Dive Brief:
- Four superintendents from New Mexico came out in opposition to the state’s value-added model for assigning school grades, saying the metrics are unclear and the results often do not make sense.
- The Ruidoso News reports the superintendents spoke to the Legislative Finance Committee, where they got a sympathetic response, and State Sen. Howie Morales (D) commiserated that a parent in his district lost a custody battle in part because of a low state grade for the neighborhood school.
- While the value-added model has created frustration among districts, Roswell Superintendent Tom Burris recommends granting legislative priority to getting three-year-olds into pre-K, improving attendance throughout the system and making sure students have enough food.
Dive Insight:
Value-added formulas have been used in teacher evaluations in districts across the country. Using standardized test scores, teachers are assessed based on how much they help students improve, rather than simply how high or low the students’ test scores are. On a school level, the concept is the same. Schools are assessed based on how much impact they supposedly had on students. But in both cases, criticism of the complicated formulas that go into value-added models has been fierce.
On the topic of improving schools, Burris’ suggestion for feeding children refers to a ubiquitous problem nationwide. There are 22 million students who receive free or reduced-price lunches in U.S. public schools. This summer, however, almost all of them have lost access to daily lunches and the programs their schools have built around them. Weekend backpack programs and school-based food pantries shut down for the summer along with school breakfasts and lunches. Less than 4 million children are served by community meal programs. While the K-12 food safety net is fairly robust in many districts, summertime is when it routinely fails.