OPINION: APS focused on student outcomes and improvement

Editor’s note: Last Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal Community Council wrote an open letter to Albuquerque Public Schools officials, asking questions of the superintendent, board members, union officials and others. Over the course of the last week, we’ve received numerous responses from many of them, as well as community members. We’re running several of those responses this week, and will publish additional responses in future opinion pages. If we receive more responses later from additional Board of Education members, we will publish those as well.

There’s an old adage that one should never quarrel with people who buy ink by the barrel. Last Sunday’s editorial page – and the attack on Albuquerque Public Schools on multiple fronts – offered a glimpse into why that saying has persisted for more than 60 years.

Nevertheless, I will never pass on the opportunity to stand up for our amazing students, for the hardworking Albuquerque Public Schools employees who dedicate themselves each and every day to preparing our kids for the world, and for our board members who have been unequivocal in their demand that we improve outcomes for all our students.

The Journal’s so-called Open Letter of May 4 not only deserves an argument, it demands further scrutiny.

First, I want to be clear that none of us at APS are happy with our low proficiency rates in reading or math. We can and must do better, and that’s something I’ve said repeatedly since taking over as APS superintendent a little more than nine months ago on July 1. What’s more, it’s something our board has been saying for the last three years, and it’s why the board switched to a Student Outcomes Focused Governance model that prioritizes improving student outcomes above all else.

It’s also why the board adopted four overarching five-year goals that include improvements in third-grade reading and eighth-grade math proficiency rates. And it’s why it tied my evaluations and my contract to specific, measurable improvements in student outcomes.

Ironically, just eight months ago, the Journal Editorial Board was praising us for all we were doing at APS, calling me and Board President Danielle Gonzales “reform-minded and committed to academic improvement, accountability and transparency.”

“... Blakey boldly called to confront problems like chronic absenteeism and ‘embrace a culture of accountability,’ even if doing so ‘might ruffle feathers,’” the Journal Editorial Board wrote on Sept. 15. “We give the new APS leadership team credit for transparency and accountability, with a mix of creativity.”

Sadly, we’re not surprised by the turnabout.

Of late, the Journal’s APS coverage has skewed to the sensational “grab eyeballs at all costs” variety, choosing to splash across the top of the front page a story about APS board members giving themselves an “F” on a quarterly self-evaluation. By contrast, the Journal chose to bury a story about our graduation rates improving by 4.3 percentage points at the bottom of its metro section a full eight days after the state released those graduation rates and praised the APS growth in its news release.

If our graduation rate had dipped by 4.3 percentage points, I wonder how the story would have played.

We’re grateful the story ran in the paper at all. Most of our good news never makes it in.

We’ve launched a pre-apprenticeship program at West Mesa High School to address a critical skills gap in the construction industry while simultaneously preparing students for good-paying jobs. The program is a partnership between APS, Bernalillo County, the Local 412 plumbers and pipefitters union and its Outreach and Education Foundation. We invited Journal reporters to cover the innovative program and were met with silence from the Journal’s education reporter and “let’s revisit this in August” from the newspaper’s business desk.

As for the State Accountability Report Card that last week’s opinion pieces were based on, the data in it is a year old, and the Journal’s editorial page editor was informed the attendance data in the report is wrong. It’s also worth noting that we were required to publish that report in the Journal at a cost of more than $11,000 when more comprehensive — and accurate — data is available on the APS.edu website in the About APS section.

And, yes, our budget has grown considerably since 2016. The vast majority of our operational budget goes to pay our employees, and I, for one, am grateful to our state lawmakers and governor for recognizing that teachers, educational assistants and all other education employees deserve a decent salary. The pay increases have helped us become more competitive in the region and to keep quality teachers.

I fully understand when the Journal or any member of the public questions the results they are getting from public education. We welcome legitimate concerns about what we’re doing, and as is the case in our goals, that input helps inform our actions. But it’s important to note that our movement forward is paying dividends. We are, after all, transparent, accountable and creative.

The Journal itself said so.

Here’s the bottom line. I will continue working with APS staff, our Board of Education, families and, yes, our unions to improve opportunities for our incredible students because I know building up my community is way more productive than tearing it down.