Future Focused Education has learned a lot about assessment and accountability in New Mexico since 2017. We have partnered with New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) on many of the most promising innovative education initiatives that can help young people demonstrate what they know and how they know it. We are grateful to see the new report issued by FairTest and Center for Innovation in Education, which includes a case study on our great state. Read the full report here, or scroll down to read the case study on New Mexico.

In January, 2019, Governor Lujan Grisham signed two executive orders to move away from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), the large-scale state assessment system in place for accountability purposes, and ordered the NM Public Education Department (NMPED) to develop new policies and practices regarding testing, school accountability, and teacher evaluation.

This action was in large part a reaction to the landmark Martinez and Yazzie v. State of New Mexico education lawsuit, where in July 2018, the first Judicial District Court of New Mexico ruled that the state was violating the right of students to a sufficient and uniform education—particularly those students of low-income, of color, those who are English learners, and students with disabilities. That suit was the result of a sustained grassroots, community-based effort to hold the state accountable for student success.

The court also issued a number of directives, including charging New Mexico to take immediate steps to “ensure teaching is tailored to the unique cultural and linguistic needs of students, including English-language learners and indigenous communities.”

Then Education Secretary Ryan Stewart and the NMPED team and their partners quickly recognized that the Governor’s directives and the court findings was the result of a system that was disenfranchising many of New Mexico’s youth and threatened the native languages, ethnic traditions, and heritage of New Mexico. This realization has resulted in a cascading number of changes in New Mexico’s public education system.

In 2020, responding to a request for proposal (RFP) by the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Secretary Ryan applied for the first of a series of grants to support the creation of a network of districts and schools across New Mexico committed to establishing community co-created Portraits of a Graduate and individual student capstones tied to community cultural and local business opportunities.

To support this work, the grant also identified the need for two communities of practice, one for district and school leaders and another for teachers so that educators would have the training and expertise necessary to move to new forms of student assessment. This resulted in a series of grant awards over several years from the two foundations, and the emergence of a network of districts, schools, communities, and educators engaged in developing and implementing community-based Portraits of a Graduate, student capstones that are culturally and career connected to opportunities for students in New Mexico’s cities and communities, and a growing cohort of educators ready to support the emergence of a new system.

Meanwhile, the New Mexico Legislature enacted several statutes and funding opportunities in response to the Martinez Yazzie lawsuit. In June, 2023, the NMPED announced $11.4 million in awards to 47 NM School Districts to serve as “Innovation Zones” designed to transform the traditional high school education model, while improving the experience and academic outcomes for local communities.

The intent of these awards was to build on the prototype. Portraits of a Graduate and capstone assessments developed by the Gates/Walton grants and to further integrate Career and Technical Education (CTE) and career pathway efforts with core academic instruction. The Innovation Zone awards have served to grow the scale of the pilot efforts across additional NM districts and schools.

The passing of House Bill 171 (HB171) in the 2024 New Mexico legislative session amended current law to update New Mexico’s high school graduation requirements related to assessments. Students are no longer required to complete demonstrations of competency (DOC) in core academic subjects (i.e., mathematics, reading and language arts, writing, social studies, and science) to receive a high school diploma, although they are still required to pass a slate of requisite academic courses.

Despite HB 171 removing the state’s requirement for students to demonstrate competency in the five core subject areas, districts or charter schools may exercise their local authority to require local demonstrations of competency (e.g., portfolios, capstones, end-of-course exams). In certain instances, students can earn credit for core academic course work through specific work-based learning experiences where the core content is a required element of the experience.

Although NMPED still requires their current state assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math in grades 3-10 as well as the Assessment of Science Readiness (ASR) Science Assessments in grade spans in order to comply with federal accountability requirements, the alternatives named in HB 171 provide different pathways for students to graduate High School in New Mexico.

Future Focused Education, a state-wide educational intermediary organization, has worked with the NM legislature and NMPED to implement the various initiatives across NM’s districts and schools. This includes the New Mexico Graduation Equity Initiative, where, in partnership with the NMPED, Future Focused Education is working to create new graduation pathways in schools and communities that offer students a more expansive learning and assessment system anchored by capstones that celebrate and honor their cultural and linguistic strengths, allowing students to take ownership of their learning, build strong identities, and see a rich future.

