Sep. 4 -- Plaintiffs in the landmark Yazzie/Martinez education lawsuit, a now 10-year-old case in which a judge found New Mexico had failed low-income, Native American and disabled students, as well as English language learners -- are calling for a plan to ensure public schools provide an equitable education for all students by 2030.
In a motion filed Wednesday in the First Judicial District Court, the plaintiffs argue the state's "inadequate and piecemeal" solutions -- coupled with systemic "deficiencies" at the state Public Education Department -- have "caused a catastrophe for at-risk students," in violation of their constitutional rights.
The motion, if granted, would require the Legislative Education Study Committee to draft a "Comprehensive Remedial Plan" to address the state's failure to adequately serve at-risk students by May, with a goal of achieving equitable learning by the end of 2030.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez -- who has represented the state in the case for the past year -- will not oppose the motion and agrees with the plaintiffs the state has not sufficiently complied with a judge's 2018 ruling, Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice, confirmed Wednesday.
Though a copy of the filing published online by the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty indicates the Public Education Department plans to oppose the motion, that's "not accurate," department spokesperson Janelle Taylor García wrote in an email. Rather, Taylor García wrote, the department's attorney could not take a position on the matter until reviewing the lengthy motion.
"The agency remains open to discussing the structure that can collaboratively move this matter forward, and along with its partners, has implemented numerous policy initiatives and interventions for the benefit of our students," Taylor García wrote.
The filing comes less than two months after the release of a Legislative Finance Committee report that found New Mexico has increased education spending by $1.6 billion since 2019, but proficiency rates for student groups identified in Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico remain 20 percentage points or more behind statewide averages.
"Our children have been waiting a long time for the state to fulfill its promise of an equitable quality education," Wilhelmina Yazzie, a lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. "This motion is about making sure that the state takes real, measurable actions to improve education for all students, especially those who have been most neglected."
The motion includes a scathing description of the Public Education Department and argues the agency, with its inadequate action plan and high rate of staff turnover and vacancies, has failed to provide stable interventions and improve outcomes for at-risk students.
Part of the problem is the high rate of turnover in the department's top office, the motion states.
The Cabinet secretary position was vacated again last week, for the fourth time since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took office in 2019. Former Secretary Arsenio Romero had applied to become the next president of New Mexico State University and was named one of five finalists for the job. The Governor's Office said last week Lujan Grisham gave Romero an ultimatum: withdraw his candidacy for the NMSU job or resign.
Regis Pecos, chair of the Tribal Education Alliance and a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo, argued in a statement the Public Education Department's lack of consistency and oversight of programs for at-risk students equates to "a fundamental violation of their human right" to an equitable system of education.
"The immense failure of leadership reflected in the high turnover in the department vested with the responsibility to lead us out of this crisis is not just troubling, it is a failure and a dereliction of duty," Pecos said.
In addition to a specific timeline for improvements, the plaintiffs outline in their motion actions for the state to take as part of the Comprehensive Remedial Plan.
These include:
* Fully implementing the federal Indian, Hispanic, bilingual and Black education acts.
* Developing a "transparent, cohesive and accountable system" for delivering supports to students with disabilities.
* Establishing a learning system with targeted interventions for at-risk students.
* Creating a plan to recruit, train and retain diverse and high-quality teachers and other workers.
* Expanding broadband access and providing devices to all at-risk students and their teachers.
* Creating a system of student and family support services, extracurricular activities and community-based education programs.
* Constructing a financial framework to provide "sufficient, recurring and predictable funding" to schools for at-risk students and a way to ensure funds intended for them are, in fact, spent on them.
* Fully staffing the Public Education Department with quality and culturally competent personnel.
Preston Sanchez, an attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico who represents the Yazzie plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement the motion and the changes it suggests are essential to ensure the state meets its constitutional obligation to all students.
"We are committed to holding the State accountable and ensuring that every child in New Mexico receives the quality education they rightfully deserve," he said.