New Mexico in Focus Reviews the Democratic National Convention

New Mex­ico in Focus takes a look at some of the more notable devel­op­ments lead­ing up to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s accep­tance speech Thurs­day evening at the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion in Char­lotte, N.C.

New Mex­ico PBS’ one hour pub­lic affairs show New Mex­ico in Focus airs Fri­days at 7 p.m. and Sun­days at 7 a.m. on Chan­nel 5.1. The show can also be seen on New Mex­ico PBS Chan­nel 9.1 on Sat­ur­days at 5 p.m.

Also this week, women’s rights activist Martha Burk con­tin­ues a series for the elec­tion sea­son, as she speaks to NMIF about the push to expand Med­ic­aid cov­er­age; author John Nichols, who gained fame with his novel, “The Mila­gro Bean­field War” is back with his lat­est book, “On Top of Spoon Moun­tain,” set in New Mex­ico; and the line takes a look at the stan­dards based assess­ment test that all grad­u­at­ing New Mex­i­can high school stu­dents are required to pass. Sur­pris­ingly high fail­ure rates por­tend a drop in grad­u­ates. Now the Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment (PED) and school dis­tricts across New Mex­ico are scram­bling to find alter­na­tives to the test with­out dilut­ing edu­ca­tional quality.

Guests:
• John Nichols, author
• Martha Burk, National Coun­cil of Women’s Organizations

Line Pan­elists
• Jamie Estrada, for­mer U.S. Com­merce Depart­ment offi­cial
• Sophie Mar­tin, edi­tor, New Mex­ico Law Review
• Rob Nikolewski, edi­tor, Capi­tol Report New Mex­ico
• John Wertheim, for­mer New Mex­ico Demo­c­ra­tic Party Chairman 

Cor­re­spon­dent
• Matt Grubs, producer

Host/Commentator
• Gene Grant

New Mex­ico in Focus is pro­duced by Matt Grubs and Kathy Wim­mer. Fund­ing has been pro­vided in part by the McCune Foundation.

Media Con­tact: Evy Todd, (505) 277‑1218; email: etodd@newmexicopbs.org

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