These capstones matter, as they address the following concerns:

● Retention: Capstones will retain students in school by giving them meaningful experiences that give them a chance to apply their learning in real life scenarios and help identify what they want to do in their future.

● Evidence of Learning: Capstones give communities the evidence that students have the skills and knowledge described in graduate profiles which are a reflection of a community's hope for the future.

● College and Career: Students build the skills they will need to be successful in college or a career (finishing what you start, communicating, collaborating, etc.)

● Grow Your Own: Students appreciate the local wisdom in their own community and give employers and community organizations a chance to grow their own talent.

● Equity: Focusing on a student's language, culture and values and appreciating who they are and where they come from is a remedy to the concerns raised in Martinez-Yazzie.

As part of the Gates/Walton Grant implementation, NMPED and Future Focused Education developed a series of guidance documents to support districts and schools in the format and expectations of locally developed Portraits of a Graduate and capstone assessments. This includes calibration studies of learning through Capstones. Future Focused Education tested these guardrails through the Youth Participatory Action Research Project, where paid student interns practiced capstone development and demonstrations, as well as uplifted student voice and experience with assessment through community-based research and interviews with New Mexican youth.

Future Focused Education also has captured and documented examples of student Capstones and local school processes to share with other districts through the on-going communities of practice.  This includes an AI enabled database of student projects that also serves as a teacher development tool to help build technical assistance capacity across the state. Notable are the Zuni High School Capstones, for their depth and deep cultural significance.

While the extensive work over the last five years was begun in response to the Martinez Yazzie lawsuit, it has begun to reach deeply into assessment and accountability practices at both the state and local levels in New Mexico. However, both the courts and leaders in the state agree that the reach has not been deep enough in terms of meeting the needs of students and communities.

In an additional court filing in April 2025, the 1st Judicial Court found that the State of New Mexico and PED remain out of compliance with the prior court orders from 2018 and 2019 and continue to violate the constitutional rights of at-risk students to a sufficient and uniform education. These findings are in part due to continued poor attendance and other student success measures for New Mexico youth state-wide, despite an increase in both resources and programs to address the poor performance.

As a remedy, the court ordered NMPED to lead the development of a comprehensive plan with specified deadlines for progress and finalization to address the violations. The Court Order, anchored in Plaintiffs’ request for a multifaceted, equity driven, and detailed accountability framework rooted in metrics well beyond standardized test scores, created a nine-point remedy plan to meet the constitutional standard and determine the quality of education in New Mexico.

The Order provides that:

1. 1. A multicultural and multilingual framework must be created with which districts and schools provide a culturally and linguistically responsive education that supports the assets of at-risk students.
      
      
   2. A transparent, cohesive, and accountable system of delivering special education supports and services must be created so that students with disabilities receive an inclusive, integrated, and equitable education.
      
      
   3. A system of curriculum, instructional programs, and assessment from preschool through secondary school must be created that is culturally and linguistically responsive.
      
      
   4. A system must be created of training, recruitment, placement, evaluation, and retention of a sufficient number of high-quality teachers, administrators, and support professionals who are well-prepared and adequately supported.
      
      
   5. A system of technology must be created that provides all at-risk students and their teachers access to broadband services and a dedicated digital device both in school and at home.
      
      
   6. An adequately staffed system must be created of culturally and linguistically responsive and high-quality student and family support services.
      
      
   7. An equitable finance system must be created that provides sufficient, recurring and predictable funding to school districts and tribal communities that prioritizes and targets the needs of at-risk students.
      
      
   8. An accountability and enforcement system that tracks local district expenditure of state and federal funds must be created to ensure these funds are spent in schools on at-risk students.
      
      
   9. The PED must fill all vacancies and increase its current capacity with high quality, culturally competent staff.

Included in the findings was the statement,
“Creating this comprehensive plan requires the coordinated effort among educational leaders, State and Tribal government officials, education experts and advocates, and other participants in the State’s educational system, and of course, the PED.”

Efforts are underway at this time by both the NM Legislature and the NMPED to respond to the findings of the Court. Stay tuned to the next steps taken by the State of New Mexico in its attempts to address the educational needs of New Mexico’s youth.