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Quick Hits

Gwen Perea Warniment will soon be the new director of the Legislative Education Study Committee, the committee announced last week.

Perea Warniment currently serves as the Public Education Department’s deputy secretary for teaching, learning, and assessment. She will begin her new job in late May or early June.

In her new role, Perea Warniment will “manage a staff of analysts who conduct a continuing study of laws, policies and costs related to education in New Mexico. The LESC, made up of 31 state legislators, also recommends funding levels for public education and changes in education-related laws,” according to an article in the Albuquerque Journal.

“Dr. Warniment is exceedingly qualified and committed to the education system and children of New Mexico,” Sen. Bill Soules, LESC chairman, said in a press release. “She knows the schools, as a former student, a parent, and an administrator, and understands the challenges and successes of educating our students.”

According to the release, “as a deputy secretary at PED, Perea Warniment  manages a $250 million budget and 80 staff in the areas of educator quality, assessments, and curriculum and instruction. She has worked on developing the statewide public schools budget, public prekindergarten, and the pandemic safety and school re-entry plans.”

The PED has not announced who will replace Perea Warniment. Her former role is critical as the state restarts school accountability, releases standardized test results, and launches a new teacher licensure system.

Gwen Perea Warniment will soon be the

Commentary

Editor’s note: This article was written by Hope Morales, executive director of Teach Plus New Mexico

Cam was the name behind the data and the reason why I wanted to  make an impact beyond the walls of my classroom. His story was supposed to be similar to my own: Education was going to change his life. 

Instead, Cam died this April at the age of 15. I thought of all the ways in which adults failed him through his too-short life. I searched for someone to blame for the tragedy that took place in my community. Then I realized, it wasn’t someone, but something, a system that had failed him.

Cam was barely a teenager when he was shot. His story was all too common for many children in New Mexico and similar to my own growing up. Because of his circumstances, he was identified as an “at-risk” student. Without a high quality education, year after year, it was all too easy for him to fall under the spell of negative influences. 

Hope Morales

When Cam was my student six years ago, he struggled with reading, but he had an aptitude for math. I was able to harness that talent by getting him to tutor other students. I know I had made a difference; during that year, he was engaged and on a path to be successful the following year. 

I saw the potential in Cam, and through me, he got a glimpse of his own potential. I did worry though: Would the next teacher realize his potential? Would they have the resources to support his needs? Would the system build upon his growth as a third-grader? These questions weren’t just for the next year; each academic year after that needed to be answered with a “yes”.  

As someone who works on changing education policy for the better, whenever I’ve given presentations on the impact of powerful teaching, I’ve used Cam’s story as an example. I’d show his picture and talk about that young boy in my class. I’d issue a call to action and ask other educators and leaders to help ensure that Cam and students like him across the state would graduate high school with opportunities beyond their circumstances.

I have to be honest. Along with the grief I’ve experienced since learning of his violent death, I have felt a great deal of anger. There are countless Cams in our communities. As educators, we cannot control or even influence every aspect of their lives. But we are life changers. 

It is not enough for us as educators to love our students. In addition to the love and dedication we have for them, we must ensure we are providing them with tools to be successful. The ability to read, problem solve, and create are some of skills that will give our students opportunities beyond their circumstances.

Students need access to effective teachers. Effective teachers need access to tools, resources and systems that are focused on students. Without meeting the needs of both our students and teachers, we risk failing our students.

It might seem ironic that it was Cam who inspired me to leave the classroom and start working in the policy realm. Now I am focused on developing systems and policies that will support students like Cam throughout their educational careers, so that every single year they have a highly effective teacher and resources to support their individual needs.

I had looked forward to the day when I told the world about how Cam overcame the circumstances in his life and graduated high school. I wanted to share how he was going to be the first in his family to go to college. His story didn’t end that way. Cam remains my “why,” but instead of sharing the celebration of his story while advocating for a quality educational system, I share its tragedy.

Let’s make sure no other child’s story ends in tragedy. Let’s do everything in our power to produce great teachers, retain great teachers, and develop quality educational systems so that every Cam in a New Mexico classroom has access to opportunities beyond their circumstances.

Cam was barely a teenager when he

News

The New Mexico Public Education Department’s recent decision to eliminate most licensure exams for aspiring teachers beginning July 1 is “deeply concerning” and flies in the face of best practice, says a leading national expert on teacher preparation.

“Removing the licensure tests that ensure that aspiring teachers have the core content knowledge they need to teach could be quite harmful to the state’s goals for kids, particularly around improving student literacy and mathematics,” Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), said in an interview with New Mexico Education.

“In both literacy and mathematics we know content knowledge is an integral part of supporting students’ mathematical knowledge and understanding and reading comprehension,” Peske said. “The state’s goal of trying to support student learning is not aligned with the policy decision to remove licensure tests for aspiring teachers.”

