Commentary: American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President Stephanie Ly released the following statement:
“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) annual Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report was released today and describes the performance of 15-year-old students across a variety of countries.
“This year’s report, while focused heavily on science proficiency, revealed among the 35 participating countries, the United States performed average in science and reading, but performed below average in mathematics. The study found one in five students in the United States are low performers in science-related fields.
“Additionally – and of great concern to education professionals in New Mexico – is the fact that economically disadvantaged students are 2.5 times more likely to be low performers than advantaged students, and underscores the need for equity in our schools. New Mexico lawmakers should focus on implementing community schools with wrap-around services including access to early childhood education, healthcare, and other needed initiatives as a method of promoting equity for our students. Community schools are recognized under new bi-partisan federal regulations as a turnaround model for struggling schools, and additional federal regulations seek to provide increased local control, and hold charter schools more accountable in the pursuit of educational equity.
“Equity for schools of greater need does not have to come at the expense of high performance across all schools in New Mexico, and this year’s PISA report is timely due to potential changes to the federal Department of Education under Education Secretary-designee Betsy DeVos. With public school systems outperforming private and charter schools, Governor Martinez and Secretary Skandera should proactively advocate protecting Title I funding in New Mexico and work to ensure public schools are protected for future generations of New Mexico’s students.”