{"id":606768,"date":"2018-07-25T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=606768"},"modified":"2018-07-25T09:22:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T15:22:21","slug":"lujan-grisham-wont-fight-education-lawsuit-ruling-if-she-is-next-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/07\/lujan-grisham-wont-fight-education-lawsuit-ruling-if-she-is-next-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Lujan Grisham won\u2019t fight education lawsuit ruling if she is next governor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_565685\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-565685\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-771x522.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Lujan Grisham\" width=\"771\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-336x227.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Lujan-Grisham-Michelle-768x520.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/p><\/div>\n<p>School funding lawsuits are usually long legal slogs, but New Mexico\u2019s timeline could be shortened by years. On Tuesday, Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham was the first candidate for governor to say she would not continue a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/07\/23\/historic-court-victory-facing-possible-appeal-still-will-influence-election-and-2019-legislative-session\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">legal battle<\/a>\u00a0over whether the state is meeting its financial obligations to adequately educate children.<\/p>\n<p>And she called on current Gov. Susana Martinez to not appeal a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/07\/23\/historic-court-victory-facing-possible-appeal-still-will-influence-election-and-2019-legislative-session\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">landmark judicial decision<\/a>\u00a0against the state last week.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/07\/24\/lujan-grisham-wont-appeal-education-lawsuit-if-she-is-next-governor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico In Depth<\/a>. Sign up for\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&amp;id=9294743d38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cFor too long, our education system has failed our children, educators, families and communities, drastically undermining our economy and our public safety while straining our overburdened social services. Today, I am calling on Governor Martinez to publicly commit to not appealing the landmark education lawsuit decision,\u201d Lujan Grisham said. \u201cHowever, if Governor Martinez does not put our students and educators first, I will immediately halt any appeal initiated by her administration upon taking office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Public Education Department spokeswoman said late Monday that the state intends to appeal Judge Sarah Singleton\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/4614900-PED-Lawsuit.html#document\/p7\/a440592\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decision<\/a>. The state has until Aug. 17 to file a formal appeal with the court.<\/p>\n<p>Lujan Grisham\u2019s opponent, Republican Steve Pearce, still hasn\u2019t made a decision about whether or not he\u2019d continue an appeal, his spokesperson said, but tackling the inadequacy of New Mexico\u2019s education system will be a top priority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the court battle goes forward, Steve Pearce remains committed to taking action as governor to fix New Mexico\u2019s broken education system and addressing the serious problems the judge points out in her decision,\u201d said spokesman Kevin Sheridan. \u201cSteve Pearce believes New Mexico must do a better job educating all children, including providing better funding to schools, fixing the teacher evaluation system and allowing teachers to teach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which represented some of the parents in the lawsuit, lauded Lujan Grisham\u2019s position.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe applaud Michelle Lujan Grisham\u2019s announcement that she will withdraw any appeal that is filed in the education sufficiency lawsuit. That is the only right thing to do for New Mexico\u2019s children. Rather than fighting against the interests of our children, it is time for the state to work with us to fix our school system and get our students the services and programs they need to be college or career ready,\u201d said Gail Evans, the Center\u2019s lead attorney for education.<\/p>\n<p>An attorney in the Washington state case\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/waschoolexcellence.org\/the-mccleary-case\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">McCleary vs. State<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/07\/23\/historic-court-victory-facing-possible-appeal-still-will-influence-election-and-2019-legislative-session\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>\u00a0that case took 10 years from the start of the lawsuit until courts just last month ruled that the state had fulfilled its funding obligations. Tom Ahearne said it took two years from the original decision to a Washington Supreme Court ruling upholding the decision that the state\u2019s schools were underfunded in violation of that state\u2019s constitution. He could not recall any states that had forgone the appeals process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the states I know of have these long, drawn out battles. Washington, Kansas, New Jersey, New York. They just seemed to drag on and on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>School funding lawsuits are usually long legal slogs, but New Mexico\u2019s timeline could be shortened by years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":565685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[234,125,107],"class_list":["post-606768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-children","tag-education","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}