NCTQ, founded in 2000, bills itself as the only nonprofit, nonpartisan organization solely dedicated to issues of teacher quality. 

The exams being eliminated are national standardized tests known as Praxis.

The only test that will still be mandatory for all teaching candidates is one that assesses ability to teach reading to elementary school students, which is enshrined as a requirement in state statute. 

No longer required will be tests that assess candidates’ core academic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics, or tests on principles of elementary learning and teaching, and an elementary education curriculum instruction test.

PED officials have offered two main reasons for doing away with the exams. First, they have said in both written documents and in an April 29 appearance before the Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC), the tests can be prohibitively expensive – up to $700 for a battery of six required tests. That’s problematic in a state like New Mexico trying to diversify its teaching force.

Second, officials have argued, switching to a portfolio model of teacher licensure, where teachers prepare lessons and submit materials for review as a way of demonstrating teaching ability and content knowledge, provides deeper and more accurate information about a candidate’s qualifications.

“We are happy to announce this change during Teacher Appreciation Week because New Mexico and the rest of the country have a chronic teacher shortage,” Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus said in a press release. “It’s not unreasonable to think these expenses could deter a new college graduate from pursuing a career in education when our goal is to do the opposite, to encourage more students to consider this pathway. Portfolios provide a deeper demonstration of a graduate’s teaching ability than a test, so this move lets us help our teachers while ensuring or even improving the rigor of the process.” 

Those arguments seemed to persuade most members of the LESC, though a few pointed out that the state, awash in Covid relief dollars for education, could easily subsidize the exam fees. The PED received at least $97 million in the latest round of federal relief dollars. 

Peske made that same argument, adding that the cost to the state of developing and implementing a comprehensive portfolio review system would likely far outstrip the cost to state coffers of paying for licensure exams.

On the more substantive issue of the validity of portfolios versus exams, Peske took issue with the state position. While a robust, carefully vetted portfolio review could complement exams, it is hard to see how such a system on its own could provide information needed to assess teacher candidates thoroughly, she said.

But perhaps more important, Peske argued, PED has to date released little information on how the portfolio system will be developed, who will evaluate it, and how it will be overseen. To create and monitor such a system effectively would be extremely expensive, she said.

Portfolios as a way of assessing teacher candidates aren’t “inherently bad,” Peske said. But the lack of specifics about a program being launched July 1 is cause for concern. 

“It doesn’t sound like these portfolios would encompass the breadth of content knowledge that licensure tests assess,” she said. “Given the fact that New Mexico has not yet developed the process or the standards for how they would validate these portfolios, it is difficult to know exactly how rigorous they would be.”

Switching away from exams and to a portfolio system would make New Mexico a national outlier. Only Wisconsin has done away with most teacher basic skills exams in favor of portfolios, Peske said.

Under the PED’s plan, the state’s teacher preparation programs would conduct the portfolio reviews and then certify that aspiring teachers were classroom-ready. This raises a concern about objectivity, Peske said, as well as uniformity of standards across preparation programs.

“It’s not clear to me what process would be in place to validate the portfolios to determine whether they’re predictive of teacher effectiveness,” Peske said.

The PED did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In its press release, PED said it would “work with the educator preparation programs to develop a standard rubric the programs will use to evaluate portfolios for licensure purposes.”

Another concern some members of the study committee expressed about the Praxis exams is their inherent cultural bias, which could disadvantage the very teacher candidates New Mexico hopes to attract, so its teaching force more closely resembles its student population.

Peske, who served in a senior role in the Massachusetts state education department, said those concerns are valid but work-arounds are possible. In Massachusetts, she said, the state created a racially diverse committee of teachers, education program faculty, and content experts to study the tests.

“They reviewed the tests, asked questions about the extent to which they’re biased, and then made changes based on those recommendations,” she said.

The New Mexico Public Education Department’s recent

Quick Hits

Nine additional high-poverty Albuquerque Public Schools elementary schools will extend their school days by 90 minutes and add 10 days to their calendars next school year, the district announced this week.

Twenty APS elementary schools already operate on an extended calendar under the state-funded Extended Learning Time Program. The longer days will be paid for next year with federal American Rescue Plan funds.

Adding nine schools to the program means that one-third of the district’s 88 elementary schools will be running on a 188-day calendar, exceeding the national norm of a 180-day school year.

According to the district, 20 elementary schools will have longer days and years in 2022-23. Another 11 will continue operating on the longer calendar, but not add time to the school day.

Last month, the APS Board of Education declined to make extended days and years mandatory, as district administration requested, but allowed schools to opt into the programs.

