The New Mexico Public Education Department released school grades Dec. 18 for all the state schools, including the Española School District and regional charter schools, and with few exceptions, the results are not encouraging.
Española School District Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez said the grades were “not great.”
“I expected that our schools would see a lower grade based on our Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (P.A.R.C.C.) data,” Gutierrez said. “I believe we are in a transition and we are in the process of making the shift to better understanding and utilizing our Common Core Standards to align curriculum.”
According to information made public by the state Education Department, the standards-based assessment had been used for a decade and was designed to assess whether students meet grade-specific standards developed by New Mexico education professionals. This school year, the state implemented a new set of assessments designed to meet the state standards initiative known as Common Core.
In 2011, lawmakers in New Mexico enacted the current system of grading schools to gauge student progress in mathematics and reading as part of state and federal statutes mandating accountability for public schools. Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera warned educators that school grades could be lower this year, due to a focus on stricter testing standards.
American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President Stephanie Ly released a statement critical of the Department’s assignment of school grades.
“Addressing the disparities between different schools requires more than just assigning a letter grade to a school and telling them to try harder next time,” Ly said. “We need a secretary of education and governor who are truly invested in our public schools, through increased and earlier intervention, resource and educational equity, and the discontinuation of Education Department pet projects diverting tax payer money away from local District control.”
Ly said shaming students by labeling them as failures achieves none of these things and serves no purpose.
“Many states that once graded schools on the A to F continuum have abandoned that method for ranking schools,” Gutierrez said. “An A-F scale is an easy one to understand in terms of a school grade; however, many factors go into the calculations, and I do not believe any have fully understood the formula used to calculate school grades.”
Gutierrez said even though she believes the state does need a way to monitor schools’ progress, the present system does not take into account factors such as the number of English language learners at each school, the number of students with special needs and the impact of poverty on individual school communities.
“I do not like the comparison between the schools,” she said. “Often false assumptions are created without taking into account such factors.”
Abiquiú Elementary was the only school in the District to garner an A grade. The school’s three-year average is a B, with 67.1 out of a possible 100 points. Principal Claudia Sena could not be reached for comment on her school’s grade.
Chimayó Elementary School Head Teacher Janet Malcom said she concurred with Skandera’s assertion that schools are not receiving top grades because of the transition to more stringent assessments for students.
She said faculty and students had little time to prepare for the shift in the standardized testing.
“We didn’t even have time to finish some of our practice training in P.A.R.C.C.,” she said. “We had a trial run and we have had some training, but we need more.”
Malcolm said the state needs to provide more resources to the schools, especially in the area of technology.
“I think they need to fund us better,” she said. “We are still having issues with WiFi. We just don’t have the funding. They need to provide more technical support. You need to have the technology for kids to practice on. We have had some of that, but overall it all comes down to funding.”
Malcom said the District was short-handed, with too few technicians for the size of the 14-school District. She said technology is a critical component now, considering the assessment exams are computer-based, with few students having achieved proficiency in keyboarding skills.
Chimayó’s three-year grade average is a C, with 52.6 out of 100 possible points. The school’s grade has remained unchanged. It received 15.38 points out of a possible 40 in the most recent school year, falling below the statewide benchmark of 21.3.
“It’s really hard to compare whatever they did this year from last year,” Malcom said. “The P.A.R.C.C. is entirely different from whatever they’ve done before.”
Dixon Elementary Head Teacher Alice Gonzales declined to comment on her school’s grades, despite the fact it fared better than most of the other elementary schools in the District.
She said she did not have a chance to take a detailed look at the grades and would prefer not to elaborate on them.
Dixon’s three-year average was a C, with 57.9 out of 100 possible points. Despite the average, the school’s current standing, which measures how students performed in the most recent school year, is an F, with 14.47 points out of a possible 40, below the 21.3 statewide rank.
Hernandez Elementary received a C grade with a three-year average of a D, with 43.8 points, while being graded with an F in current year student performance.
Los Niños Kindergarten also received a C grade with a three-year average grade of C, with 55 total points.
Alcalde Elementary, Española Middle School, Fairview Elementary, San Juan and Sombrillo Elementary all received an F.
Schools given a D grade included Española Elementary and Velarde Elementary. Their current-year student performance slipped to a D, as it fell nearly three points, compared to the statewide average.
Española Valley High School was also given a D, with 7.99 points out of a possible 30, and fell below the state average of 12.5 points. The school’s three-year average is a C, with 53 out of 100 possible points.
In comparison to other area school districts, Española falls below Mesa Vista High School, which was graded as a “C” school overall, despite being given an F for their students’ performance this most recent school year. Mesa Vista High’s three-year average is also a C, with 60.3 points out of a possible 100.
Escalante Middle/High School in the Chama Valley Independent School District, was given a D, but holds a B in their three-year average, with a score of 65.3 points. Students at the school performed poorly in the most recent school year. The school was given an F, having totaled 7.12 out of 30 points and falling below the 12.5 statewide average.
Charter schools in the area outperformed some of the other schools. Cariños de los Niños Charter School, which was recently renewed for a three-year provisional charter by the state’s Public Education Commission, received a C, but has a three-year D average with 44.9 points. The school’s current standing is a D, with 15.08 out of 40 points for academic year 2015.
McCurdy Charter School received a final grade of C, but has a three-year B average, with 67.5 points. Students at McCurdy were given a D in the 2015 school year. The school’s 9.86 points falls below the 12.5 benchmark, statewide.
Gutierrez said schools need to be reconstituted in terms of staff and staffing assignments. She said schools need to determine the professional needs of each individual staff member in terms of training and professional growth.
“We are already working on many of these things and the community can expect to see numerous changes in the District in the coming year,” she said.