Public education
Standardized tests, pay issues get more attention from lawmakers, administration
As New Mexico ushers in a new governor, who has vowed to shake up cornerstone education systems from the Susana Martinez administration, legislators have already prefiled more than two dozen education bills in the wake of a judge’s decision last year that the state’s public education system was insufficient.
Nixing the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers Assessments or PARCC test, creating incentive pay programs to get teachers into D and F schools and increasing school personnel salaries are among them.
Sen. Mimi Stewart, an Albuquerque Democrat and chairwoman of the Legislative Education Study Committee, said there is a big focus — more than normal — on education this session.
“Both the lawsuit and having money will drive education bills,” she said.
Put it in PARCC
The PARCC proposal, Senate bill 110 sponsored by Sen. John Sapien, D-Corrales, aims to prohibit requiring the use of the test beginning no later than the 2020-2021 school year.
The bill was filed before Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced PARCC would be dropped in the state through an executive order and it would no longer be used in teacher evaluations to measure an educator’s success.
In her public announcement, she did not outline what the new testing system will look like.
There is no replacement test included in the Senate bill as of now either. Rather, the bill says PARCC will be replaced with “a different assessment that the department designs or contracts for the design of.”
The bill also does not address the costs of implementing a new test.
More money for teachers
Stewart is sponsoring Senate bill 47 that would dramatically increase salaries for level one, level two and level three teachers by 2020 to $40,000, $50,000 and $60,000 respectively. The bill also proposes upping the salaries each subsequent year until 2022 by $2,500.
To fund this, the bill would put $86.5 million from the general fund toward teacher and counselor salaries and $6.3 million for principals’ raises.
If passed, the bill would go into effect July 1.
Other House bills are looking to get teachers more money through incentive pay.
Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, is sponsoring two separate House bills that would create incentive programs for teachers to work at struggling elementary schools. House bill 42 is aiming to create a 10-year program that would provide an annual $3,000 for teachers who go to primarily low-income D and F elementary schools.
The teachers would have to meet certain criteria including being top-rated through the state’s evaluation system.
The bill would appropriate $2 million to put toward this program.
Garcia also sponsored HB 39, which would offer $3,000 annual stipends to level three Native New Mexican teachers who teach at D and F elementary schools that are primarily made up of students who are ethnic minorities.
These teachers, too, would have to be in the top categories of the state evaluation system.
As written, the bill relies on two systems Lujan Grisham has planned to do away with: A-F school grades and NMTeach.
Administrative spending cap
Increased teacher pay is not the only fiscal focus of the session.
A separate House bill is looking to cap districts’ and charter schools’ administrative expenses.
Rep. Roberto “Bobby” Gonzales, who introduced HB 77, told the Journal the goal of the bill is to put more money directly into the classroom. The bill outlines restrictions for administrative expenses, including that operating budgets for the 2019-2020 school year could not exceed the previous year’s costs.
The bill comes after local think tank Think New Mexico released a 2017 report on administrative spending in the state, which said, citing National Center for Education Statistics data, that New Mexico is among the lowest states in the nation when it comes to putting its budget directly toward instruction.
Other goals among the pre-filed Senate and House bills included setting aside $3.5 million for school-based health centers, appropriating $8.5 million to make sure school buses purchased from now on have seat belts, and put $200,000 toward teacher training on student focus, mindfulness and emotional wellness.