National studies have shown that the students most negatively affected by pandemic-related learning loss come from low-income families. In many cases, their parents had to continue leaving their homes to work, often leaving students learning remotely largely unsupervised.

The elementary schools adding days and hours next year are: 

  • Alamosa – 99%+ free and reduced lunch (FRL)
  • East San Jose – 99%+ FRL
  • Inez – 99%+ FRL
  • Lew Wallace – 98% FRL
  • Longfellow – 98% FRL
  • Los Ranchos – 98% FRL
  • Mary Ann Binford – 99%+ FRL
  • Matheson Park – 98% FRL
  • Reginald Chavez – 98% FRL

Nine additional high-poverty Albuquerque Public Schools elementary

Commentary

Bob Barker was a staple of my childhood summers, so was the cast of The Days of Our Lives.

Like many New Mexico students, I grew up with working parents. Inevitably, when school ended and summer began, like most New Mexico families, we struggled to balance the logistics of summer vacation. My older brother was the primary caretaker for my sister and I during the summers and then I stepped in when I was old enough. 

My siblings and I spent our days of summer vacation at home, sleeping in and watching hours of our favorite TV shows, starting with The Price is Right at 11am and ending with a sitcom marathon on ABC Family which we turned off at 4. This left us just enough time to race around the house and complete our chores before our mom got home from work. 

There has been a lot of conversation around summer learning and longer school years over the last month as districts have weighed participation in the Extended Learning Time and K-5 Plus programs funded by the legislature. A few aspects of this conversation have bothered me. 

First, a prevailing criticism of extending the academic year by ten days (less for some districts, more for others) is that districts would be depriving students of a break, family vacations and opportunities for summer learning programs like those offered at community organizations or private schools. 

My question is, for how many of our students are these opportunities an actual reality? It seems as though we collectively think most of our students are participating in these programs which are often cost prohibitive and logistically challenging for most New Mexico students and their families. 

As a reminder, 71% of students in New Mexico receive free and reduced price lunch. It’s wishful thinking to believe most of these students can afford to participate in summer learning programs that can cost between $150 and $300 per week.

Even if families can afford the programming, logistics remain a challenge. Parents need to arrange for transportation to and from the program. Oftentimes, the programs are not aligned to normal work schedules. Families may also have to find childcare for any younger children in the home or find appropriate programming for each child’s age and hope that they run on a similar schedule. 

Second, the debate around extended learning fails to adequately address three major facts: 

        1. Only 1 in 3 students in New Mexico can read at grade level (pre-pandemic)
        2. New Mexico students received less in person instruction over the last two academic years than their peers nationally
        3. According to the Legislative Finance Committee, the average school calendar in New Mexico is 165 days, significantly less than the 180 days provided in most states.

In a perfect world, our students would be exposed to excellent instruction during the school year, setting them on track to grade level mastery and they would have summers filled with travel, high-quality learning experiences and cultural enrichment activities. But, this is simply not the reality for most New Mexico students. Pretending that it is the reality, and using that assumption as the foundation of decisions about extended learning is a major disservice to our most underserved students. 

One aspect of this conversation has been more challenging for me to reconcile.  While some (mostly more affluent) parents objected to the proposal because it would potentially interrupt summer plans and after-school activities, others questioned the premise that more equals better.

In other words, if Albuquerque Public Schools has failed to educate large numbers of children in the usual 178 days, why would another 10 days of the same-old, same-old make a particle of difference?

This is a fair, if not heartbreaking, point for families, especially those in underperforming school districts to make. This broken trust between families and school districts creates real challenges and needs to be addressed immediately. 

But even if families don’t trust that school districts can use extended time effectively, I can’t imagine it’s less beneficial than a day of TV watching. The non-academic benefits of being in a safe place, with consistent access to food and interaction with peers alone outweigh the alternative. 

In other words: do we really think 10 more days of school is worse than 10 more days of binge-watching TV?

Over the past few months finding common ground and shared agreement on school calendar extensions felt impossible, but we know it isn’t. Las Cruces Public Schools recently adopted a new innovative, extended year calendar as did Los Lunas Public Schools. 

Like many complex issues, we may never find consensus on extended learning time. I do hope, though, that as we continue to engage in this important conversation, we ground it in facts and honesty about what New Mexico students need to get back on track. 

I also hope that we evaluate options that allow more choices for families. It’s fine if some families do not want their students to participate in extended learning, but their activism should not deprive families who do want extended learning opportunities from accessing it. 

Let’s hope that districts across the state revisit decisions about extended learning programs and look at some creative ways to create a win-win: Ensuring that the students who would most benefit from extra time in school get it.

In a perfect world, our students would

News

Albuquerque Public Schools is hampered by multiple operational challenges that play a role in the district’s persistent and worsening academic struggles.

