OPINION: Graduating students who don’t deserve to graduate isn’t the solution and ought to be a scandal.

Earlier this month, the Casey Foundation ranked New Mexico last in education, yet again. Strangely, a few weeks before, New Mexico’s Public Education Department boasted that high school graduation rates in the state had risen to their highest level in 15 years. Those two developments would seem contradictory, but are they? Not necessarily. Rising graduation rates may not mean what you think. They don’t always mean that education is improving.

Schools can boost their graduation rates by improving the quality of the education they provide and working extra hard to reach those students who struggle. Or they can pass students who don’t do any work or don’t deserve to pass. Too often, the latter is true.

I was a teacher at Cuba High School in the 2024-25 school year, but was removed from the classroom after only three months, demoted to a non-teaching position that doesn’t even require a college degree, and then fired because I had the audacity to try to teach my students what they are supposed to learn and failed students who refused to do any work. I hold four college degrees, have taught for more than 20 years and possess the highest-level teaching license available. I am a caring and conscientious teacher, but that’s not what’s wanted in Cuba, or, I fear, many other schools.

Academic standards in Cuba schools are shockingly low. Most teachers pass most everyone because, if they don’t, administrators will blame the teacher. One of my colleagues was reprimanded by a previous superintendent because a high percentage of his students failed and he was ordered to change his ways. He did so to keep his job. He now inflates grades to make sure most students pass. “My classes couldn’t be any easier,” he told me.

What does it mean when a school has one of the highest graduation rates in the state, as Cuba High does, but among the lowest test scores? It means it is graduating students without educating them. Nearly 85% of students at Cuba High graduate in four years, but only 14% can read at grade level and just 5% are proficient in math. Such a disparity should be a crime. I had high school juniors and seniors who could barely read. One didn’t know how to look up a word in a dictionary. Many other students did not turn in a single homework assignment. Yet such students pass every year and graduate in Cuba.

The priority of Cuba schools is to make sure most students pass and graduate on time so it can maintain artificially high graduation rates, which give the appearance that it is educating students. It doesn’t care whether those students learn what they need to function in this world, let alone succeed.

One veteran teacher in Cuba told me, “This is not an educational institution. Teachers either accept that or they leave.” Another teacher left recently because she said she was tired of teaching at a “pretend school.” A third teacher called Cuba High “a diploma factory.”

Cuba is not unique. I compared the four-year graduation rate and the average proficiency in reading, math, and science for a sample of 40 high schools around the state. The average disparity between the graduation rate and proficiencies was 53 percentage points. Students were three times more likely to graduate on time than to perform at grade level. Although test scores are imperfect measures, such a high disparity should not exist. Schools are failing those students whose test scores are low, but, nevertheless, graduate on time.

The problems with education in New Mexico cannot all be blamed on schools. It begins with the Public Education Department, which has largely ignored a court order to improve the quality of education for poor and minority students. In my time as a teacher, I’ve seen no indication that PED is doing anything meaningful to improve education in the state. PED also contributes to the inflation of graduation rates in its unwritten policies.

Education in this state will not improve until fundamental changes are made in how students are taught. Graduating students who don’t deserve to graduate isn’t the solution and ought to be a scandal. Graduation rates alone are a poor indicator of educational quality. Improvements in those rates do not mean most kids are getting the education they deserve.

Blake Gumprecht is a former teacher at Cuba High School with more than 20 years of teaching experience.