School Funding for English Language Learners in New Mexico

• In Event: Martínez v. State of New Mexico: Revitalizing the Dream of Our Forefathers

Abstract

Education Week in its Quality Counts 2016 New Mexico Report graded New Mexico’s equity of school finance and its overall spending. This study seeks to understand the revenue and expenditure dispersion across the seven New Mexico plaintiff districts (i.e. Albuquerque, Espanola, Gadsden, Las Cruces, Magdalena, Santa Fe, Zuni), representing distinct geographical (e.g. rural, urban, exurban, Reservation), race/ ethnicity, and size contexts. To that affect this analysis explores three basic research questions:
1. What differences exist in the generation of revenue across districts? 2. Are any differences in the generation of revenue across sources, reflected in the 
amount of revenue available per pupil? 3. What differences exist in expenditures per pupil across districts?
Theoretical Framework

I adopt structural inequality theory to understand the New Mexico school finance systems as societal institutions whose laws, practices, and methods of distributing resources can create, maintain, and reproduce inequalities in educational opportunity.

Method & Analysis
Seven school districts were used for this analysis. The analysis includes a longitudinal descriptive comparison of New Mexico school funding revenue and expenditures in seven New Mexico public school non-charter districts. The dataset was comprised of publically available New Mexico Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data excel files (Excel v14.0) merged into one consolidated dataset imported to SPSSv22.0.
Findings
It reveals some varied patterns of revenue and spending generation even when accounting for economies of scale. Gadsden’s ELL student population however are achieving above district peers, and the only expenditure source that is higher are those instructional support services expenditures which, amongst other items, are spent on Educational Plans for student success. By and large Magdalena is generating, and spending more per student than any other district, not surprising due to economies of scale. Overall Magdalena does have a higher percentage of graduation, but is average when compared against other districts in the percentage of %ELLs achieving at or above proficiency in reading and math. This analysis shows that Zuni’s school finance package is still heavily influenced by federal sources, that state sources of revenue are not working to equalize the revenue disparities that exist across districts, and despite attempts, New Mexico is not, equalizing local revenue generation differences through state funds. Furthermore in areas with higher concentrations of ELL and Native American students, the state is potentially creating greater inequality, exhibited in the contrast of combined state and local revenue generation between Magdalena and Gadsden and Zuni, who have higher concentrations of Latinos, Native American students, students living in poverty and English Language learners.

Significance
New Mexico’s public school finance has for decades served to equalize financial support toward school districts so that all students would have an opportunity, built from directly from legislation that enables full participation in New Mexico’s compulsory education system (King, 1983; Verstegen & Jordan, 2009). New Mexico does not provide “equal or sufficient” amounts of funding toward all of its districts, and that the finite resources available, no matter the level, are prioritized by both the state and districts, creating variation in student learning.

Author

• Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, Arizona State University