That’s a key takeaway from a comprehensive, 34-page report on APS presented by the evaluation staff of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee to committee members Wednesday.

APS’ most recent struggles are occurring in the context of a pandemic, which has accelerated student achievement declines. But at the same time, the report points out, APS, like districts across New Mexico, are flush with one-time federal relief funding as well as new state spending.

“This is a time of really unprecedented resources,” LFC Program Evaluation Team member Catherine Dry told the committee. “The legislature’s response to the (Yazzie-Martinez) lawsuit has been to continue to pour resources into state public education. And as a result of COVID there are even more resources available. But at the same time, student enrollment is declining. (There is) more funding and fewer students.”

Individual APS schools where students are struggling could use federal relief funds to provide extra and longer school days to help counteract learning loss and close achievement gaps, the report suggests.

The report also points out that, despite a 17 percent drop in enrollment over the past decade, APS has reduced its workforce by just 3 percent, exacerbating inefficiencies in a district simultaneously struggling to educate its students effectively and equitably.

The report paints a relatively bleak picture of the state of APS, academically and operationally. Achievement gaps between the district’s 51,000 low-income and more affluent students are wider than in the state as a whole. In 2019, the last year state standardized tests were administered, there was a 32 percentage-point gap in reading proficiency between low-income and non-low-income APS students. Just 20 percent of low-income students scored proficient or better in reading.

More recent district testing suggests these gaps have grown wider since the pandemic disrupted in-person schooling with proficiency rate growth slowing for all students, but significantly more for low-income students.

While graduation rates improved from 72 to 80 percent between 2020 and 2021, “without assessment data for (those years) the proficiency of graduates is unknown,” the report says.

In other words, it is impossible to determine whether those additional graduates are college or career ready, or if they’ve simply been pushed through the system.

APS Superintendent Scott Elder acknowledged the report’s findings, but pointed out some silver linings to committee members, including the increased graduation rate and the finding that “elementary students do show a year’s worth of growth.” He also said that even amid a pandemic, more than 11,000 high school students took Advanced Placement classes.

Elder said the apparent over-staffing of the district is largely due to pandemic disruptions. APS had plans in place to “right-size” the district he said, but chose to hold back as students were returning after being out of school for more than a year.

“We chose not to do that at the time because of the incredible disruption that would cause both in our schools and our community and the possibility of putting hundreds of people out of work at a time when that would have been extremely negative for the local community,” Elder told the committee.

Elder acknowledged the district’s academic challenges. He said a key problem educators face is what he termed “first teach,” meaning that when teachers introduce new concepts to students, the material isn’t being absorbed. He said the district is “investing in professional development” to address this problem.

But the report cites professional development as one area the district needs to improve.

“Funds could be better deployed to improve teaching practice, including providing sustained training on using student data to adjust instruction and better serving children with disabilities,” the report says. “APS teachers and administrators cite lack of analysis of student data as the most common reason for not being able to improve outcomes, but the district names data-driven decision-making as a core component of its framework to support student learning.”

In fact, the report adds, APS budgeted $6.8 million in fiscal year 2021 for instructional professional development, but spent just one-third  – $2.1 million – of the budgeted amount.

State Senator Steven Neville, an Aztec Republican, pointed out that APS achievement gaps are larger than gaps in the rest of New Mexico. This is both because non-low-income APS students perform better than the state as a whole, and because low-income APS students perform worse. 

The APS reading proficiency gap is 32 percentage points, while for the rest of the state’s school district’s it’s 23 percent.

The LFC report highlighted several other challenges facing APS. Among them:

  • A lack of “effective practices” to help catch up students who have fallen behind academically. The report suggests that APS should more broadly expand the school year and lengthen the school day. But the APS board recently voted down a proposal to do just that.
  • APS consistently overestimates its spending in certain categories, and then claims budget deficits. “​The district has overestimated spending on general supplies and materials by an average of $30 million. This contributes to budgeted spending exceeding budgeted revenues and the appearance of a deficit each year,” the report says.
  • The district spends inefficiently, as evidenced by under-enrolled elementary school grades and classes. “Most elementary kindergarten classes, first- third grades, and fourth-sixth grades are enrolled below capacity (between 60 and 74 percent),” the report says. This leads to staffing surpluses.
  • APS has failed to complete a “budget and sustainability plan” that would prepare it for continued declining enrollment.

APS could take several steps to improve its outcomes and operations, the report concludes. It stresses the importance of having more schools participate in extended learning time programs, especially schools performing below the district average.

The district should also offer higher pay or bonuses to special education teachers or other “hard to staff positions in high needs schools,” the report says.

The report also urges APS to spend its budgeted professional development funds on training that is sustained, collaborative, and “uses data to guide instruction.”

