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2025 Legislative Update

Improving the performance of New Mexico’s public schools starts with ensuring that our teachers have access to the best possible training.

During the 2025 legislative session, Think New Mexico supported two bills to enhance teacher training in specific subject areas. Senate Bill 242, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), would ensure that incoming teachers receive high-quality training in the science of reading. Similarly, Senate Bill 235,  sponsored by Senate Education Chair William Soules (D-Las Cruces), would improve the way that New Mexico teachers are trained to teach math.

Both bills passed the Senate but failed to pass the House Education Committee.

However, the core provisions of Senate Bill 242 were added to a separate bill on raising teacher salaries, House Bill 156, which was sponsored by Representative Joy Garratt (D-Albuquerque), Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) and Senator Heather Berghmans (D-Albuquerque) for sponsoring it. That bill passed the Senate on the law night of the session and received final approval from the House in the final few hours before the legislature adjourned.

2024 Legislative Update

House Bill 256, drafted by Think New Mexico and sponsored by Representatives Tara Jaramillo (D-Socorro) and Willie Madrid (D-Chaparral), among others, would set high standards for New Mexico’s public colleges of education, requiring them to receive national accreditation and ensuring that they are providing evidence-based curricula that reflect the current best practices in areas like math and reading instruction, including the science of reading.

House Bill 256 would also convert the final year of teacher preparation programs at New Mexico’s public colleges of education into a teacher residency, a paid year-long experience in a classroom teaching alongside a master teacher. Residencies have been shown to enhance teacher skills and reduce attrition, better preparing incoming teachers and keeping more of them in the profession.

Unfortunately, House Bill 256 did not receive a message from the governor, meaning it could not be considered during this year’s short, 30-day legislative session. We look forward to supporting these reforms in 2025.

2023 Legislative Update

Over the past decade, the number of people completing traditional teacher training programs at New Mexico’s colleges of education has fallen by 75%. Graduates of New Mexico’s colleges of education report that the programs too often emphasize abstract theory over the practical, skills-based learning that is most valuable to future teachers. They also note that not all faculty have strong backgrounds as classroom teachers themselves.

House Bill 460, drafted by Think New Mexico and sponsored by Representatives Tara Jaramillo (D-Socorro) and Tanya Mirabal Moya (R-Los Lunas), among others, proposed to convert the final year of a four-year teacher training program into a teacher residency, a paid year-long experience in a classroom alongside an experienced teacher. Residencies have been shown to enhance teacher skills and reduce attrition, better preparing incoming teachers and keeping more of them in the profession.

The bill also requires future faculty hires by the colleges of education to have at least five years of experience as classroom teachers. In addition, it ensures that the state’s public colleges of education receive national accreditation and that their curricula are grounded in current best practices, including evidence-based math and literacy instruction.

Unfortunately, the House Education Committee declined to schedule the bill for a hearing during the 2023 legislative session, explaining that they wanted to study our proposals further over the coming year. With enrollment in the colleges of education having fallen by 75% in the past decade, we are urging the legislature’s education leaders to make these reforms a priority for 2024.

Coalition in Support of House Bill 460

AFT New Mexico
NEA New Mexico

Issue Summary

Colleges of education nationwide have experienced a decline in enrollment, with the number of people completing these traditional teacher training programs falling by nearly a third in the past decade. The trend in New Mexico has been particularly precipitous, plummeting by 75% during the same time period. Meanwhile, the number of teachers entering the profession via alternative licensure has been gradually increasing.

One reason behind the declining enrollment in the traditional colleges of education is that the curricula in those programs too often emphasizes abstract theory over the practical, skills-based learning that is most valuable to future teachers.

To increase the value of the colleges of education to potential teachers, the legislature and governor must ensure that they are providing relevant, up to date curricula that reflect the best current practices, and also expand the clinical requirement from a single semester of student teaching to a full-year teacher residency.

Think New Mexico recommends that the legislature and governor enact a law requiring that, beginning in 2023 and then every five years thereafter, the Public Education Department evaluate the schools of education to determine whether their curricula reflect the best research on effective teacher preparation, and make continued accreditation of the colleges of education contingent on meeting that standard.

News Coverage

Read our guest editorial about the need to maximize dollars to the classroom • March 9, 2023