“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
— Matthew 19:13-14
On June 8, 2026, the New Mexico Voices for Children released the “2026 Kids Count Data Book, State Trends In Child Well Being.” The annual “Kids Count” Data Book is prepared by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Casey foundation is a nonprofit based in Maryland focusing on improving the well-being and future of American children and their families. The Kids Count Data Book provides an annual detailed report of how children are faring overall compared to other states and in the four major categories of Education, Health, Family and Community and Economic Well Being. By providing policymakers and advocates with benchmarks of child and young adult well-being, the Foundation seeks to enrich local, state and national discussions concerning ways to enable all kids and youth to succeed.
Following are New Mexico’s rankings contained in 2026 Kids Count Data Book compared to all other states in all five categories:
- Overall: 49
- Education: 50
- Health: 41
- Family and Community: 50
- Economic well-being: 47
Links to review the 2026 Kids Count Data Book are here:
https://www.aecf.org/resources/2026-kids-count-data-book
https://www.aecf.org/interactive/databook?l=35
https://www.aecf.org/interactive/databook
DATA DOWNLOAD BREAKDOWN
Though New Mexico made modest gains in economic outcomes and health, the state ranked last in Education and in Family and Community. After five years of ranking 50th, New Mexico is now ranked 49th in the country for child well-being with Mississpi ranked 50th and Louisiana ranked 48th. According to New Mexico Voices for Children, the data, which reflect conditions in 2024, suggest that many child well-being indicators continue to recover from disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data book compares figures from 2024 using a set of federal and state databases, including the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics. The report’s authors assigned New Mexico a score of 281 points out of a possible 1,000 for overall child well-being. Mississippi ranks last, with a score of 271. New Hampshire is in first place at 838. The national average is 547.
Though New Mexico made modest gains in economic outcomes and health, the state ranked last in education and in family and community. New Mexico made strides in Economic Well-Being and Health domains. However, for the 10th consecutive year, New Mexico ranks 50th in education.
SMALL UPWARD TREND PART OF STORY
Even though there is much room for improvement, the data showed a small upward trend from pandemic-era dips. Emily Wildau, the Policy Director at New Mexico Voices for Children, the nonprofit that partnered with the Casey Foundation on the data book said this:
“We saw some really positive signs of recovery.”
For others, the numbers tell only one part of the story. Merranda Marin, a child psychologist and professor at New Mexico State University said this:
“I think it’s important to acknowledge that progress whenever progress occurs, but I think that we can’t get too overly focused on the ranking itself. … We really need to ask ourselves, are the children in New Mexico healthier? Are they safer? Are they more connected to their families? Are they more successful in school than they were, say five years ago?”
47th ECONOMIC WELL BEING RANKING
New Mexico ranked 47 in Economic Well-Being. The report measured economic outcomes using data on child poverty, parental employment status, housing cost burdens and the number of teenagers not in school or working. While the authors of the Kids Count Data Book said data from 2024 doesn’t reflect today’s economic or social realities, New Mexico made some of the largest advancements in childhood economic well-being of any state that year, according to the data.
New Mexico has one of the lowest median household incomes of any state in the nation and one of the highest rates of child poverty. A whopping 22% of children in New Mexico live in poverty which is well over the U.S. average of 15%, but still the lowest number recorded in more than 15 years.
Emily Wildau, the Policy Director at New Mexico Voices for Children, said this of the number of children in New Mexico living in poverty:
“It’s still high. It’s still something that we as a state can continue to work on, but it is moving in the right direction pretty consistently, and the overall improvements that we saw in economic well-being were really, really positive.”
Wildau suspects the economic gains are due in part to the lingering effects of the state’s minimum wage increases in 2022 and 2023.
New Mexico has also amended several tax rebates and credits, including its child tax credit, which allows families to claim anywhere from $26 to $637 per child in income tax refunds which likely has a residual effect on poverty rankings.
Stephanie Schardin Clarke, Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, said this:
“[Tax credits for parents and working families] are making a difference to really move the needle on poverty in families in New Mexico, especially for lower income families and families with children. ”
One of New Mexico’s biggest investments into the well-being of its children is the state’s universal childcare program, launched late last year by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and fully funded by the New Mexico Legislature. New Mexico’s universal child care program is the first and only such program in the United States. Since the data book is two years behind, it also won’t show the full impacts of the program until later. It’ s more likely than not that Universal Childcare might mean fewer children in households with a high housing cost burden because families could have more money to spend on housing or more young children who are enrolled in school.