Albuquerque Public Schools is hampered by multiple

News

Editor’s note: Crystal Tapia-Romero was elected last November to the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education. She is a lifelong area resident and a graduate of APS’s West Mesa High School, located in the district she now represents. Romero-Tapia is Executive Director of the New Mexico Early Learning Academy, as well as a prominent advocate for early child education on the state and national level. She also has three children who are in or who have been through APS.

New Mexico Education recently spoke with Tapia-Romero about her background, her views on public education, and her goals and ambitions for APS. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

New Mexico Education: Please tell us a bit about your background and how you became involved in early childhood education.

Crystal Tapia-Romero: My mom used to be a kindergarten teacher and then chose to expand into opening early child care programs in her home, and then through our church, and then went independently on her own. It was my mom’s blazing the trail before me that exposed me to early childhood education. 

But honestly, I had no desire to get into education back almost 25 years ago. I went in strictly to help my mom. I had come from the retail side of things and with my sales experience I knew I could add some insight helping get new families enrolled. My dad passed away and I stayed to help my family. I remember telling my mom like I’m not here to stay, I’m just here to help out. And I never left.

NME: What happened that caused you to stay?

Tapia-Romero: I just fell in love with the profession. Children are so much fun to be around and to this day, my favorite job I have ever been in was being a pre-K teacher for a year. And over the years I’ve been able to expand my knowledge and experience base and take it into advocacy. 

I realized there were a lot of people in Santa Fe and on the federal level who were making decisions for our business, our organization, our classrooms, but who had never set foot in a classroom. And I was like, oh gosh, this does not make sense. So little by little I started getting more involved, going up to Santa Fe, talking with some of our legislators, introducing them to what it is we do, inviting them to visit our location, to see first-hand what our teachers are doing.

NME: What made you decide to run for school board?

Tapia-Romero: I had actually thought about this for years, even before COVID. Once I got involved in advocacy work, I enjoyed being able to make positive changes on behalf of our industry. I remember talking to my mom several years ago and saying, “What if I run for school board?” State representative or senator didn’t interest me, because kids are my passion.

And having my own kids in the public school system, I always thought there was something we could do better. I’m one of those individuals who believes, and I know it sounds so clichéd, but if you’re going to talk about a problem, you need to be part of the solution. People always talk about how bad APS is or how New Mexico ranks so low in education, how we’re at the bottom. But no one wants to come with the approach of being solutions-oriented.

Once COVID hit I couldn’t just sit back and pretend that it was okay. It was literally right before our eyes. We were seeing our own child’s education decline. At that time our daughter was a senior, 18 years old, taking online classes. She would be in her room with a blanket over her head, camera off, and completely disengaged. My husband and I were saying to each other, ‘this isn’t working.’

At the same time, I would sit online and watch school board meetings. And I’d be thinking, oh my gosh, they’re just going round and round. I felt like they weren’t being productive. They weren’t making choices that were best for my students. I was looking at all of them and thinking, goodness, I don’t think any of them have a child in the public school system. I didn’t feel that the choices they were making were affecting them directly.

I sat down with my husband one day when he came home from work and I said I want to run for school board, but I can only do it if you’re in it with me l00%. I knew the commitment it would take to run for this office. And he didn’t hesitate one bit in supporting me and said you got this. Let’s do it.

NME: Now that you’ve been on the board for a few months, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the district? 

Tapia-Romero: One of the biggest eye-openers since being on the board has been in relation to the budget, and being privy to a ton of information that I didn’t have access to before. I used to look at this massive budget and think, ‘it’s a spending problem, not a money problem.’ Now I realize it is a whole lot more complicated than that.

Yes, there are some things that we need to buckle down on and make sure we don’t have loose spending. But when our budget is tied to our enrollment, and we have a mass exodus of students leaving our district, we’re having to make some significant adjustments.

Recently, our legislators and the governor signed off on giving our teachers a significant raise, which in my opinion, was long overdue. However, the amount of money that was budgeted for APS for these raises still left us with a $5 million deficit. It wasn’t enough. So where does that money come from?

I am still trying to understand how quickly we can make better use of our money. How can we make good use of the federal dollars versus state dollars, and understanding that certain money could only be spent in a certain places. It’s not just moving it from one category to the next. It’s not that easy.

NME: Other than the budget, what other challenges are you seeing?

Tapia-Romero: Enrollment is a huge challenge and ties back to the budget. Another is renewing trust in the district. I want us to be accountable, to maintain open communications at all times. That sounds great, but I want to make sure it is more than empty words, that we really put this into play. That part has been challenging, because there’s so many times the media doesn’t accurately represent what we’re doing.

NME: Can you say a bit more about that?

