Committee endorses memorial urging joint bilingual education degree and supports workforce pipeline

The Senate Education Committee gave Senate Joint Memorial 3 a due-pass recommendation after witnesses and higher education representatives said the state must expand bilingual teacher preparation to meet student needs.

Sponsor testimony said New Mexico is linguistically diverse and faces a shortage of bilingual educators. The sponsor said, “By expanding bilingual faculty in our higher ed institutions, we can build a sustainable pipeline…,” and outlined requests that include a joint bilingual education degree across named state universities, increased scholarships for bilingual-degree students, and college credit for a state seal of bilingualism and biliteracy.

Dr. Elizabeth Valenzuela, chair of the Department of Teacher Education at New Mexico Highlands University and executive director of the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education, described multi-year work to build degree pathways and answered technical questions about coursework and program design.

Patricia Trujuan, deputy cabinet secretary at the Higher Education Department, said HED stands in technical support and described how institutions could collaborate to expand capacity at campuses that do not currently host full bilingual-education departments.

Committee members asked about credit hours, program feasibility within existing degree frameworks, and whether the memorial would create administrative burdens; witnesses said institutions have been working on this alignment for years and would coordinate with HED. The committee recorded a due-pass recommendation and advanced the memorial for further action.