By RICK ROMERO
Rick Romero is a former superintendent of Questa Independent School District. He is a retired educator with 35 years of experience in New Mexico public schools.
On March 20th, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Secretary of Education to begin taking all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States. The underlying premise of the order is to provide more local control for education to parents, states and communities. Critics of the public education system cite concerns about the disconnect between continued increases in funding at both the state and federal levels without improving student achievement. Advocates believe that it is time to promote “Universal School Choice.” The notion is that every parent in America should be empowered to send their child to public, private, charter, or faith-based school of their choice. And that the federal dollars follow them to help fund their instruction in that school.
Public schools in the U.S. are primarily funded through a combination of state and local tax revenue, with states allocating funds from their general revenue and local governments using property taxes. In New Mexico, school funding is financed through the state’s annual operating budget. For the 2024-25 school year the New Mexico Legislature appropriated $4.17 billion, or 44.3 percent of the state budget. Revenue is allocated to school districts through the State Equalization Guarantee “funding formula.” This funding formula includes an average enrollment of students in each school district and assigns a per pupil funding “unit.”
This school year the unit value per student is $6,553.75. In the Questa Independent School District there are 326 students. Applied to the funding formula, the base allocation from the state is $2,136,522.50. In addition to the unit value per student, there are multipliers used to support students with more individualized educational needs, which include special education, bilingual and multicultural education, at-risk, enrollment growth, district and school size. The total estimated revenue from the state for Questa is $5,073,000, with estimated expenses of $4,462,000. Like a family’s budget there are expenses that fluctuate like gas, groceries, utilities and medical or health. School districts have these same needs and keep money in the budget for unknown or unanticipated expenses.
During the 2021-22 school year about 17 percent or 1 in 6 dollars in school funding came from the federal government. In all, public schools in New Mexico received $914.9 million, or $2,888 in federal funds per student. The federal government’s role is to ensure that all students, regardless of background or location, have access to a quality education. The federal government plays a role in protecting students’ civil rights and ensuring that all students are treated fairly. These are what is referred to as flow through dollars, meaning the state is the fiscal authority through whom the dollars are provided to the school districts. The Education Department funds grades K-12 through programs that support economically disadvantaged children from low-income families, special education programs and school improvement initiatives to improve educational outcomes, while ensuring all students have equal access and benefits.
The president’s executive order for the closure of the Department of Education could not have come at a worse time for school districts around the state. Each year beginning in January, superintendents and boards of education begin the budget process for the next school year. An article recently published in NEA Today stated that ninety percent of U.S. students and 95% of students with disabilities attend and learn in our public schools. Americans have always been able to rely on the federal government’s commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every child by providing dollars to enhance and support state funding. The association is concerned that gutting the department would mean less resources for our most vulnerable students, create larger class sizes, provide fewer special education services and less assurance for civil rights protections. School leaders are concerned that federal dollars will be lost to school vouchers going to charter and private schools supporting school choice. And that the federal dollars could be leveraged to ensure that state schools adhere to changes in national policy. Above all concerns is that federal dollars will become more diminished year after year, and the impact will be reduced services for state schools who will soon be competing more and more with private, charter or other special schools who will be chasing “school dollars” to grow their programs at the expense of public schools creating a further divide between the haves and have nots.