Tapia-Romero: The most recent thing we dealt with was the Extended Learning Time. [Editor’s note: A split APS board recently voted down a mandatory 10-day extension of the school year and a longer school day, allowing schools instead to opt into the fully funded program if they so choose].  

The media was reporting that the district was going to have our students in school starting as early as July after ending in June, so they would only have a few weeks off for summer break. That was a complete lie. I don’t know how else to say it. It was a straight-up lie.

And what happens is when the media gets to everybody before we’re able to actually get the whole story out, then everyone has already drawn their own conclusions. So then we get all these parents telling us ‘our students need a break, you’re taking their summer away, we won’t have time for vacation,’ or ‘our kids need to work during the summer.’ But that wasn’t what we were doing, by any means.

If someone really looked at the calendar that we were proposing, it was going to add a couple of days before the traditional school year started and a couple of days after. The majority of other days were going to be absorbed in the middle of the school year. I wish that we would have been able to get ahead of what the media was reporting, to really give an accurate picture of one of the ideas we had to pull APS out from the bottom. Was this going to be an ultimate solution to our education crisis? No. But it was a step in the right direction, and a big missed opportunity.

NME: Do you believe this opportunity is now lost permanently?

Tapia-Romero: We were able to pass a vote that would allow each individual school to choose to have Extended Learning Time. So it’s not completely dead. Some schools and districts will take advantage of it. I know my district desperately needs it.

NME: What gives you hope for the future of APS?

Tapia-Romero: Our district is completely overloaded with the amount of work that needs to be done and the outcomes that they’re trying to produce. Ultimately, they were just kind of just running by the seat of their pants and whatever happened happened and no one was really intentional about the goals of the district. This new board decided on developing a whole new strategic plan for the board and district. Something that’s really going to make us all accountable, and be relevant to where the district is today. Some of us came together and said, we can’t keep operating like this. We need to learn from other districts that are doing well, that come from similar demographics and challenges. I feel like we’re on the right path to do that.

We need to bring in some outside people who can really help streamline this and make us pull our head out of the weeds. I believe the people who can come up with new ideas and visions aren’t the people within the district. They have enough on their plate right now. And there’s no way we can ask them to do more. It’s really hard to be innovative when you’re the person who’s been stuck in it day in and day out.

NME: Can you talk about the significance of the recent election and the change in the board’s composition?

Tapia-Romero: What is different about the three of us, Courtney (Jackson), Danielle (Gonzales) and myself is that we’re moms who have children within the district. We’re also graduates of our own districts: we went to school in the districts we represent. So this is very personal to us.

Speaking for myself, and I think it’s true of the other two ladies as well, we’re going to shoot you straight. We’re not here for all this fluff and fancy filler words. We are going to ask the hard questions, and we’re ready to work. And obviously we’re not there for the glory, because you don’t get paid to serve on these boards.

We’re determined to make changes and to make sure we’re doing what’s best for our kids. That’s why we’re here. 

"Enrollment is a huge challenge and ties

News

Albuquerque school board members pointedly questioned district staff Wednesday night about how $230 million in federal Covid relief funds are being spent, after reading two critical internal memos that have been posted on the district website for several weeks. (You can read the memos here and here.)

Significant portions of the federal funds granted to Albuquerque Public Schools are being spent in an uncoordinated fashion apparently not tied to the district’s strategic plan or even guaranteed to reach the students who need it most, the memos say.

They were written by the district’s Progress Monitoring Committee, a team of senior district officials and outside consultants assembled to oversee American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) spending.

APS Superintendent Scott Elder seemed displeased that school board members had seen the memos. “These are internal documents. I’m a little surprised that these are the ones we pulled out for you because there are others,” Elder said during Wednesday’s meeting.

But board member Crystal Tapia-Romero said information contained in the memos is exactly what she and her colleagues should be seeing. “Honestly, I’m grateful these are the memos that were pulled out,” she said, adding that the findings in the memos were “extremely concerning to me.”

She said the memos painted a much less rosy picture of the district’s federal relief spending than a presentation board members heard from senior district officials during Wednesday’s meeting.

Tapia-Romero’s thoughts were echoed by board member Courtney Jackson, who praised committee members for their forthrightness. “I’m thrilled that these progress monitoring committee meeting notes were included…because while it was disappointing to read through this and to see that there was a lack of confidence, I’m also grateful to the PMC for telling us the truth and for being willing to say we might need to pause on this.”

The memos say there is little evidence that the money is creating or enhancing programs reaching the district’s most challenged students.

“Most of the funding is district-led and expended and, if distributed to the schools, it is through a process that is inconsistent or not determined to ensure that students identified in law or students defined as “Yazzie-Martinez,” or even at high poverty schools, receive the funds, or funded services, with intention,” says a memo dated Feb. 2, 2022.

