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950 Las Cruces Students Walk Out On PARCC Test

Simon Thompson

Nearly one thousand Las Cruces students staged a walkout Monday protesting the increasing number and intensity of high stakes tests. They say an overemphasis on testing is ruining their education.

Students at Mayfield High School in Las Cruces walked out to protest a new standardized test being administered throughout New Mexico.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, known as the PARCC test.

About 100 students walked out at Mayfield. And 950 throughout the Las Cruces Public Schools.

“I just wanted to yell my lungs out today so I did” says Laura Cruz, a Mayfield High School Junior. 

She says students don’t have enough class time to prepare for the tests as it is – The PARCC is only going make it more difficult.

“I do get stressed and I am just like  I see this  that I have this time to do it and I am like, oh my god. I don’t have enough time and I just start crying  I’ll get so nervous and I start freaking out and  it is just very stressful for us" she says

A Public Education Department statement said testing time has actually decreased in the past four years. This year’s PARCC test is taking the place of another standardized test The department said the change is necessary to improve college readiness and raise expectations.

But teachers largely disagree.  A 2014 National Education Association survey of Las Cruces teachers found only 7% of Las Cruces teachers say the quality of student work is improving because of state-mandated assessments.   Despite this, teachers were mostly absent from the PARCC walkout.  Most teachers KRWG reached out to refused to speak with us for fear of losing their jobs.  Pichaco Middle School science teacher Brian Townsend was willing to be interviewed but he did not walk out saying that could cost him his job.

“If we even encourage the students  to walk out then we would be charged with insubordination’ he says

Townsend says he’s concerned the 'raised expectations' set by the PARCC test are unrealistically high for a lot New Mexican students, especially in the border region.

“I have got a couple of students that can’t read  at all, how they got into 8th grade I don’t really know.  I have ELL’s  I have got about 12 in one class, that's English language learners, thankfully they have a lady to help them. Most of those don’t speak enough English to understand what I am saying in class. We don’t even have Spanish science text books for them” he says

Townsend says the more than $6.2 million dollars New Mexico is spending on administering the PARCC test would be better spent improving classroom resources.

A 2009 College board SAT score study shows family income level is the largest indicator of how well a student will do on a standardized test.  The higher the income the higher the scores, on average.

Townsend says basing 35% of teacher evaluations on student test scores punishes teachers in low income areas where students often have the most learning difficulties.

Teachers who are evaluated as minimally effective can have their jobs called into question and be put on development plans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX4_0yv3S34&feature=youtu.be

Some students say angst and pressure over the testing and teacher evaluations is affecting everyone at school.  Tim Trujillo is a 9th grader at Mayfield.
 
“If a certain amount of people don’t take it your school loses a letter grade, so it affects  everybody. The stakes on there are ridiculous. Teachers can get fired for a certain amount of students that don’t do good enough” he says

Students have to take the PARCC test in order to graduate.  There are alternative forms of assessment, but in Las Cruces, those are only offered to students after they have attempted the PARCC three times.  So students say the walk out is necessary to send a message.

“I am willing to do this, lets say it stops that some how,  I willing  to do this to stand up for what I believe in because the testing  is ridiculous” he says

While the results of the PARCC test won’t be known for some time we do know that New Mexico’s graduation rate is lagging the nation.  70 percent of the state’s high school students graduated in 2013 and that dropped to 68.5 percent last year. The national average was much higher at 81 percent, based on 2013 numbers.

Simon Thompson was a reporter/producer for KRWG-TV's Newsmakers from 2014 to 2017. Encores of his work appear from time to time on KRWG-TV's Newsmakers and KRWG-FM's Fronteras-A Changing America.