For example, 18 years ago, I quit newspapers to help found New Mexico’s first online newspaper, the New Mexico Independent. A few years after that, I co-founded the state’s first digital nonprofit media outlet, New Mexico In Depth, in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse.
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Texas and Oklahoma farmers who lost everything headed west. Before they joined the great exodus to California chronicled by John Steinbeck in “Grapes of Wrath,” they were hoping to find work picking cotton in New Mexico or harvesting beets in Colorado.
Today New Mexicans, who buy gasoline as a needed fuel to get the kids to school, go to work, or to get their loved ones to a doctor, pay 17 cents per gallon on gasoline purchased.
In a study published earlier this year, we highlighted the fact that New Mexico was the only state in the US to have lost economic freedom since 1981. We now know that it is worse than we thought.
Distance education must be part of New Mexico’s education future, but only if programs meet or exceed state standards, operate transparently, and accept responsibility for results.
It’s odd because this disaster has its own pot of money. The fires were the government’s fault, so Congress created a $5.45 million fund to fully compensate victims. So far, the office has paid $3.2 billion.
