Bid to end ‘social promotion’ opposed at hearing
Superintendent, board members, pueblo leader testify against plan
SANTA FE — Opponents of a proposal that would direct New Mexico schools to hold back students who can’t read proficiently accused Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration on Thursday of improperly trying to bypass the Legislature.
In a sparsely attended public hearing, no one spoke in favor of the proposal. Nine people testified against it — including a superintendent, two school board members and an Acoma Pueblo leader.
About a half-dozen members of the state Public Education Department listened to testimony during the hearing.
Kurt Steinhaus, superintendent of Los Alamos Public Schools, said he shares the administration’s goal of ensuring children have a strong foundation in reading before moving on to higher grades. But basing retention decisions on a reading assessment — rather than the broader criteria now outlined in state law — isn’t the right approach, he said.
Steinhaus and other opponents also said the proposal would add to the paperwork burden on teachers.
“We don’t have enough
time to do everything we want to do,” he said. “If you look at our teachers right now, they’re exhausted. … We don’t want to impose more reporting requirements on them that take away their time with the kids.”
Lauren Winkler, an attorney for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said the proposal is an illegal attempt to get around the current law by “mandating a one-size-fits-all test to determine whether a child is promoted.”
Similar proposals — to require thirdgraders to be proficient in reading before moving on — have repeatedly failed to make it through the Legislature. Ending “social promotion” has been a priority of Martinez, a Republican whose term ends at the end of the year. Democrats hold majorities in the Legislature.
The Public Education Department, says the rule proposed this year is based on what’s already allowed in the state law governing retention, not an end run around the Legislature.
Susan O’Brien, the department’s director of literacy, humanities and early childhood, told the audience Thursday that the proposal is aimed at ensuring students have “foundational literacy skills.”
She said retention of a student would be optional the first year, but the student would be held back if he or she still isn’t proficient the next year. There would be other exemptions and flexibility, too, she said.
The proposal also focuses on ensuring that families are notified early about their students’ reading skills, O’Brien said, with the development of plans to help them catch up. Periodic assessments would track the child’s progress.
“Parents and guardians deserve to know how their child is doing in reading, what supports are available at school and what they can do at home to support reading,” she said.
Only 26 percent of third-grade students were proficient in reading in the 2017 fiscal year, according to a legislative analysis released this year.