Brain Architects and Bold Investments: New Mexico's Universal Child Care Story

Every state in the country is watching New Mexico right now. In November 2025, New Mexico lifted its income eligibility cap for child care assistance, making quality child care available to any family with a child from birth through age twelve whose parents are working or in school. In a matter of months, the number of children served grew from 32,000 to 48,000 — and the state is already exceeding its own projections.But the story is not really about what happened in November. It is about what happened in 2019, and in the years of advocacy and organizing that came before it. Kendal Chavez, Deputy Secretary of the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department, joins Andy Roszak to pull back the curtain on how the state got here: the creation of a unified early childhood department, a trust fund now worth eleven billion dollars seeded from oil and gas revenues, a wage scale and career ladder for the early childhood workforce, a zoning reform bill that removed local barriers to building new child care facilities, and an evidence base that is already showing children in the state's most under-resourced communities outperforming national cohorts.This is a conversation about governance, political will, and what is actually possible when a state decides that early childhood is not a nice-to-have — it is the strategy.GUESTKendal Chavez, Deputy Secretary, New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD)Appointed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in August 2025. Brings more than fifteen years of public-sector experience at the intersection of education, public health, food systems, and child and family well-being. Holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of New Mexico and previously served as a Policy Advisor to the Governor.ABOUT THE NEW MEXICO ECECDThe New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department was created in 2019 as one of the first unified early childhood agencies in the country. Its mission is to bring all programs and services for children prenatal through age five under one roof, giving families a single point of access and giving the state a coordinated system for investing in young children. The department oversees child care assistance, universal pre-K for four-year-olds, home visiting, and early intervention programs — all connected and funded in part through New Mexico's Early Childhood Trust Fund. Website: nmeced.orgTOPIC OVERVIEWNew Mexico's universal child care initiative is not a single policy announcement — it is the culmination of more than six years of deliberate system-building under Governor Lujan Grisham, supported by decades of advocacy before her. When the state lifted its income eligibility cap in November 2025, it did so with an eleven-billion-dollar trust fund already in place, a unified department managing all early childhood programs, a workforce wage scale codified in law, a cost-based reimbursement model that incentivizes quality, and a zoning reform bill removing local barriers to expanding supply. In this conversation, Kendal Chavez walks through every piece of that infrastructure and explains what it means for families, educators, and policymakers who are watching from other states.---------------------------Early Childhood Chats is hosted by Andrew Roszak - JD, MPA, EMT-PFounder of the Institute for Childhood Preparedness and Head Start East. // Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness© Institute for Childhood Preparedness 2026 all rights reserved