For more than a year, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) conducted research in New Mexico, including interviews, site visits, document review, and new analyses of data provided by the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED). The purpose of the study was to provide New Mexico leaders a research perspective on the challenges facing education and identify evidence-based ways that state policy can address them. The central finding is that key to system improvement is recognizing that students who face barriers to school success--including poverty and systemic racism--are not exceptions in New Mexico; rather, they are the norm. Accordingly, the state must design a system that places these students at the center and builds the state and local capacity to meet their diverse needs. Prior to COVID-19, the state had taken promising steps toward such a system. Together, the Office of the Governor, the New Mexico Legislature, advocates, and educators began moving toward a stronger system. The pandemic now threatens this progress, and the most vulnerable children are experiencing the direst effects. This main report is part of a series for helping New Mexico leaders focus on both short-term and long-term improvement as the state recovers from the COVID-19 setbacks. It focuses on system changes at the state level that can enable and support local improvement across New Mexico's diverse communities and schools. For the near term, the authors identify what can be done without a large infusion of new funds. State policymakers, together with leaders from education, business, non-profits, and tribal governments can begin with these near-term steps as they work to create a coherent, post-COVID-19 approach to deep and lasting improvement in New Mexico schools. [For "Improving Education the New Mexico Way: Summary Report," see ED610899. For "Building a System of College and Career Pathways in New Mexico," see ED610896. For "Community Schools the New Mexico Way," see ED610897.]