New Mexico public schools’ report card revisited

 

 

For this past week’s edition of New Mexico In Focus, I got a chance to sit down with three of the state’s most influential – and thoughtful – public education officials on the heels of the recently released Adequate Yearly Progress ratings for our state’s public schools.

And on the surface, those ratings were downright dismal.

 

While New Mexico’s Public Education Department Secretary Veronica Garcia, state education accountability director Peter Winograd and the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers President Ellen Bernstein didn’t use those that exact words to describe the ratings, none were remotely pleased with them either.

 

It’s not too hard to see why.

 

In Albuquerque, only 23 of 157 public schools made AYP this year, versus 46 that made it last year. In Rio Rancho, only two elementary schools made AYP, compared with six of the district’s 15 schools that made it last year. Statewide, 245 of the state’s 770 schools met the standard this year, compared to 368 schools last year.

 

Combine those factoids with the revelation that the achievement gap – the gulf between the academic performance of the majority of kids with racial and ethnic subgroups – continues to widen, and it’s clear we must have some major problems.

 

But, as Garcia, Winograd and Bernstein all noted, overall student test results were actually up. Ditto for minority kids.

 

Are you confused yet?

 

The panel discussed how AYP –  the all-important measure that was born out of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act – is a moving target. New Mexico public schools this year were expected to make an arbitrary 14 percent increase in reading and math scores in order to reach adequate yearly progress. The Albuquerque Public Schools notched a 12 percent increase overall. Not good enough, says NCLB.

 

All of which begged the question: Does this landmark federal law set public schools up for failure?

 

No resolution to that question, but the discussion was quite good.