Request matches administration’s historic ambitions

SANTA FE – The Public Education Department is requesting $21.3 million from the state’s General Fund for Fiscal Year 2023 to support school districts in helping students succeed academically. The budget also will help meet judicial and statutory mandates and the urgent moral obligation to provide all students with a sufficient public education while also fueling the governor’s moonshot to create the nation’s best cradle-to-career education system.

The budget request, submitted Wednesday to the Department of Finance and Administration, includes funding to fulfill requirements outlined in the Martinez-Yazzie consolidated lawsuit, to increase capacity in the Public Education Department, and to improve education overall in New Mexico.

The base agency budget request and the corresponding Public School Support requests in FY23 will allow for hiring essential staff needed to address the Martinez-Yazzie consolidated lawsuit and to meet the critical teacher shortage by recruiting and retaining diverse talent and providing extra teacher supports and resources to develop strong school leaders.

The request also reflects the development of college and career pathways for students as well as resources and accountability to ensure that students in New Mexico are engaged in culturally and linguistically responsive learning that meets the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students.

“This is an ambitious budget to meet ambitious goals,” Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus said. “We have a historic opportunity to solve many of the problems that have long plagued New Mexico’s education system, to close learning gaps and to invest in a bright future for our children.”

The budget request aligns with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s education moonshot, launched in 2019, and with the Public Education Department’s strategic plan. The proposal seeks to expand the agency’s capacity by creating new strategic roles and supportive contracts to help serve all students, but in particular, to promote strong outcomes for the student groups identified by the Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit.