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Sunday, June 28, 2009

School Woes Need Urgent Approach

By Terri L. Cole And Del Archuleta
Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce
          The Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce has been very involved with education reform for 10 years. We began our effort in 1999 after our members indentified education as the number one business concern. While some progress has been made, the reality is that after 10 years, New Mexico remains 48th in the nation for graduation rates and, likewise, there has been little improvement in closing the achievement gap. Education reform has been the focus of three legislative sessions that we are aware of. This issue has been discussed and debated ad nauseum.
        We were stunned, therefore, by comments made in a recent Albuquerque Journal article entitled "Poorest APS Schools Get Lowest Paid Teachers." In response to a question regarding a Legislative Finance Committee report that compared student outcomes to teacher salary increases and the number of qualified teachers at high risk schools, the director of APS Research, Development and Accountability said she hadn't looked at how teacher experience relates to student performance at APS. She then added that lower performing schools are the hardest to staff, but getting more qualified teachers in the lower performing schools might change in five to 10 years as more teachers retire! There it was in a nutshell. No sense of urgency, no focus on the problem of lowering the high dropout rates.
        The reality is that the most important factor in achieving student success is a quality teacher in the classroom. We hear about class size, school size, parental involvement, leadership — and yes, they matter — but in the end it comes down to the teacher. We all know this intuitively and carry the memory of those teachers that truly made a difference in our lives.
        The article further discussed an APS pilot program attempting to attract highly experienced teachers to low performing schools. If it works, the district may try to expand the incentives to other schools. This is such a small step toward trying to solve such a big 10-year-old problem. What struck us most about these comments was this: Where is the impatience with this problem of a high dropout rate and the need to close the achievement gap? Where is the sense of urgency? Where is the focus on it and the plan to fix it?
        Our legislators made a $278 million commitment to improve education for our children believing as we did that there is a correlation between higher pay, more qualified teachers and better outcomes. We don't blame them for being disappointed. We're very disappointed ourselves, but not because it isn't true that quality teachers influence student outcomes. Rather, we are disappointed because no one got those quality teachers into the classrooms where they were most needed.
        In our view, there is no problem more important to fix in the State of New Mexico than our high dropout rate and the widening achievement gap. Our children simply don't have another 10 years to sacrifice while we "try" to solve this problem.
        Terri L. Cole is president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and Del Archuleta is the chairman of the chamber's Education Reform Task Force.
       

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