KUNM FM--In January, Governor Susana Martinez signed off on a plan to use $46 million from public schools' cash reserves to fill part of this year’s budget gap. Education spending in New Mexico still hasn’t recovered from the 2008 recession, and as oil and gas revenues continue to stagnate, schools are bracing for more cuts.

Santa Fe New Mexican--State legislators split along party lines Monday in advancing a proposed constitutional amendment that would use some of the $15 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to help pay for early childhood education and other public education programs. The House Education Committee voted 7-6 for a plan to fund pre-K programs with an extra 1 percent from the endowment. Democrats supported the measure and Republicans opposed it. “Fifteen-billion-plus dollars — that’s almost richer than Donald Trump,” said Rep. Christine Trujillo, D-Albuquerque, in voicing her support for the measure.

New Mexico’s small population stretches over a big state, so we have taken higher education to the students, with 32 colleges and universities. Nearly every sizable community has a branch or an independent institution. For our students, who tend to be older and need to hold a job while they take classes, this is a good thing.

A Wednesday press release from New Mexico Voices for Children said a recent study done by the organization shows that student population growth outweighs New Mexico public education funding. “New Mexico was still spending less per student on K-12 public education in 2015 than it did before the recession (in 2008),” said the release.

Children from low-income families who were enrolled in the state-funded New Mexico PreK program as 4-year-olds outperformed their peers a few years later, as third-graders, on the state’s standardized PARCC tests in 2015, a new legislative study says.