In somewhat oblique, polite language, the memo suggests that the district put the cart before the horse, approving funding for projects that had not been fully vetted or fleshed out. “In the spirit of transparency and efficiency, our committee learned that some of these activities have already started, some of the positions have been funded with other dollars with plans to shift to federal funding,” the memo says. 

“The PMC was given the charge to “greenlight” all projects before funding flowed,” according to the memo.

In its March 1 memo, the committee’s tone grows markedly more critical.

“…funding for these projects lacks strategic coherence and though they all fund “good” ideas and programs, there are very few that fund programs that “work,” in that none can guarantee any improved outcomes for students or educators,” the memo says.

It continues: “The American Rescue Plan is more than an opportunity to respond to crises and fill budgetary gaps or address short term crises. The $230 million to APS from the ARP should be focused on how we are putting money to use to create something better for educational policy or work to directly impact student outcomes.”

The March memo also flags what it terms a “troubling trend” of funded projects being disconnected from senior district officials, and that “most of the funding is directed towards good and passionate ideas that are either optional or not intentionally targeted to those students or schools that most need the resources and services.”

The U.S. Department of Education requires school districts to engage a broad spectrum of communities and stakeholders as it decides how to use federal rescue plan funds. It also requires “Grantees (to) submit an annual report describing how the State and sub-recipients used the awarded funds during the performance period.”

APS has exceeded those requirements by creating the monitoring committee and posting its memos, questioning the district’s expenditures to date, on its website.

The committee was formed to “monitor transparency, efficiency and the use of data-based decision making throughout the duration of this funding,” which is to be spent by September 2024, according to the APS website. 

It consists of eight senior administration officials and two external members, including Chief Operations Officer Gabriella Blakey, Director of Charter Schools Joseph Escobedo, Associate Superintendent Antonio Gonzales, Jason Espinoza and Art Melendres.

Despite the list of heavy-hitters, the committee says in its memos that some people responsible for programs funded or enhanced by the relief dollars have not responded to requests for interviews on how the money is being spent.

The district identified 43 projects for rescue plan funding. In its February memo, the committee reported it had interviewed leaders of 23 of those projects, and that 11 interview slots had been offered but were “unclaimed.”

In its March 1 memo, the committee reported that it had “offered two days in February with the goal of finishing the first stage of project start-up interviews. There are eight projects that either did not sign up for an interview time or we have not dedicated separate time to understanding the scope of the work provided with the funding.”

APS placed rescue plan finding priorities under five categories: unfinished learning initiatives, social emotional and mental health services, technology initiatives, facility projects, and safe operations of schools with COVID precautions. Money was also set aside for “future planning.”

The biggest-ticket items selected for rescue plan funding include:

  • Support for extended time, principal coaching and principal mentorship at 34 schools: $28 million (unfinished learning)
  • Health and safety facilities upgrades: $28 million
  • Professional development for educators: culturally and linguistically responsive instructional materials: $16.5 million (unfinished learning)
  • Eight-hour (extended) professional workday pilot; $12 million (future planning)
  • Expansion of elementary “summer learning adventures:” $11.4 million (unfinished learning)
  • Chromebooks and “other devices”: $9 million (technology initiatives)

At Wednesday’s meeting, board member Danielle Gonzales asked whether the district has data showing how many of the district’s youngest students are lagging far behind in reading, so that funding can be targeted to those students. 

Chris West, APS’ executive director of strategic analysis and program research, said that assessments given last December show that 41 percent of students in kindergarten, first and second grade “fall into that critical care category,” meaning they are at least a year below grade level.

“So target this money there,” board member Peggy Muller-Aragón said. “I want to know how hard that is going to be for you to do.”

Elder replied that “we know who the kids are,” but added that the assessments West referred to “aren’t always used consistently across the district.”

Muller-Aragón said she wasn’t satisfied with the district’s response. “I don’t know that you have sold me on how this money is being spent to benefit our kids,” she said. “It’s time to align and refine these priorities.”

Albuquerque school board members pointedly questioned district

News

 

A new law that substantially increases the pay of individuals who specialize in teaching Native American public school students their tribal and pueblo languages and dialects does a great deal more than just give big raises.

The new law, House Bill 60, helps ensure that these languages, many of which are passed down orally and have no written form, do not die out.

State Rep. Derrick J. Lente, the Sandia Pueblo Democrat who sponsored House Bill 60, said while in some cases these languages are taught at home, reinforcing them in school helps keep them alive, and that is important to the culture overall.

“Language, as Native Americans, is at the core of our culture,” Lente said. “It’s that mother tongue that our forefathers and our ancestors gifted us with, and that’s what will ensure survival as Native Americans. To have this now validated as an essential part of the public school framework, with our native tongue teachers being compensated as fairly as any other second language teacher, is a huge step towards educational equity.”

