Students seek change in New Mexico schools

There’s a steady routine to schools: Cafeterias buzzing with chatter, the shuffle of feet in hallways, chalk on the chalkboard and the occasional bell.

Under this routine, though, some students are looking for changes in their learning experiences.

As reported in a five-part series in the Journal’s Business Outlook, experts believe that one of the factors holding back New Mexico’s economy is poorly ranked K-12 education. As part of the final part in the series, the Journal talked to high school students and recent graduates about what changes they would like to see.

Andrew Shaw, an incoming junior at Eldorado High School, said he appreciates his education in New Mexico. “I’ve had some amazing teachers and learned a lot,” he said.

His concern is a lack of individualized learning.

“A lot of classes don’t cater to everyone in the class and just to people in the middle,” he said, “not people who are struggling.”

Shaw believes that smaller class sizes could provide the personalized attention many students need, though he acknowledges the difficulty of implementing this with a teacher shortage.

Raven Thomas, a junior at Highland High School, shares Andrew’s concerns.

Growing up with parents who are science teachers, Thomas said she has a natural inclination for hands-on learning. She said that for her, there’s a lack of engaging, practical activities in the curriculum. “I would love to see a lot more labs and hands-on demonstrations,” she said.

Shaw said this is a systemic issue, not a failure of individual teachers.

“The curriculum is rarely engaging, but that isn’t a problem that the teachers have created — it’s a problem everyone in the school system has created with their attitude towards education,” he said.

Reese Kerschen, a recent graduate from La Cueva High School, agrees.

“I think the biggest issue that New Mexico faces is that so many of our young students are unmotivated to go to school,” Kerschen said. “We need to find a way to motivate our students to understand the importance of school, realize that they want to go to school for their own reasons.”

Shaw shares that concern, saying, “For higher education, New Mexico has many opportunities in many subjects, especially at UNM and NMSU. However, the graduation rate is really low and so is motivation.”

As of 2023, the University of New Mexico saw a six-year graduation rate of 50.1%. As of 2021, New Mexico State University has a six-year rate of 50.4%.

Kerschen says one way to help this problem is to have more people starting their education before kindergarten.

“I know that statistically, students who go to preschools end up doing much better in school as a whole because there’s no part in their education where they feel like they are needing to play ‘pick me up,’” she said.

The state has been working to expand publicly funded preschool, even approving a measure in 2022 to make preschool a universal right.

Since then, a report for the 2022-2023 school year found that 45% of the state’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in a preschool program. However, just 11% of 3-year-olds were enrolled.

Arsenio Romero, New Mexico’s Secretary of Education, said more preschool education, even before age 4, would have a positive impact.

“If we can provide those experiences as young as 2 and 3 years old, just to be able to make them ready for kindergarten, it’s going to have a huge positive effect on literacy scores in New Mexico,” he said.

The most recent data from the New Mexico Public Education Department reports a 34% English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency rate among students in the state.

Kerschen, who started at La Cueva during the COVID-19 pandemic, said another concern of hers is lasting impacts from the school shutdowns.

“As a student who was entering high school during that era, I 100% say that it was not the best decision,” she said. “I think it’s caused such a discontinuity that it’s really inexcusable. They harmed a whole generation so much that we’ll be seeing those effects for years to come.”

Schools were closed from March 2020 to January 2021, when schools were gradually allowed to return to in-person learning.

Romero acknowledges the difficulties posed by the pandemic.

“We’ve had to adjust how we teach and find new ways to engage students,” he said. “The pandemic highlighted the importance of flexibility and the need for robust support systems for both students and teachers.”

Kerschen believes that keeping students in classrooms, even during a pandemic, is crucial.

“Having students actually sit in classrooms and get that one-on-one teaching and getting that in-person teaching, I think it just shows how valuable it actually is,” she said. “We can see it in the test scores; students were doing much better before the pandemic in school just as a whole.”

The College Board reported that New Mexico high school graduates saw a 20-point fall in average SAT scores for the state, from 996 for 2021 graduates to 976 for 2022 graduates.

Despite the challenges they faced, one sentiment that students seem to share is their appreciation for the state’s teachers.

“I think most of the teachers here are really enthusiastic about their jobs,” Kerschen said. “They are genuinely trying to help their students.”

“I always had a lot of support from my teachers. And I think that really helped a lot,” said Thomas.

Bringing in more teachers is one area where the state is making progress, says Romero, with programs like paid student teaching and teacher residency programs.

“We have other states looking at some of the supports we have with teacher preparation programs and wanting to replicate that in other states,” he said.

Shaw says that by addressing these concerns, and continuing to work on things like hiring more teachers, the state will prepare its students for better futures.

“I see students every day that are super-smart people but just don’t feel helped or motivated to learn in our school system,” he said. “By fixing our education system, I think the other problems would begin to fix as well — kind of like a domino effect.”