhood education
Organizers in New Mexico this week are making a final push to ensure the passage of Amendment 1, a ballot measure that would make the state the first in the nation to guarantee the constitutional right to early childhood education and would make significant investments in childcare across the state.
Next Tuesday, voters will vote on the Funding for Early Childhood Programs Amendment, which would enable the state to withdraw funds annually from New Mexico’s Land Grant Permanent Fund.
The sovereign wealth fund was established in 1912 and is financed by oil and gas revenue, with a current value of nearly $26 billion. Five percent of the fund is already withdrawn annually to help fund hospitals, public schools, and universities.
If Amendment 1 passes, the government would be authorized to annually withdraw an additional 1.25% of the fund’s five-year average of year-end market values to support education, with roughly $150 million going to early childhood education programs.
If voters approve the amendment, lawmakers will determine how exactly the money will be spent each year, and organizers from groups including Olé New Mexico and the Vote Yes for Kids coalition are hoping the Legislature prioritizes increasing wages for childcare employees. Workers in the field earn as little as $11.50 per hour—the state’s minimum wage—in New Mexico.
“We’re in a situation where the market can’t support the wages that attract the qualified professionals that we rely on to educate and nurture our children during their most important developmental years,” Elizabeth Groginsky, who leads the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department, set up by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishamin 2020, told the Albuquerque Journal last month.
As Common Dreams reported in May, Grisham used the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Fund—also established in 2020—to begin a pilot program making childcare free for about 30,000 low- and middle-income families across the state for more than a year. The fund used for the program is also financed from the state’s oil and gas production, and is expected to be worth $4.3 billion by 2025.
For more than a decade, advocates in New Mexico have been pushing lawmakers to put a question to voters regarding whether the Land Grant Permanent Fund should partially be used to fund early childhood education and childcare.
Recent polls suggest New Mexico voters are happy to have the question on the ballot this year, with 69% of respondents to an August poll saying they supported the amendment, including 70% of Independents and 56% of Republicans.
Another survey by Public Policy Polling last month found that 51% of voters were supportive of Amendment 1 while 26% were opposed.
The push for greater investment in young children’s education and well-being comes nearly a year after the expanded child tax credit—which was credited with reducing childhood poverty by 30% and helping 35 million families pay for childcare, school expenses, and other essentials in 2021—expired due to right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) opposition.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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