Advocating for Adult Education in New Mexico

Many people from organizations all over the state gathered on Wednesday, March 1st, for Higher Education and Adult Education and Literacy Day at the Roundhouse. We were there to support adult education across New Mexico and advocate for expanded funding for programs that are vastly needed and vastly underfunded. The program included speeches by the NMHED Adult Education Director Amber Gallup, the NMHED Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez, Senator Harold Pope and Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham.

Adult education changes lives. Whether students work with a tutor to improve their English-speaking skills to get a promotion, attend classes to obtain their HSE (high-school equivalency) or meet with a teacher in a small group to learn computer skills or work towards citizenship, their lives change for the better in many critical areas, including education, health, finances, work and family. Adult students also gain the ability to better support their children’s literacy, interrupting the cycle of low literacy and poverty in families.
Adult Eduction in New Mexico
Student of the Year 2023

One of Literacy Volunteers’ students, Steven Gurule, was recognized as one of the Adult Education Students of the Year. Steven takes HSE classes and works with a math tutor online with the goals of acquiring his GED and going on to pursue a degree in criminal justice. He wrote:

“Due to my learning team, I have found inner peace, strength, and knowledge. I am very grateful to all of you for this opportunity to better myself and feel proud of myself.”Steven Gurule

If you were able to attend, thank you! And if you are so inclined, please include an appeal to fund and improve adult education in our state in your calls and letters to legislators during the remainder of the legislative session.