The thing to keep in mind about New Mexico is that there are totally fine public schools here and there - Rio Rancho maybe, Las Cruces has some maybe, maybe some random ones in a few more remote small towns, Los Alamos, etc., but the state as a whole is extremely poor and has lots of reservations and pueblos which have huge complicated histories to overcome.

I will say that (and this is 20+ years out of date) coming from a good for New Mexico public school put me about a year ahead of everyone else in a decent California public school when we moved.

So overall my main point is that you probably want to look at schools on some kind of basis other than the state overall, especially in states like NM and AZ.

Ignoring the complicated history of the rural areas, I periodically drive Route 66, Since the early 2000’s, the bit in New Mexico has basically been eaten by climate change. I can’t imagine how much damage the encroaching desert (badlands? What’s the word for a desert that’s drier and dustier than before?) has done to the local economies.

They weren’t doing well before, but it’s not been trending well.

Having said that, Albuquerque is nice. Props to the Navajo nation for helping out with early COVID vaccine testing.