41st CHILDREN’S HEALTH RANKING
New Mexico ranked 41 in Children’s Health ranking. New Mexico has one of the highest rates of homicide and suicide in the country. Despite those rates, New Mexico made progress in its Children’s Health rankings by reducing its rate of child and teen death by 22% from 2023 to 2024.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in the United States, and in 2024, New Mexico had the second-highest rate of death by firearm in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The drop between 2023 and 2024 could be attributable to a drop in suicides after worsening mental health during the pandemic.
Emily Wildau, the Policy Director at New Mexico Voices for Children, said this:
“We are hopeful that that’s the beginning of a trend now that the state is really spending money on trying to really rebuild and bolster behavioral health services.”
50th EDUCATION RANKING
New Mexico ranked 50th, dead last, in Education in the Kids Count data book which is consistent with its performance in the last decade.
The Kids’ Count Data report assigned each state a score from 1 to 1,000, which compared states to their own education statistics from five years prior. New Jersey, in first, scored 731 points. New Mexico scored one point, showing that not only does the state have the worst test results, it has made the least amount of progress from 2019 to 2024.
Amanda Aragon Bernabe, Executive Director of Education Policy Group of New Mexico Kids Can said this:
“I think those two things together are the most alarming data points I’ve seen out of our education system in the entire time I’ve run this organization, which is eight years. … When I look at that data, I think it causes a glaring siren for the adults who are in charge of New Mexico’s education system.”
Aragon Bernabe said she’d like to see sweeping education policy changes at the state level, like requiring schools to tutor students who are falling behind.
POOR RANKINGS DUE IN LARGE PART TO STATES POVERTY
Merranda Marin, a child psychologist and professor at New Mexico State University, attributes New Mexico’s historically poor rankings in part to its high rates of poverty and vast rural pockets, where access to certain services is difficult. Marin said this:
“When people are stressed out and when they’re having financial difficulties, it’s hard to really focus on nurturing healthy relationships with one’s child. ”
Though the numbers paint a bleak picture, Marin said, they indicate an abundance of opportunity and she said this:
“I think sometimes when researchers look at some of these issues, they look at it from a deficit perspective, and I think we’ve got to change that narrative a little bit.”
Despite the troubling statistics, Emily Wildau, the Policy Director at New Mexico Voices for Children, contends there is much to love about New Mexico that is unquantifiable in data and she said this: .
“I think [the Kid’s Count data] is a very useful piece of the picture, and it’s good information to have and understand. … It also doesn’t account for our culture here, our beautiful communities, the resilience of our people, and a lot of those things that do draw people to move here, whether or not they’re aware of the rankings.”
REACTIONS TO NEW MEXICO’S RANKINGS IN 2025 KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK
New Mexico “Kids Can” Executive Director Amanda Aragon Bernabe said this about the New Mexico’s rankings in the 2026 KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK:
“We have to be unapologetic about saying what is true today. We’re probably the only state in the nation that has ever ranked 50th in education for [10 consecutive years.] So, if you think about what that means for a child— it means that when a kindergartner started school ten years ago and now, they’re in 10th grade for that entire part of their educational journey, we’ve been last.”
“We have to be hopeful about what can be true in the future. We can replicate the changes we’ve seen other states make. We can build on some of the progress that I think New Mexico has made, that hopefully we’ll see in a year or two years from now.”
“We have to stop using Covid as the excuse. Did Covid make things worse? Yes, but that was true for every state in the country. And in fact, in this year’s analytics, they have an index score. So, where is the state today versus where they were in 2019? Pre-COVID, our score on the education index, which is a score from 1 to 1000, New Mexico score is 1 out of 1000.”
“There are sprinkles of progress, but I think we can’t really ring the bell on that progress. We can’t claim success if we don’t start to see these rankings. Our kids are brilliant. They have untapped potential.”