Until HB 60 passed and was signed into law, people who held Native American Language and Culture Certificates were paid as instructional aides, most of them earning between $12,000 and $15,000 per year for full-time work. Now, they will be paid as Level 1 teachers, which, under another bill passed this year, means at least $50,000 per year.

Lente credits Bernalillo Public Schools Superintendent Matt Montano with pioneering the equitable pay for Native American language teachers, as well as advocating effectively for the bill.

Montano, who became superintendent last August, moved immediately to hike the pay of those instructors to Level 1, which at the time was $43,000. Almost half of the district’s 3,100 students are indigenous.

“When I came back as the superintendent, I made this a priority of mine,” Montano said. “We promote these programs from an equity lens, but we weren’t actually effectively supporting the teachers the same way that we were promoting the program.”

Montano, a former principal in the district, occupied a senior position in the Public Education Department during the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez. From both perspectives, he saw a need for the state and school districts to pay more than lip service to honoring native cultures.

“It’s a values statement,” he said. “We’re saying that we value your language, but we’re not actually valuing your language because part of the equity lens comes in your budget. And so I think that was a huge statement for us to reinforce with tangible action.”

Lente, who has served in the state House of Representatives since 2017, said he has been working on educational equity issues for New Mexico Native Americans since the Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico federal court case was decided in 2018. That ruling mandated sufficient funding to ensure an equitable education for all of the state’s public education students.

“That ruling presented perfect timing and a perfect place where I was at in the legislature to  begin to push educational equity bills,” he said.

Lente said he and other education advocates held convenings of the Apache and Navajo nations as well as the state’s pueblos to begin discussing the most effective strategies for promoting true educational equity in the state. What resulted was the Tribal Remedy Framework, endorsed by the 23 pueblos, nations and tribes indigenous to New Mexico. 

One logical and important piece of the framework was making Native American language instruction for Native American students a permanent and stable fixture of public education in the state.

HB 60 will also help increase the number of Native American language teachers, Lente said. Many of the current and prospective teachers are tribal elders, he said. “No college or university teaches these oral languages and so these elders are in their own rights doctors of our indigenous tongue.”

To become a teacher of Native American languages, an individual must be verified by a tribe, nation, or pueblo as what Lente termed “linguistically blessed” and able to impart that knowledge to young students.

“Let’s say Joe is a janitor at Bernalillo High School, and he is also a tribal elder who knows his native tongue,” Lente said. “There are a number of great supportive organizations that can help Joe to develop curriculum and skills to be an effective classroom teacher.”

Montano said he is encouraged that Native American high school students in particular have shown eagerness to learn their languages, and the high school programs are growing. He said when he returned to the district after more than a decade away, he noticed a palpable sense of energy and pride in the native language classrooms.

“What I’m finding is this sense of belonging that maybe hasn’t been there before,” Montano said.  He said the higher salaries have helped promote “a bigger sense of belonging for the professional teachers in the classroom, and that transfers onto students. Students take pride in knowing their language and being able to exhibit it in a place other than their pueblo.”

 

A new law that substantially increases the

Quick Hits

A sampling of public school students across New Mexico recently concluded taking national standardized tests that will give the public its first look at how the state’s students perform in core subjects compared to their peers across the country after two years of pandemic-disrupted learning.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card, is normally given to a small subset of students – about 600,000 in total – in all 50 states every two years. Because of Covid-19, however, NAEP was last administered in 2019.

Students in grades 4 and 8 were tested in mathematics and reading, and those results will be released “on a rolling basis” over the next year at the district, state, and national level of detail. Eighth-graders also took tests in civics and U.S. history, but those results are only tabulated nationally, not state-by-state.

NAEP is considered the gold standard in standardized assessments because of its methodological rigor and its consistency. The test has been administered to U.S students biennially since 1969 and is the only assessment given to students in every state, allowing for state by state comparisons in education outcomes.

NAEP is the main measure by which states are ranked in terms of public school performance.

“NAEP is the only assessment with results broken down by gender, race and socioeconomic status that can be compared across all 50 states. As such, it is a major gauge of achievement gaps that are likely to have grown larger since COVID’s arrival,” explains an article in the74, a national education news service.

New Mexico’s 2019, pre-pandemic NAEP results showed the state’s students at or near the bottom nationally in both math and reading. In fourth grade, just 28 percent of students tested scored at proficient or advanced levels in mathematics, and 24 percent at proficient or advanced in reading. Among eighth graders, 21 percent scored proficient or advanced in mathematics, and 24 percent were proficient in reading.

New Mexico’s 2019, pre-pandemic NAEP results showed