OPINION: Schools should be recognized for giving struggling students a second chance

Seth, one of my 12th grade students, wasn’t on track to graduate with his peers. The combination of working almost full time to help with family finances and going to high school often had him at the brink of exhaustion. But when he enrolled in my charter school something changed.

During one of our earliest tutoring sessions, Seth hesitated before answering a reading comprehension question about poetry, not because he didn’t know it — but because he needed more time than my other students to gather his thoughts. That one small boost of confidence made all the difference. Soon, he started submitting work more consistently. He emailed me with questions about the use of literary devices and implicit meaning. He even began to believe he might actually finish high school. And he did — just one semester later than expected. His graduation wasn’t late. It was right on time for him.

The way we measure school success — particularly graduation rates — doesn’t always reflect the real and often nonlinear paths our students take. While New Mexico’s current accountability system that primarily evaluates schools using four-year cohort graduation rates may work for traditional settings with stable enrollment, it falls short when applied to schools like mine with a mission to re-engage students like Seth who might have fallen behind.

Public charter schools are enrolling New Mexico students who have struggled elsewhere, including those parenting, working full time, managing chronic illness or overcoming trauma. Yet when those students graduate — even if it takes five or six years — their success is often left out of school performance metrics.

This disconnect is not unique to New Mexico. National research has identified similar issues in other states, highlighting how alternative and charter schools are unfairly penalized for doing the very work they were designed to do: provide a second chance.

And now, with new New Mexico graduation credit requirements, focused on equipping students with skills to help them be successful adults, we have an opportunity to reflect on how we define success. If policy changes are meant to provide more local control to meet community needs, shouldn’t we also ensure that accountability systems recognize schools that make those diplomas possible — even on a different timeline?

So that charter schools can champion at-risk students with challenging, transformative programs, New Mexico must rebalance graduation accountability between all public schools. Here are three ways:

• The state should include five- and six-year graduation rates in school accountability calculations. For students like Seth, after-school Zoom conferencing, portfolio projects and research-based learning provided by our school made graduation possible — just not on the original schedule.
• Charter schools that focus on high-risk, over-aged, or re-engaged students should be evaluated in context. A modified accountability category — or parallel reporting system — would allow schools to demonstrate growth, recovery and re-engagement rather than being measured solely by traditional benchmarks. These schools are often the last hope for students like Seth whose life paths don’t fit a conventional mold.
• New Mexico must publicly recognize and reward schools that succeed in bringing students back because that impact deserves to be visible. Just as early-warning systems are meant to catch struggling students before they fall through the cracks, we need a complementary system that uplifts successful re-engagement efforts. Our school gave Seth a way to succeed by providing him flexibility while maintaining the rigor of learning.

At graduation, Seth obtained a welding certificate and found a well-paying job right out of high school. We owe it to students like him to build a system that values growth, persistence and second chances. Schools like mine are stepping up to do this work and so should graduation metrics.