Dear Editor:

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. “Every day thousands of young people experience bullying from their peers while at school, after school in their neighborhoods, and even when they are at home, through social media and texts,” PACER points out. Founded in 2006, PACER is a national bullying prevention center, www.pacer.org.

But, here’s my question. How do we as adults hope to prevent bullying among our youth when adults can be some of the vilest verbal word-villains?

A 2019 article in The Chicago Tribune tells the snarly story. An Illinois freelance writer Melissa Blake wrote a recent anti-Trump op-ed piece for CNN. A mob of mean mug-thugs hurled...

Progress on the way

ALBUQUERQUE – Despite a fairly strong economy nationally, ten states – including New Mexico – have seen an increase in the share of children living in areas of concentrated poverty. This information comes from the latest KIDS COUNT report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report also shows that children of color are more likely to live in high-poverty, low-opportunity neighborhoods than white children.

“While children do best when their family is economically secure, the well-being of the larger community is also important. Children need to grow up in neighborhoods with high-quality schools, safe places to play, good job opportunities, and reliable...

New Mexico currently has a shortage of physicians in 32 of its 33 counties. Large swaths of McKinley County lie within the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian reservation in the United States. Nearly 80 percent of McKinley County’s 75,000 residents are Native American. New Mexico leads all other states in Medicaid enrollment, with 43 percent of its residents on the program.

The goal of New Mexico’s healthcare community is to bridge the gap in rural health and ensure adequate and appropriate care is available to all New Mexican’s regardless of their address.   Therefore, I support Governor Grisham’s plan to increase Medicaid by $78.5 million for the State of New Mexico.

We need...

Gallup group looks at the decline in history education

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana

Some would argue that whether we learn our planet’s written history or not, we may very well repeat the worst mistakes. But area historian and archaeologist Martin Link hopes to open up a discussion on the mounting crisis in history education (and arts education, music instruction, and more) that is increasingly lessened by a focus on vocational training, economic development, and the ensuing loss of critical thinking skills.

The impact of “High Stakes Testing,” or “Teaching to the Test,” has had some unfortunate impacts...