Albuquerque students make gains in reading, math, backslide in science

Both the state and its largest school district celebrated improvements in students’ reading scores, with lesser progress seen in math scores.

“We’re not surprised by the results; we’re very proud of our staff and our students for the results, but we’re not surprised,” Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Gabriella Blakey said Tuesday.

According to the district, reading and writing proficiency jumped 4.8 percentage points, and math by 2.3. The increases bring APS students’ proficiency in English to 43.5% and 26.5% in math.

The rates were based on the New Mexico Measures of Student Success and Achievement, a test administered to 30,000 APS students this past spring.

While the district saw gains in math and reading, its students’ proficiency in science slipped.

“APS students in grades 5, 8 and 11 took the New Mexico Assessment of Science Readiness last spring, and of those, 34.8% tested proficient, a 3 percentage point decrease from the prior school year,” APS spokesperson Martin Salazar said.

The trends APS saw were in line with those across New Mexico, and Blakey believes that’s mainly because the district accounts for over 20% of the state’s public school students.

“We have taken really seriously that APS is a big weight of the state, and so if we don’t rise, then the state won’t,” Blakey said. “APS has a big part in being able to celebrate because we do know that we carry the majority of the students, and if we thrive, then the state of New Mexico does, too.”

For the state, third through eighth graders read at a 44% proficiency rate — an increase of 10 percentage points.

“These results confirm that the state’s investments in early literacy and the science of reading are working,” Public Education Department Secretary Mariana Padilla said in a statement Tuesday.

However, like APS, the PED saw little growth in math, with less than a 1 percentage point change since 2022. The states’ proficiency rates in math for students in grades three through eight were roughly 27% and 12% for juniors in high school.

According to PED data, fifth graders, eighth graders and juniors had a proficiency rate of 35% in science — a 3 percentage point decline from the previous year.

“Our literacy investments are producing results, but sustained focus and funding are needed in math and science to ensure all students graduate ready for college and career,” Padilla wrote.

Just like APS’ superintendent, Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, was not surprised by the improvements in proficiency. But for different reasons.

“I’m not surprised that they resulted in higher test scores, that’s a good thing, but they’re also designed to get higher test scores because they focus so narrowly on what is tested,” she said. “What I hear from, especially, but not only, elementary school teachers about the amount of work that they are shouldering, the number of mandates that keep landing on their shoulders, and how exhausted they are from the workload.”

She added that she doesn’t want to downplay the results released Tuesday, “while we’re celebrating as a state and a district,” she doesn’t believe the testing tells the entire story about what’s happening in the classrooms.

“The analogy I always use is what a student knows and is able to do is like a jigsaw puzzle, and it has 1,000 pieces, and the standardized testing certainly is some of those pieces,” Bernstein said. “But it’s not the whole picture of what a kid knows and is able to do, that’s far more complex.”