Española, NM – Northern New Mexico College’s College of Education has received a $126,000 grant from the New Mexico Higher Education Department to improve teacher preparation and close the achievement gap in reading, math and science in Northern New Mexico Schools.

Over the next year, Northern New Mexico College's faculty from the Colleges of Education and Arts and Sciences will work with teachers from Cariños Charter School and La Tierra Montessori Schools to develop a place-based curriculum model.

“Northern New Mexico College of Education looks forward to continuing educational partnerships with the College of Arts and Sciences, local schools, educational agencies in order to increase academic achievement in students throughout northern New Mexico,” Interim College of Education Dean Christina Esquibel said.

Key to the project will also be the integration of new national common core standards.

“The goal is to develop interdisciplinary, inquiry-based curricula geared towards integrating Common Core standards into place-based environmental education in order to increase the math, science and language arts achievement in elementary students,” Esquibel said.

The grant will fund targeted professional development for a cohort of teachers over the next 14 months towards these goals.