Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the New Mexico Education Department are asking the Legislative Finance Committee to create a funding plan that will help support New Mexico’s most at-risk students.
“We need a comprehensive, long term funding plan that’s based on the actual needs of our students, but specifically the educational needs of our students most at-risk of being failed,” Alisa Diehl, with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said.
Diehl called on the Legislative Finance Committee Friday to provide more resources for at-risk New Mexico students.
“The state must develop a plan to provide funding based on the identified unmet need, including methods to raise revenue if that’s what’s necessary to meet the constitutional rights of our students,” Diehl said.
She’s a member of the legal team representing the Yazzie plaintiffs in the Yazzie/Martinez v. New Mexico lawsuit. The suit was filed on behalf of New Mexico families and school districts, citing a failure to provide a uniform education system that sufficiently meets the needs of all students.
The 2018 ruling against the state found New Mexico lacked some basic instructional materials, as well as access to technology, healthcare, literacy specialists and transportation.
The state’s attempt to overturn the ruling was denied in June. Legislative Finance Committee Chair John Smith expressed his displeasure that this ruling did not come from New Mexico’s Supreme Court.
“I, as an individual, from day one, wanted this appealed to the state Supreme Court even if it would had been the same decision. I don’t want a lower court mandating high spending levels making that decision,” Smith said. “When you have separation of powers, equally in power quite frankly, it has to come from the Supreme Court, and that hasn’t happened.”
Alisa Diehl has a plan to combat the vagueness Smith says has been handed down by the court, calling on the legislature to take a central leadership role that includes meeting with experts and identifying the gaps.
“To identify that need we urge you to call on experts in New Mexico, to study and analyze this issue,” Diehl said. “We urge you to call on school districts to hear from them directly on what their actual financial need is, especially in light of the pandemic.”
Historically, the state has allocated additional funds to those who qualify under the state’s at-risk index, measured by income, English proficiency and mobility.
The lawsuit goes beyond those three measurements, identifying four groups of students: English language learners, students with disabilities, Native American students and those from low income families.
Gail Evans, the lead counsel for the Yazzie plaintiffs, recently told KRWG that approximately 80% of the state’s student population identifies as a member of one of those four groups.
“We focused on those four groups of students because those students are the students who have had what we call an education gap in our state,” Evans said. “They're graduating at lower rates than other students. They have lower reading and math proficiency scores than other students. They need more college remediation than other students. So, these are the students in our state that have been underserved by our public-school system.”
The Friday Legislative Finance Committee session was a chance to hear from both the plaintiffs and the New Mexico Education Department. Public Education Department Secretary Ryan Stewart spoke about some of the steps being taken to help at-risk students.
“Measures to support our at-risk students include the increased at-risk funding.” Stewart said. “We've added 5.3 million to establish community schools across the state. And an additional $3 million in the budget to establish our budget transparency website, increasing our funding for our extended school year program.”
Ernest Herrera, legal counsel for the Martinez plaintiffs, called for additional changes to be made to the funding formula in order to expand the definition of who qualifies.
“A need that needs to be met, and it’s something the court mentioned in its findings, is the fact that only those at the poverty line are included, not all free and reduced lunch qualifying students,” Herrera said. “That would make the school funding formula more equitable and more responsive to the needs of economically disadvantaged students.”
The plaintiffs recognize that strides have been made to provide more resources to students, but legal representative Alisa Diehl said there are still many insufficiencies that need to be addressed by the state.
“The legislature has talked about overall funding problems with education, but the approach to solving the funding gap has been limited and has not resulted in creating a sufficient education system,” Diehl said.
