Legislative brief touts Yazzie/Martinez progress

Sep. 24—The Legislature has met its obligation to spend more to meet the mandates of a 2018 court ruling that said New Mexico was not doing enough to ensure at-risk students were receiving a sufficient education, according to a presentation to lawmakers Friday.

The Legislative Finance Committee education brief said, accounting for inflation, the state has surpassed a 2008 funding benchmark report the court used to demand lawmakers do more to provide educational resources for at-risk students following a historic four-year court case.

The 2008 American Institutes for Research report said New Mexico would have to invest about $336 million a year into the state's per-student funding formula to meet equitable education standards for all students. The new education brief said the state is now investing about $3.45 billion into the formula, which exceeds inflation-adjusted goals.

As a result, the state has made progress toward meeting the court mandate, including raising teacher salaries, creating and providing more instructional materials for students, and putting more money into early childhood education programming, the report says.

"All of these things are some pretty significant progress the state has made over the past few years," Rachel Mercer Garcia, a program evaluator for the Legislative Finance Committee, told lawmakers Friday morning during a hearing at Taos Ski Valley.

The Legislature has appropriated funding to address all the court's major concerns and findings, she said.

However, that does not mean the state is making progress in actually helping those students grow. Earlier this month John Sena, recently appointed deputy director of the Legislative Education Study Committee, told lawmakers that due to a lack of assessment data and an inability to track other advancement measures, it is "unclear if New Mexico students, and particularly those named in the lawsuit, are any better off" because of the investments.

Melissa Candelaria, education director for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said that while she hadn't yet fully reviewed the report, "education in New Mexico is still clearly underfunded." She said the state should "conduct a cost and budget analysis" to determine how to address the deficiencies the court identified.

"Much more needs to be done to fully comply with the court's order and to ensure that all our at-risk students — low-income families, students with disabilities, English language learners, and Native American students — are receiving the necessary programs, services and support that would prepare them for college, career and life," she said.

That Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit was brought by a coalition of parents, students, lawmakers and others in 2014. The plaintiffs charged New Mexico had not done enough to address the needs of Native Americans, English language learners or disabled and low-income students.

The update issued Friday notes that not all school districts have yet implemented the programs needed to meet the court's remedies for the case. That's because those districts, as well as charter schools, have more autonomy over how to best use the state money allocated to them for public education, the report says.

Mercer Garcia also cited leadership turnover at the state Public Education Department — four secretaries since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took office early in 2019 — as a challenge. She added the department has not yet put together a "comprehensive and consistent implementation plan to address" the needs of the lawsuit.

Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus told lawmakers his agency is preparing that plan and should have it ready within a month. He said his department has been hiring people to "address what you just heard in this report."

"Are we anywhere close to where we need to be?" he asked. "No. But we are on a path."

He said the report will include details about improving attendance and achievement levels as well as what Steinhaus calls "attainment," or graduation, rates.

The education brief noted recent legislative-driven salary increases for public school teachers — depending on their license level, they start out earning $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 — have had an effect in ensuring the state has enough instructors to meet those students' needs. Still, the state is awaiting data next month on just how many teacher vacancies remain. The legislative brief says preliminary estimate put that figure at 635, down from the 1,048 reported last October.

"We're recruiting teachers from other states," Steinhaus said. "We are getting people to come back."

But he added it's "going to take a long time" to totally fill those vacancies.

Though the Legislature has appropriated funding for more extended learning time programs, not all districts have taken advantage of it to date. When Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, asked Steinhaus to name three things the Legislature could mandate to satisfy the court's requirements, Steinhaus said the first thing he would pick is "time," meaning more learning time for students.

Muñoz, who said the state has to get out from under the Yazzie/Martinez case "very quickly," said if school districts don't fall into line with what the Legislature wants in terms of such programs, lawmakers should put the onus of the legal responsibilities on those districts' shoulders.

"I think the Legislature should come back and countersue and say [to districts], 'You're not following the intent of the law so we're going to put it on you,'" Muñoz said. "It's kind of rough, but I think it's something that needs to happen."