Santa Fe Reporter--“I think we can learn a lot from Kids Count’s individual data sets—for example, this year, the ranking says more kids are living in households with high housing costs of burden. That points to, ‘We need to fix housing in New Mexico, we need to do it expeditiously,’” Uballez says.
NM Political Report--“Although there’s still work to do, New Mexico’s official child poverty rate continues to improve but change takes time,” said Gabrielle Uballez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children said. “And this measure of poverty only considers income. When we look instead at the supplemental poverty measure, which measures the impact of some of our best poverty-fighting policies, we see that New Mexico’s investments in families through refundable tax credits and income support programs have a real impact on lowering poverty rates and supporting family well-being.”
Santa Fe New Mexican--“New Mexico’s ranking is not a reflection of who we are, but serves as a motivation to continue improving the systems in New Mexico that make it possible for kids and families to thrive,” said Gabrielle Uballez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children.
Albuquerque Journal--The civil rights leader James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” In other words, we can’t solve a problem if we refuse to look at it. Looking helps us know the extent of the problem. The column “An optimist’s guide to depressing data” takes the “New Mexico KIDS COUNT Data Book” to task for citing bad-news data about child well-being. We understand. We, too, find it demoralizing that New Mexico has the highest rate of child poverty in the nation.
Santa Fe Reporter--“One of the big policies that we’re excited about this year is particularly focused on Native American students and helping them to graduate, and that’s related to really making sure there is dedicated funding to support our Native students,” Wildau said. “We’re going to be really supportive of that.”
Santa Fe New Mexican--"All of these common-sense decisions ... not only prevented a significant decline in well-being for New Mexico kids and families, but it also laid a strong foundation for us to continue seeing improvements in many indicators of child well-being in the 2022 data," Wildau said.
Las Cruces Sun-News--The fact is, New Mexico has made some extraordinary headway in improving opportunities for kids in recent years. Some of it’s made nationwide headlines. Our investments in child care assistance, voter-approved expansion of early childhood services, and child-focused tax policy improvements all received national accolades.
NM Political Report--Wallin said New Mexico Voices for Children would like to see the state “continue to keep up its investments in kids and families.” “The key is we don’t stop now. We continue to look at the long view. We continue to find new areas,” she said, adding that one could be increasing child educator pay.
Albuquerque Journal--But Amber Wallin, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, said the state has launched new programs that may take time to show up in the annual report. The state, she said, dramatically expanded a child care assistance program in mid-2021 — the year much of the data is based on — and voters just last year authorized hefty increases in the funding available for early childhood education and K-12 schools.
Santa Fe New Mexican--“The thing about the rankings is that they’re only one small part of the story about child well-being and about opportunity. … They don’t tell us about where we’ve been as a state, how far we’ve come or where we should be going,” Wallin said.