The subjects New Mexico can't staff
A teaching license says someone may teach; an endorsement says what. New Mexico tracks 23 subject endorsements, and the supply across them is wildly uneven. The state holds more than 11,800 English-language-arts endorsements and nearly 9,800 in TESOL. In computer science, it holds 138. In elementary-math specialization, 56.
The core academic subjects have deep benches. Language arts, TESOL, and social studies each clear nine thousand endorsement holders; science and mathematics each sit around sixty-four hundred. Then the floor drops out. Information-technology coordinator (324), computer science (138), elementary-math specialist (56), and fine arts (8) are not pipelines so much as trickles.
Computer science barely exists on the map
Scarcity this severe shows up at the district level as absence. Among the 37 districts large enough to report (at least 150 licensed staff), only three employ five or more computer-science-endorsed teachers: Albuquerque (28), Gallup (7), and Central Consolidated (5). The other 34 — including large systems like Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe — each have fewer than five, and many have none.
Holding an endorsement isn't the same as teaching it
Supply is only half the story. Even in the well-stocked subjects, a large share of endorsement holders aren't in a New Mexico classroom at all — the same reservoir of licensed-but-not-employed teachers that runs through this whole dataset. Roughly three in five language-arts and math endorsement holders are employed in the state's schools; the rest are elsewhere. An endorsement on file is a ceiling on what the state could staff, not a count of what it does.
Why it matters
New Mexico, like most states, has pushed to expand computer-science and STEM instruction. The credential data says the teachers to deliver it are not there yet — not statewide, and especially not outside Albuquerque. A graduation requirement or a new course standard can be written in a season; a corps of endorsed teachers to meet it takes years to build. Where the bench is this thin, the gap between policy and classroom is measured not in percentage points but in whole districts with no one holding the endorsement.
Figures are aggregate counts from New Mexico Public Education Department licensure and staffing records, compiled by the Impact Lab. Counts below five are suppressed; district breakdowns cover districts with 150+ licensed staff. No individual teacher is named or published. Explore the teacher workforce data page; see our methodology. Provided as-is; the official PED record governs.