State to appeal ruling on education funding
The state government intends to appeal a District Court judge’s ruling late last week that New Mexico must provide more resources to public schools to ensure at-risk students receive a sufficient education.
“Unfortunately, the judge missed the boat with this ruling,” state Public Education Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski said late Monday, when he announced plans to appeal the decision.
Since Gov. Susana Martinez took office in 2011, Ruszkowski said, she repeatedly has increased funding for public schools and has invested in reform initiatives to improve student achievement rates, such as literacy programs for young children, the K-3 Plus summer program for low-income students, prekindergarten services and professional development for teachers.
“New Mexico’s school turnaround efforts are now some of the strongest in the country,” he said.
But teachers unions and political leaders decried the news.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham, a U.S. congresswoman, asked Martinez not to appeal the decision by First Judicial District Judge Sarah Singleton and said if she’s elected, she would “immediately halt any appeal initiated by her administration upon taking office.”
Kevin Sheridan, a spokesman for Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Pearce, also a U.S. congressman, stopped short of saying Pearce would quell the appeal but said, “As the court battle goes forward, Steve Pearce remains committed to taking action as governor to fix New Mexico’s broken education system and addressing the serious problems the judge points out in her decision.”
Singleton ruled Friday that New Mexico’s schoolchildren are “caught in an inadequate system and will remain there … if better programs are not instituted.”
The lawsuit, filed in 2014 and tried last summer in Singleton’s courtroom, addressed whether the state was providing enough resources to ensure
that students — many of whom are impoverished, have special needs or are English-language learners — have a shot at success in college and careers.
Singleton did not give specific orders for how state leaders, including lawmakers, must address the issue. Rather, she gave the state until April 15 to take steps to increase resources for public schools.
Both sides have 28 days to file an appeal of the ruling.
Many educators and school administrators praised the judge’s decision over the weekend and expressed hope that the ruling would spur positive changes for the education system.
On Tuesday, teachers union leaders blasted the state over its plan to appeal.
Charles Bowyer, executive director of the National Education Association of New Mexico, said he was “extremely disappointed, but not surprised” by the appeal.
Denouncing the governor’s public education policies as harmful to both teachers and students, he said state officials will now “wrongly defend their discredited programs and toosmall budgets by using their last few months in power to appeal the judge’s decision.”
Said Stephanie Ly, president of the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico: “This administration is woefully out of step even in its waning days, as it has been throughout the last eight years. Educator voices and stakeholders from across the spectrum have championed the court’s recent decision, and further delaying adequate funding for our public schools only deepens the crisis of funding which exists in New Mexico.”
The state almost always ranks near or at the bottom of national studies on public education. Though graduation rates have slowly increased during Martinez’s tenure, the most recent rate of 71 percent is still one of the lowest in the nation.
And based on recently released results of statewide math and reading exams, just over 1 in 5 of the nearly 215,000 New Mexico students in grades 3-11 showed proficiency in math and 31 percent passed the test in English language arts.