APS feels impact of low-income students

Comparisons to nation’s other low-income districts bear out this conclusion

Breaking up Albuquerque Public Schools into smaller districts is the wrong “solution” for the challenges that New Mexico’s largest school district faces.

Declining test scores are principally the result of the rapid and steady increase in APS’ proportion of low-income students over the past decade — for elementary school pupils, from 44 percent to 63 percent — a rate of increase four times that of New Mexico’s dozen next largest school districts, collectively!

When measured against 255 other elementary schools throughout the state, APS’ 88 elementary schools are scoring right about where expected in light of their high proportion of low-income students.

Nationally, when compared to 45 other “Big Box” school districts, APS scored almost exactly where statistical analysis projected it would.

Spurred on by the Journal’s editorial, “It’s time (again) to talk about breaking up APS” (Dec. 4), I compiled data for 430 elementary schools in New Mexico for the past three years (plus school year 2005-06 in order to calculate enrollment trends for the past decade).

To achieve rough statistical comparability, I eliminated eight special schools (such as New Mexico School for the Deaf), 38 charter schools (whose admission — and expulsion — policies vary greatly from regular public elementary schools), and 41 rural schools with less than 100 students whose data are too unreliable statistically. That left 343 public elementary schools on which I based my analysis.

The crucial factor examined was a school’s percentage of lowincome students. “Low-income” is defined as pupils whose low family incomes qualify them for Free And Reduced-price Meals (or FARM). Some findings:

Not only did APS’ FARM percentage rise from 44 percent to 63 percent over the past decade, but the percentage increased in 73 of 85 elementary schools. FARM increases ranged from modest (such as Georgia O’Keefe’s 10 percent to 15 percent) to catastrophic (such as Emerson’s 28 percent to 90 percent).

Most striking was the reduction in FARM percentage in many neighboring school districts outside Bernalillo County (Belen 82 percent to 65 percent, Los Lunas 75 percent to 66 percent, Bernalillo 78 percent to 65 percent, tiny Mountainair 98 percent to 68 percent).

The pattern is clear: Aboveaverage-income families who in past years would have lived within Bernalillo County and whose children would have attended APS now choose to commute to work there from outlying counties.

As everywhere in the United States and Europe, there is a strong correlation between the socioeconomic status of students and test scores: The lower the income level, the lower the test scores.

Looking nationally, the 27 “Big Box” school districts that outscored APS averaged 50 percent FARM — substantially less than APS’ 63 percent FARM. Conversely, the 17 “Big Box” districts that scored less than APS averaged 75 percent FARM — substantially more than APS’ 63 percent FARM.

There’s nothing new about my findings. For over 50 years researchers have found that the overwhelming factor affecting student performance is family income. In fact, the income of a student’s own family is less much important than average family income of a student’s classmates.

These far outweigh anything school districts do, such as spending per student, studentteacher ratios, or even teacher preparation.

Some readers will totally reject this analysis because the facts it reveals don’t confirm what they feel — what they know. They know that APS has weak leadership, too many incompetent central office administrators and principals, too many ineffective teachers. Break up APS!

Across 25 years’ absence and 1,800 miles, I cannot judge specific charges made against APS. But I’ve heard the same type of complaints in 50 or 60 other communities with highly poverty-stressed school districts like APS.

Looking at facts, in terms of their changing socioeconomic profile, APS pupils are performing about right where they would be expected to be whether within a New Mexico or national framework.