Sep. 28—During the past legislative session, New Mexico lawmakers unanimously passed public school funding formula changes, reallocating funding to the state’s neediest schools. However, some of the state’s best-performing charter schools say the policy hurts them.
“We have heard every year from charters wanting their own at-risk index. We heard that from them repeatedly,” Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored the legislation, said in an interview.
House Bill 63, which passed without a “no” vote in the House and Senate, was introduced to increase the funding that schools with more at-risk students receive by reallocating funding streams. The Public Education Department defines “at-risk students” as those who are Indigenous, have special needs, are from low-income households or are English language learners.
“We changed it so that everybody gets their own at-risk index. And now, of course, some of them don’t like that,” Stewart said.
She’s right, many charter schools do not like the changes.
The Journal spoke with leaders from several charter schools that serve almost 3,500 students and lost over $1.5 million due to the bill’s passage. Many are faced with tough staff decisions, uncertainty around future budgets, and, in one case, a shortened school week.
In most cases, those schools also have the coveted “spotlight” designations, meaning they are the highest-performing in the state. Most are growing, too, but the cuts might force them to limit their program offerings.
“The intent of House Bill 63 is, I think, very positive, and it’s meant to provide more support where it’s needed,” John Binnert, executive director for Cottonwood Classical, said. “But doing that to the detriment — basically taking money away from other students — wasn’t necessary.
According to the New Mexico Vistas report produced by the PED, Cottonwood Classical, located in Northeast Albuquerque, posted proficiency rates in math, reading and science over 20 percentage points higher than the state’s averages in those subjects.
“New Mexico is ranked really low in education, and intentional or not, what happened as an outcome of House Bill 63 is that we’ve defunded quite a number of our highest performing schools,” Binnert said. “The thought that we’re in this situation of potentially not even being able to maintain staff after growing this much. It makes no sense.”
He also mentioned staffing struggles, noting that even though the state increased the student equalization guarantee — the funding provided per student — it hasn’t been enough to keep up with the 4% raise for teachers the Legislature also passed in the previous session.
“I couldn’t afford to hire any more teachers, and in fact, might have to lay people off mid-year,” Binnert said.
Nearly 30 miles east of him, Trey Smith, principal and head administrator of East Mountain High School, opted not to replace three positions this school year as he braced for his school to receive funding cuts via House Bill 63.
“We tried to design a budget that is balanced around this new normal,” Smith said.
He decided not to fill two full-time jobs and one part-time job. Those positions include a full-time position in fundraising and communications, a job in the school’s athletics department and a part-time custodian.
“I’m doing my best to not (let it) impact the classroom, but it does,” Smith said. “And it’s not like we’ve ever had frivolous spending on salaries; we have needed positions that serve critical roles, and anytime that’s reduced, it just makes everyone’s job harder.”
According to documents shared with the Journal, East Mountain received around $486,000 in at-risk funding allocations for the previous fiscal year. That dropped to $135,809 for the current fiscal year.
East Mountain’s proficiency rates in reading and science are over 30 percentage points higher than the state’s, though they are identical in science.
The school that suffered the largest dollar loss as a result of the bill’s passing is Explore Academy, a charter school serving over 1,000 students in Albuquerque. It lost around $1 million.
“It was a significant hit to our budget this year,” Jake Kolander, the head school administrator for Explore, said. “Overall, our school found at a deficit of about $1.2 million going into this year than what we would have had prior to the passing of HB 63.”
The school reports proficiency rates either nearly or over 20 percentage points higher than the state in subjects measured on the New Mexico Vistas report.
The school moved to a four-day school week to soften the fiscal blow due to PED’s funding formula for schools operating on a four-day week. Under this formula, the unit value of a student is calculated equally regardless of family income, special needs, English Language status or other factors. The school was able to claw back roughly $800,000 it was set to lose due to the funding changes of House Bill 63.
Explore parents overwhelmingly supported the change to a four-day school week. Still, Kolander feels the bill negatively impacted families.
“I think it put families in a bad position because it clearly didn’t distribute funds the way that they needed to be. It seemed to have had a disproportionate impact on spotlight schools,” Kolander said. “It’s not too far of a stretch to see that school leaders feel that it was sort of a direct, almost targeted, directive against the highest performing charter schools in the state.”
Less willing to criticize state lawmakers, Chris Parrino, business and finance director at Montessori of the Rio Grande Charter School, which lost 6.5% of its funding as a result of House Bill 63, declined to comment to “maintain strong, collaborative relationships with members of the Legislature and the Governor’s Office.”
However, a document he shared with the Journal shows that the school projects a $100,000 to $150,000 decrease in its fund balance over the course of the fiscal year. Despite the increased funding per student, it lost out on $97,211.46 on its student equalization funding.
Another high-performing charter school in Northeast Albuquerque, New Mexico International School, also lost $360,000 after the bill’s passage, according to documents shared with the Journal.
Using the cash saved, the school was able to salvage its budget for this fiscal year, but according to Todd Knouse, the head of the school. Positions like interventionists and librarians could be on the chopping block, he said.
“It’s kind of a Robin Hood-type idea … we’re big losers. There are some really big winners in this design. What’s the expectation? They’re just getting more money?” Knouse said. “Something I’ve noticed is this place (New Mexico) just throws money at perceived problems, no accountability.”
Because of that, the school always tries to keep money in savings.
“We have remaining cash just because there’s always some sort of threat at each legislative session of a cut,” Corinne Teller, the school’s finance and operations director, said. “But we are dipping into it by hundreds of thousands this year in order to make our program work.”
The schools’ math, reading, and science proficiency ratings are 30 to 40 percentage points higher than the state average.
One of the schools least affected by the passage of House Bill 63 was Amy Biehl Charter High School, which serves just under 200 students in a historic Downtown Albuquerque building.
“We didn’t even measure it,” Cliff Wintrode, the treasurer for the school, said.
According to the bill’s fiscal impact analysis, Amy Biehl stood to lose roughly $1,000, which is labeled as a 0% change in the analysis.
Still, he and Stephanie Becker, the school’s executive director and principal, take issue with how the state’s funding formula is constructed — even with the increased funding per student.
“I think something larger that … we continually are astounded by, is that the Legislature mandates certain raises for our faculty and staff,” Becker said. “Then when they make the equation — the student equalization guarantee — it doesn’t match that at all.”
The Journal reached out to multiple charter schools that gained funding due to the passage of House Bill 63. None of those schools, including the one that got the most significant percentage boost, La Academia Dolores Huerta, and one that received the largest dollar amount increase, Mission Achievement and Success, responded to requests for comment.
“I think critics of the bill are carefully navigating this story of equity,” Chelsea Morris, an assistant professor of education at the University of New Mexico, said. “We know everybody wants to claim equity, but then when we have to actually say that, it means that some people get more than other people, then that’s a hard thing to say.”
She added that she sees the bill as “one of the first few tangible actions” the New Mexico Legislature has taken in response to the landmark 2018 Yazzie-Martinez ruling, which found the state’s quality of education was so bad it violated marginalized students’ constitutional rights.
But she acknowledged the immediate impact for schools.
“One year is a really short time for an entire school to pretty much publicly shift their priorities,” Morris said. “They have to make a very, very firm, I think, equity-driven decision of whether they’re going to recruit low income students and marginalized students.”
Over the past fiscal year, New Mexico generated $390 million more in revenue than anticipated, some of which Stewart said could be used to further fund New Mexico schools.
“This is a positive move forward for us, for everyone. It’ll take a couple of years, but those charters with no at-risk students will find a way to continue,” Stewart said. “We certainly will continue to increase funding every year that we can.”
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