A group of New Mexico educators gathered in Albuquerque this week to press state leaders for changes they say are badly needed to help students land jobs after graduation, from more school counselors to a workforce data system that actually works for the people using it.
Teachers Push a Three-Part Fix
The recommendations, presented at Teach Plus New Mexico's third statewide Economic Mobility Summit on Monday in Albuquerque, call for creating more workforce opportunities for students, boosting the student-counselor ratio and improving how the state collects workforce data, according to Source New Mexico. The proposals grew out of feedback gathered at Teach Plus New Mexico conferences in Hobbs and Santa Fe last year, where middle and high school students told educators they wanted more hands-on learning through internships and more information about job opportunities, according to Teach Plus New Mexico's Hope Morales.
Morales said the information schools collect should be accessible, meaningful and actually used to improve decisions and student outcomes. Her organization is not calling for a brand-new data system, she said: “We're not recommending that we start over,” according to the same report.
Counselor Caseloads Called a Barrier
Central to the push is a stark staffing gap. New Mexico has a student-to-counselor ratio of 406 to 1, compared with the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselors Association, the outlet reported. Teach Plus New Mexico recommended increasing the number of school counselors to help students learn about and find job opportunities, prioritizing schools and communities with the greatest caseloads and opportunity gaps first.
State Sen. William Soules, who represents Las Cruces and chairs the Senate Education Committee, attended the summit and said New Mexico is “short hundreds of counselors.” He argued the state should recruit counselors from other states while it builds up its own school counselor pipeline, per the same account. Robert Wiebelhaus, also quoted in the report, said high counselor caseloads limit counselors' ability to guide students in emotional coping strategies and career readiness.
Fixing RISE NM Instead of Starting Over
The third plank of the proposal targets RISE NM, the state's longitudinal data system that links records from the Public Education Department, Higher Education Department, Workforce Solutions, the Early Childhood Education and Care Department and the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation to track student outcomes from kindergarten through the workforce. Teach Plus New Mexico wants the state to make RISE NM more accessible and usable for classroom educators rather than building something new.
Educators say the system's information can come across as fragmented, partly because of limited teacher and counselor input, particularly in historically underserved communities — making it difficult for educators, policymakers and communities to understand what is actually working, per Source New Mexico's reporting. The system currently links data from 10 different systems across the five state agencies and offers 27 standard visualizations meant to inform both public policy and individual decision-making, according to a Harvard Center for Education Policy Research analysis. Records are matched using anonymized Master Unique Identifiers designed to protect student privacy while still allowing agencies to track outcomes over time, the same analysis notes.
Why the Stakes Keep Rising
The push comes against a backdrop that Teach Plus New Mexico has been building toward for more than a year. The organization, which says it partners with nearly 900 educators statewide according to the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, launched its Economic Mobility Summit Series in June 2025 with a kickoff event at CTECH of Hobbs High School, titled “Bridging Education & Industry for Economic Growth,” per Teach Plus New Mexico. That first summit, co-sponsored by NMOGA, CTECH of Hobbs, Ocotillo Strategies and Opportunity Culture, was part of a planned four-event series for 2025 bringing together educators, business leaders, policymakers and community advocates to build shared understanding around college and career readiness.
Teach Plus New Mexico has framed the effort around the state's economic realities: New Mexico has an 18% poverty rate and consistently ranks among the nation's poorest states, the organization notes. With a projected 72% of jobs expected to require some form of postsecondary education by 2031, the stakes of getting students connected to career pathways early are only growing, according to the Harvard analysis.
Separate research into the state's broader career-readiness landscape backs up the case for a more coordinated approach. A college and career pathways assessment from the LANL Foundation found that New Mexico needs a comprehensive strategy weaving together academic instruction, career and technical education, work-based learning and personalized student supports. That same assessment found that in the 2019-20 school year, 65,102 New Mexico students — roughly 66% of the high school population — took career and technical education courses, while about 15% of high schoolers participated in dual credit and just 2,485 students took part in work-based learning courses, underscoring the gap between CTE enrollment and hands-on job training.
