NM HM43

Requests the Legislative Education Study Committee and Public Education Department to conduct a comprehensive study on methodologies used to rank public school performance in New Mexico and surrounding states, with findings due by November 1, 2026

Focuses specifically on the Lexile framework as a universal metric for comparing student reading proficiency across states, noting it is used by 42 states in accountability systems and all 50 states use it to some extent

Notes that current National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data is limited, testing only about 4,500 New Mexico students (1.5%) in 4th and 8th grades every two years, while Lexile data exists for all 300,000+ students

Requires analysis of student achievement in mathematics and reading, dropout and graduation rates, per-pupil funding levels, school safety indicators, class sizes, and instructor qualifications

Aims to determine whether New Mexico's consistently low national rankings reflect actual performance or result from inconsistent variables that fail to account for factors like poverty and language barriers