OPINION: NM undercuts its best performing schools

Education in New Mexico is in crisis. We’ve known this for years. We’ve ranked 50th or 51st by pretty much any education standard for the better part of a decade. Now, with the gutting of the federal department of education coupled with the failure of the New Mexico Legislature to deliver for schools in the recent legislative session, this crisis has reached new heights. Things have gotten so bad that, I can safely say, leading a school during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was much more manageable than things are now.

Unfortunately, this crisis is a bureaucratic mess of our own making. We have many of the tools we need for success right before us. The Public Education Department maintains a robust school accountability tool with NM Vistas (nmvistas.org) easily accessible to lawmakers and the public. Important metrics like attendance, graduation, and academic proficiency are easily located for any public school in the state. This accountability system also has school designations which indicate comparative levels of performance. The “Spotlight” designation, for example, places a school in the top 25% of schools statewide. New Mexico has built this education accountability framework, but what are we doing with the information?

Someone recently asked me, so what do you get if you are a “Spotlight” school? And the only honest answer I could come up with was, “a budget cut.” Yes, despite having one of the top graduation rates and top attendance rates in the state, despite receiving the National Blue Ribbon Award, despite substantially closing the achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students and despite increasing our enrollment year over year, our school faces close to a 10% budget reduction next year. With New Mexico continuing to be blessed with record state revenues, why are we in this position to let our schools go under-funded, especially for schools with such a clear track record of success?

The New Mexico Legislature has made many tweaks to the school funding formula over the past several years to better target at-risk student populations. This has resulted, rightly so, in millions in extra revenues for schools faced with challenging circumstances. Now that those equity-based adjustments to the funding formula have been made, hopefully, we can now begin paying attention to school outcomes. What is New Mexico doing to move out of last place?

Put in another way: What financial incentive does any school in New Mexico have for raising student outcomes? Unfortunately, the state Legislature just passed a series of bills that have decimated the budgets of many “Spotlight” schools, the very schools the state has determined to be among the highest performing.

New Mexico has refused to confront our education crisis head on. However, as the saying goes, every crisis is an opportunity. We have many school leaders willing to take on innovative solutions to our most difficult problems. We have many policymakers willing to ask the tough questions on these status quo approaches getting us nowhere. As we think about what could start to move the needle for New Mexico schools, let’s think about using the accountability system we already have in place. Let’s replicate what’s working with our top-performing schools. Instead of cutting resources from our Spotlight schools, let’s reward them so they can scale their methods and serve even more students. Let’s stop shunning success in this state and start doubling-down on what works.