New Mexico's education system is falling behind on dozens of federal requirements, federal report finds

New Mexico is failing or falling short on dozens of federal requirements related to school finances and statewide educational services, the U.S. Department of Education found in a sweeping report card finalized last month.

The 120-plus-page report, based on a two-week review of New Mexico and the state Public Education Department in the fall, finds the state is struggling in its execution of multiple federally mandated services as well as management and distribution of federal funds.

Of all the federal requirements that were reviewed, most of the ways New Mexico was implementing or meeting them were in need of correction, the USDE found.

The COVID-19 pandemic, staff vacancies and high turnover were major factors in the PED falling behind, state Education Secretary Arsenio Romero told the Journal. Still, he welcomed the report, which he said in some ways reaffirmed the work his department was already doing.

“We don’t always want to hear the bad news,” he said. “But this allows us to be able to get better, and that’s what we want to do.”

He noted the department has made strides in changing office culture and has cut its overall vacancy rate from about 25% when he came into the position last year to about 15%.

The USDE split its findings into four categories of rankings, with the lowest indicating an area New Mexico has significant issues with compliance or implementation that need to be revisited by the federal education department until the issue is fixed.

Of all the requirements the USDE reviewed, 60 fell into that lowest rating. New Mexico met requirements but had further recommendations on another eight, fully met requirements on 15, and received no commendations.

In response to those findings, the USDE imposed a slew of requirements on how to address the issues, many of which must be acted on within 60 business days. Romero said his department has until June 12 to address all of the issues and is about a third of the way through the USDE’s findings.

The USDE could not immediately be reached for comment on the report.

Issues

Despite identifying more than 200 schools last year in need of support or intervention, New Mexico is having trouble following through on plans to improve struggling schools, the USDE found.

For example, despite training district reviewers to approve course-righting plans for schools in need of help, the USDE said the PED “did not demonstrate that it confirms that this review and approval occurs,” and that it does not ensure each district monitors implementation of the plans.

While he disputed that follow-through on the plans wasn’t happening, Romero said the pandemic posed some challenges for the PED in providing that support.

Still, he said that “as soon as we were able to come back more into an in-person setting, we were very cognizant … that we wanted to continue to provide those supports, which are still happening today.”

New Mexico is also struggling in services aimed at identifying English learners. The USDE finds some of the procedures the state uses may lead to students being misidentified as English learners even though they technically should not qualify for federal dollars set aside for that student group.

Further, the PED “acknowledged that it does not provide written guidance on how to address erroneous (English learner) identification,” the report states.

English learners were among the four student groups identified in the landmark Yazzie-Martinez consolidated lawsuit, which in 2018 yielded a judge’s finding that the state was not providing a sufficient education system to its most disadvantaged students.

Romero said the PED is working closer with districts to improve the identification of English learners.

“We have been able to work with our … staff to much better support student identification in districts, and be able to provide that technical guidance and actually (work) directly with schools and districts to be able to do that,” he said.

The PED also failed to issue three fiscal years’ worth of awards for the federal Rural and Low-Income School Program — noncompetitive grants aimed at providing financial assistance to improve student achievement — until March of last year, per the report.

In New Mexico, RLIS funds have been used as needed by the areas they flow to, to include such things as technology, HVAC systems and supporting school staff, Romero said.

The PED could not immediately provide the amount that was held up until March of last year.

The report notes that while the PED said that work is underway to improve practices related to those funds, the department “could not provide updated policies or procedures during the monitoring review.”

While Romero couldn’t account for why the funds were held up, since that was before his time, he said that having more people to work on the department’s internal processes is helping it better support schools with that type of work.

The PED is also falling behind when it comes to producing timely data or is reporting incomplete or inaccurate numbers, the USDE found. The federal department gave one example of incorrect participation rates on proficiency tests among English learners in 2022 being reported by the PED to the USDE.

Romero has emphasized the importance of using data in decision-making, though the PED has struggled to report timely and accurate data — notably, when it released proficiency numbers months late in November that initially contained multiple inconsistencies.

The PED has recently implemented a new system, known as Project Nova, which will collect more real-time information from school districts.

“Having a common student information system across all school districts and charters in the state, and being able to specifically allow for Nova to talk directly with that statewide student information system, would dramatically improve the quality of … data,” Romero said.

That said, the USDE seemed to have its doubts.

“Because of the recency of the launch of (Nova), the Department has not yet received evidence that (Nova) will enable NMPED to submit timely, complete, and accurate EDFacts and Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR) data to the Department,” the report states.