NMPED releases data from 2021-22 school year via new website

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Months ago, standardized testing showed only 25% of third through twelfth graders were proficient in math, and just 34% were proficient in language arts. Now, new numbers show even more widespread concern.

Data released by the New Mexico Public Education Department Tuesday shows more than 200 schools will need some kind of extra intervention. However, there is a new tool allowing parents to look up their child’s school’s progress.

“What it does is it gives us a snapshot in how students were doing as they were coming out of the pandemic and coming back to school,” said Dr. Arsenio Romero, NMPED secretary.

NMPED has launched NMVistas.org to share that snapshot with the public. Data currently on the site reflects the 2021-22 school year.

“We saw, in many places, the outcomes for students decrease, and that would be either outcomes academically, it could be issues with graduation rates, it could be issues with attendance,” Romero said.

Out of 852 public schools in the state, 218 schools were designated as needing some kind of support.

“Some of those supports are going to be around providing professional development,” Romero said. “It’s going to be around providing curriculum and training. It’s going to be around providing leadership development for both principals and superintendents.”

Romero said schools will work with the state to create plans meeting their needs.

“Because not one recipe works everywhere, we want to be able to very specifically target the needs that individual school has,” Romero said.

While it’s clear many schools will need help, the majority of New Mexico schools managed to hold steady or show improvement coming out of the pandemic.

Schools performing in the top 25% are recognized as “spotlight” schools, but even those schools have to work with their districts to develop a plan for improvement.

“Our goal is to make sure that every student graduates, every student is a proficient reader, every student is proficient in math, and we still have some work to do as a state to be able to do that,” Romero said.

The PED secretary said the goal of putting this information out there is to be transparent with families, and to get better results for students.

“This is in no way meant to be a punitive measure,” he said. “This is meant to be informative for parents and students and for educators across the state.”

Here’s a breakdown of school designations provided by PED:

• Total schools in Vistas: 852
• Spotlight: 194
• Traditional: 440
• TSI: 4
• ATSI: 109
• CSI: 74
• MRI: 31

Schools can receive designations for earning top scores or be identified as needing support.

• New Mexico Spotlight School​
  Schools scoring above the 75th percentile​
• Traditional Support School​
  Schools scoring above the threshold for support and improvement
• Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI)​
  Public Schools (Title I and non-Title I) with one or more student groups that meet the state’s definition of consistently underperforming​
• Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI)​
  Public Schools (Title I) with one or more student groups performing as poorly as the lowest performing 5 percent of Title I schools identified for CSI
• Comprehensive Support and Improvement Student Group​
  Title I schools that were previously identified for additional targeted support and improvement and that did not meet the statewide criteria for exiting ATSI status within the number of years determined by the state​
• Comprehensive Support School and Improvement Graduation Rate​
  All public high schools in the state (Title I) with a four-year graduation rate below 66.67% for at least two out of the past three years​
• Comprehensive Support School and Improvement Low Performing ​
  Schools scoring in the bottom 5% of all Title I schools
• More Rigorous Intervention (MRI)​
  If a CSI School does not satisfy exit criteria within the identification cycle, they are identified as MRI

To visit the NMVistas website, click here. The testing data from this past spring will go live in August. Final overall data for the last school year, including graduation rates, will be available in January.