Amanda Aragon Bernabe told KOAT-TV news this:
“I want to give the governor and the legislature credit for doing a lot of the things that have needed to be done. We have free meals for every kid in school, breakfast and lunch. We have done a lot around summer school and after school care, and now we’ve done early childhood. Every kid is eligible for early childhood. Great. When are we going to address those middle 13 years when our kids are in school, and what are we going to do to hold people accountable to academic results?”
NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Dr. Janelle Taylor García, Manager of the Communication Bureau for the New Mexico Department of Education issued the following statement in response to the New Mexico’s rankings in the 2026 KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK:
“The 2026 KIDS COUNT Data Book is based on data from two years ago and does not reflect New Mexico’s recent progress in education. Since then, the state has achieved its highest graduation rate in more than a decade, while reading proficiency among students in grades 3-8 has increased by 10 percentage points since 2022, rising from just over one-third of students reading at grade level to 44% in 2025.
These gains include an unprecedented 13% point increase among Native American students, a 10-point increase among Hispanic students, and an 8-point increase among English learners. Kindergarten students increased by 14 percentage points, the largest gain ever for kindergarten students.
These results reflect the impact of New Mexico’s strategic investments in attendance, graduation initiatives, structured literacy instruction, and universal PreK for 3-and 4-year-olds. The state’s commitment to evidence-based reading instruction and expanded learning opportunities is producing measurable improvements for students across diverse communities.
The New Mexico Public Education Department remains fully focused on accelerating this momentum and ensuring classroom interventions continue driving measurable student success far beyond these lagging national reports.”
Links to quoted or relied upon news sources:
https://www.koat.com/article/50th-education-new-mexico/71528855
NEW MEXICO’S FINANCIAL COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION AND CHILD WELL BEING
The fact that the 2026 Kids Count Data Book is based on data from two years ago mandates a review of the financial commitment the New Mexico Legislature has made to improve the states education system and child well being.
During the last 8 years, the New Mexico legislature has been very aggressive when it comes to increased funding to turn things around for New Mexico’s children when it comes to education and their wellbeing. Much of the legislatures efforts have been a direct result of the 2018 landmark education case of Yazzie-Martinez v. New Mexico Public Education Department where a First Judicial District Court ruled the State of New Mexico violated students’ fundamental rights by failing to provide a sufficient public education mandated by the state constitution.
In fiscal year 2019, public education funding spiked. The biggest accomplishments of the 2019 Legislative session were the dramatic increases in public education funding, creation of the Early Childhood Department (CYFD), the mandates to Children, Youth and Families and Public Education departments, not to mention raises for educators and increasing CYFD social workers by 125 were clearly the biggest accomplishments of the 2019 Legislative session.
2019 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
Funding spiked in 2019 and was up to $306 million, including the following:
- $64 million for Pre-K to better prepare children for elementary school.
- $45 million for family, infant, toddler programs to help families with children with developmental delays.
- $30 million for K-3 Plus to add 25 days to the school year.
New Mexico is 1 of just 4 states with a stand-alone department dedicated to services targeting children through age 5. The initial operating budget for the new department was $419 million for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. The new department is tasked with overseeing the state’s growing investment in prekindergarten, home visiting programs for new parents, childcare and similar services that previously were scattered across several departments. One of the key goals is to better coordinate the state’s network of early childhood services by housing them in one department rather than having them overseen separately by other departments.
2020 AND 2021 FUNDING HIGHLIGHTS
In 2020 the New Mexico Legislature created a $320 million early childhood education trust fund. In 2021, lawmakers and the governor agreed to up the spending on early childhood programs to $500 million.
2022 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
During the 2022 New Mexico Legislative session, a trio of bills were enacted to fund programs to help Native American students succeed in school. The house bills provided more than $70 million to tribal entities to help offer culturally relevant lesson plans and access to virtual and after-school programs for those students.
The first bill appropriated $20 million from the state’s general fund to the Indian Education Act to be used to create culturally relevant learning programs, including Native language programs, for students in the K-12 system.
A second bill appropriated $21.5 million to help tribal education departments develop learning plans and programs for students, extend learning opportunities and support tribal school libraries.
The third bill was aimed at higher education and appropriated $29.6 million to four state colleges and three tribal colleges for 53 initiatives.
