近距离内射合集

The Legislature wants students in school for more days. But it has repeatedly stopped short of requiring them. 

That tension surfaced during a Legislative Finance Committee hearing in Ruidoso last month, when Vice Chair George Mu帽oz, a Democrat from Gallup, pressed Public Education Secretary Mariana Padilla about districts moving to four-day school weeks.

Could she stop them if she had the authority?

鈥淚 don鈥檛 have the ability to stop it,鈥� Padilla replied. 鈥淚鈥檝e tried that. I鈥檝e been sued, Mister Chair. I don鈥檛 have the ability to dictate calendars.鈥�

Later, when Mu帽oz suggested the department could use its control over education funding to push districts in a different direction, Padilla responded with a question of her own: 鈥淚f it鈥檚 not in law, how do you enforce it?鈥�

The exchange came during a hearing on a Legislative Finance Committee that found New Mexico has spent $2.6 billion since 2018 trying to give students more time to learn. 

New Mexico students are behind in reading and math proficiency, and need to catch up. As one LFC evaluator Sarah Rovang put it during the hearing, 鈥渢ime defines the container of opportunity, and a bigger container equals more opportunity for learning.鈥� That premise has guided much of the state鈥檚 response to the 2018 Yazzie Martinez court ruling, which found New Mexico was failing at-risk students and identified additional instructional time as one of several remedies.

The report concluded the state鈥檚 efforts to expand learning time for students have produced only modest changes: The average school year is just three days longer than it was when the spending began. And in some cases, the report suggests, the way laws are written may have created financial incentives that work against the results lawmakers intended. 

For decades, New Mexico has regulated instructional hours rather than instructional days. Lawmakers briefly enacted a 180-day school-year requirement in 2009, then repealed it before it took effect. After the Yazzie Martinez ruling, lawmakers expanded programs designed to put students in school more often, including initiatives that funded longer school years and additional learning time outside the regular school day. In 2023, lawmakers raised the minimum instructional hours schools must provide students, but again stopped short of requiring additional instructional days. Instead, it provided incentives for schools to add days. 

According to the report, that framework has produced unintended consequences.

Schools can meet the new state requirements for instructional hours by lengthening the school day. At the same time, the funding formula for K-12 Plus, one of the programs state lawmakers expanded, rewards schools for adding extra calendar days to their school year.  Because school districts and charter schools control their own school calendars 鈥� including whether to operate four or five days a week 鈥� how those extra days are structured is largely up to them. 

The Public Education Department has allowed professional development days, when students are not in school, to count toward the K-12 thresholds that trigger extra funding, with likely unintended results. In fiscal year 2026, participating schools counted a 鈥渨eighted average鈥� of 2.5 additional student days and seven additional non-student days. Roughly three-quarters of the extra days the state was paying for were days students were not in class.

The rules can make four-day schedules financially attractive. The report highlighted Coral Community Charter School in Albuquerque, which switched from a five-day week to a four-day week in fiscal year 2026.

Its calendar shrank from 191 days to 170 days. According to LFC鈥檚 analysis, it received about $147,000 more in K-12 Plus funding than it would have under its previous five-day calendar. The school qualified for more money  because four-day schools begin earning K-12 Plus dollars after exceeding 155 school days per year, compared to 180 days for five-day schools 鈥� meaning Coral Community earned funding for more days above the threshold even while serving students fewer days overall.

According to a letter included in the report, Padilla said the number of districts and charter schools using four-day weeks has grown from 58 in the 2024-25 school year to 85 in 2026-27.

For most students, the LFC report found four-day weeks had little measurable effect on academic outcomes. But analysts found statistically significant slower reading growth for students with disabilities, with scores lagging behind comparable students in five-day districts.

Critically, the slower growth was present even at schools that maintained their total instructional hours when switching to a four-day week, suggesting the loss of a school day carries consequences for these students that longer days cannot offset. Students with disabilities are among the groups Yazzie Martinez specifically identified as being failed by the state 鈥� the same students the $2.6 billion investment was designed to help. 

The findings have renewed debate over whether New Mexico should require more instructional days or focus on how schools use the time they already have.

Sen. Craig Brandt, a Republican from Rio Rancho, questioned whether simply adding days to the school calendar would improve outcomes, asking LFC analysts whether they were advocating for more calendar days or for targeted interventions aimed at students with specific needs.

The analysts responded that the report does not recommend a statewide instructional-days mandate. Instead, they said, its recommendations focus on eliminating financial incentives that encourage schools to reduce student time and targeting instructional-time programs to the students Yazzie Martinez was intended to help.

鈥淚t鈥檚 about intentionality of time,鈥� one analyst said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 making sure that the time that we do have for students is being used well.鈥�

Brandt agreed that additional time can be valuable but argued that quality matters more than quantity.

鈥淲e鈥檙e really talking more about quality,鈥� Brandt said, noting that collaboration time for teachers can improve instruction when districts use it effectively.

Brandt pointed to Colorado, which requires just 160 school days but ranks among the nation鈥檚 highest-performing states, to argue that calendar length alone does not drive outcomes. Padilla countered that 31 states set a minimum of 180 school days. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 kind of the norm,鈥� she said.

The question of whether the Public Education Department can require more instructional days has been tested in court.

Padilla鈥檚 department adopted a regulation in 2024 that would have required 180 instructional days. School superintendents sued, and a district court struck the rule down in February 2025, finding that state law gives schools flexibility over calendar design and that PED lacked authority to impose a days requirement on its own.

The LFC report recommends that lawmakers clarify that money to pay for K-12 Plus should be based on student instructional days, eliminate financial incentives that reward practices unlikely to improve outcomes, and better define the educational purpose of out-of-school programs.

At the Ruidoso hearing, Padilla argued that if lawmakers want more time focused on students, the solution is legislative, not administrative.

鈥淚f we want to see certain things,鈥� she told the committee, 鈥渢hen be clear and put it in law.鈥