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In defense of teachers and students all over the state, I have to respectfully disagree with the Albuquerque Journal editorial board’s support of the A-F school grading system published in an editorial on Sunday.
If the Public Education Department wants to grade our public schools, it should do so based on in-person evaluations and observations, not standardized test scores.
The A-to-F grading is a punitive system that insults the dedication of our educators and our learners. Instead of rewarding growth and flunking the status quo as the editorial stated, this system perpetuates it. Each school is full of children who learn in their own individual ways, at their own pace. No statistical model can account for those differences.
High-stakes tests don’t prove anything except that a student sat in a chair long enough to fill in the bubbles. And, if they measure any kind of achievement, they measure a student’s ability to memorize facts. That’s not meaningful learning because as soon as the test is over, they’ll forget the information.
Standardized tests can’t capture a child’s love of learning, their trust in their teacher, their confidence in themselves, or their creativity — all of which are necessary for learning to occur.
Our state’s Public Education Department is headed up by the unconfirmed Public Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera, who has never been a classroom teacher or an administrator in a public school.
So it makes sense that the school grading system serves only to perpetuate the one-size-fits-all policies of No Child Left Behind, also designed by noneducators. As such, this system is not a meaningful and effective accountability measure for comparing schools in New Mexico.
If the PED wants to meaningfully grade what’s going on in our schools, they have to observe them during the school day, multiple times throughout the year. Yes, it would cost a lot of money and yes, it would take a lot of time and a lot of people, but so does standardized testing. Our state’s children are worth the effort.
The Martinez administration says A to F grades are easy for everyone to understand. This is especially true for our children. Ask yourself, if your only option was a C, D or F school, would you want your kids to go there? Or, imagine you’re a child attending a school with the stigma of a low grade piled onto the elevated stress levels he/she already experiences from learning in their second language or growing up in poverty? Schools receiving Ds and Fs disproportionately serve minority students coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom are also English language learners.
I would like to add that the elementary school I attended received a C. I can say in total confidence that that is a gross misrepresentation of a wonderful learning community. What grade did your neighborhood school or the school your children attended receive?
Do the educators you entrust your child’s education to a favor — take the time to volunteer in a classroom or two and decide how to grade them yourself. Most teachers would be more than happy to have an extra volunteer in their classrooms — all you have to do is ask.