In the summer of 2022, the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) released updates on the progress made in response to the Yazzie-Martinez ruling. The report highlights various initiatives undertaken by the state, including increased funding, expanded access to pre-kindergarten programs, and targeted support for struggling schools.
“According to the report, the state’s spending on public education has received a substantial boost. In fiscal year 2018, New Mexico’s education system was funded at the tune of $2.69 billion; in fiscal year 2024, the education system is being funded at $4.17 billion. That is an increase of $1.3 billion over five years. State funds have been channeled toward reducing class sizes, hiring additional teachers, improving professional development programs, and enhancing resources for English language learners and special education students.”
In November 2022, voters approved tapping the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund for roughly another $240 million annually for early childhood education and K-12 schools. The additional distribution of funding from the Permanent Land Grant Fund goes into effect on July 1.
2023 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
The enacted 2023-2024 New Mexico State budget contains major expenditures for education and child wellbeing. Those expenditures include:
- $220.1 Million for extended in-classroom learning time by increasing the number of minimum instructional hours per year in public schools.
- $30 Million to provide healthy universal school meals and to eliminate school meal costs for every New Mexico child.
- 9 Million to the Children, Youth and Families Department for 60 new protective services staff, to be supported by additional federal matching funds.
- $277.3 Million for continued investments in affordable, high-quality child care.
- $131 Million to maintain and expand access to high-quality pre-k education.
- $40.4 Million for the continued expansion of early childhood home visiting.
- $111.1 Million to provide a four percent salary increase forall school personnel.
- $157.4 Million for the Opportunity Scholarship program.
2023 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
The 2024 enacted New Mexico budget includes the following funding for public education:
- $4.43 billion in recurring funds for public schools. Annual spending on K-12 education increased by 6.1% to $4.43.
- $19.6 million to expand Pre-K
- $50 million to the tribal Educational Trust Fund
- $20 million to pilot and evaluate evidence-based strategies to improve the Children, Youth and Families Department
- $49 million for literacy, career technical education and community school programs
- $14 million in early literacy support
- $55 million for culturally relevant and bilingual materials
- $62.7 million for 2% salary increases, bringing all school personnel up to $15 per hour
- $43 million to expand early childhood care
- $750,000 to support adult literacy programs
- $2 million for attendance programs
2024 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
On February 12, 2024, the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year state budget was passed by the New Mexico Legislature. It contains a 6.5% increase in recurring funds from the 2023-2024 fiscal year. The largest slice of the general fund goes to public schools, which are slated to receive about $4.3 billion for the fiscal year. That includes more than $94 million to give a flat 3% raise to all public-school employees, an amount that was trimmed by a Senate Finance Committee. Before public school employees were looking at a total average of 4% raises. The final version the budget approved by the Senate includes $30 million for summer reading intervention programs, $14 million for early literacy and reading support and $5 million to train secondary educators in the science of reading.
2025 EDUCATION BUDGET FUNDING
During the 2025 legislative session, several bills were approved during the 60-day legislative session that will likely benefit New Mexico’s children and their well being. The legislation includes a $10.8 billion budget bill that directs over $100 million to transitional housing and the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department. The legislature also created a new state Medicaid trust fund that could help the state weather federal funding decreases, legislation expanding childcare assistance for prekindergarten children and established an outside oversight office to review complaints involving CYFD
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The 2026 Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book does a real disservice to the State Of New Mexico by simply spewing out its rankings without any detailed analysis on what the state is doing to turn things around and with no substantive discussion of funding commitments made by the state implying nothing is being done at all.
The 2026 rankings offer no real change in the state’s rankings. The most glaring problem that discredits the 2026 rankings is the fact they are based on data from two years ago and since then great strides have been made in improving our education system. The Annie E. Casey Foundation makes no substantive recommendations on what the state needs to do to improve rankings.
For years, the ranking are harped upon by government officials, elected officials, politicians running for office, politcal parties, business leaders and civic organizations on how New Mexico is a failure and coming in dead last despite its repeated efforts to improve. There is no doubt that the states rankings will be a major topic of discussion in the 2026 race for governor and the legislative races. Hope springs eternal that voters will see through all the negative political rhetoric and realize significant progress is being made.