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LFC highlights school practices tied to higher performance; PED backs recommendations, seeks funding for coaching and data tracking
Summary
LFC staff presented a policy spotlight identifying instructional, teacher-development and monitoring practices used by high-performing New Mexico schools; the Public Education Department welcomed the findings, agreed to several recommendations and requested funding for implementation supports and better data systems.
Clayton Lobaugh, an LFC program evaluator, and Stephanie Joyce, an LFC analyst, presented a policy spotlight to the Legislative Finance Committee that identified school-level practices associated with higher student performance and recommended state and district actions to expand those practices statewide.
The report examined New Mexico’s NM VISTAs accountability scores and Priority Schools Bureau (PSB) School Support and Readiness Assessments (SSRA) and found consistent differences between “spotlight” schools and low-performing CSI/MRI schools in four foundational areas: delivery of grade-level instruction, teacher development and accountability, monitoring student learning, and school–family communication. "New Mexico has struggled to substantially raise student performance in recent years even as you, the legislature, have increased public education funding by over a billion dollars since 2018," Joyce told the committee.
Why it matters: LFC staff argued that many low-performing schools lack relatively simple, research-backed systems — coherent scope-and-sequence tied to standards, regular interim and formative assessment, systems to track student progress over time, time built into calendars for teacher collaboration (PLCs), and regular observation/feedback for teachers. The report recommends that PED and the Legislature fund (1) a pilot randomized-control study pairing principals with performance coaches, (2) a rubric-based SSRA to allow quantitative longitudinal tracking, and (3) clearer district expectations for principals and protected calendar time for teacher collaboration.
Key findings and evidence: LFC staff visited nine spotlight and low-performing schools with PED PSB teams. The report shows that VISTAs scores correlate with income but that some schools in the upper-right of the report’s charts serve many low-income or English-learner students while also achieving high NM VISTAs scores. LFC highlighted Gadsden Independent School District as a case study in district-level supports (instructional coaches, district specialists and coordinated staffing) and noted that principal turnover in New Mexico—about one in three schools losing a principal annually—is higher than the national average of one in five, which complicates sustaining evidence-based practices. The report also documented that PED changed NM VISTAs calculations last year and that 73 schools exited improvement status; LFC said more than half of those schools showed declines in proficiency in reading or math and that redesignation sometimes preceded any demonstrable changes in school practices.
PED response and commitments: Secretary-designate Mariano Padilla, Priority Schools Bureau Director Elizabeth Peterson and other PED staff joined LFC presenters for Q&A. Peterson emphasized systems and leadership, telling the committee, "Leadership matters at all levels," and described the Priority Schools Bureau’s SSRA and monitoring visits. PED staff said they agree with central recommendations: they support piloting the coaching model, developing a quantitative rubric for SSRAs, sharing SSRA results with school boards, and expanding triannual evaluations statewide — but they stressed that some steps will require legislative funding and statutory clarity. PED staff said the department currently stores evaluations in a learning management system (Canvas) that is not a data-management system and asked for funding for a dedicated data-management/dashboard system to track implementation and impact over time. PED representatives also said that many effective principal professional-development programs are available but that PED does not currently track their impact on retention or student outcomes; they cited $22,000,000 appropriated since FY19 for principal professional development as context for further investment decisions.
Questions from legislators: Committee members pressed on several implementation areas — early childhood impacts on kindergarten readiness, middle-school structures and attendance/engagement strategies, and how Gadsden supports attendance, mobility and bilingual programs. Gadsden Superintendent Travis Dempsey and Chief Academic Officer Maria Hernandez described district strategies including instructional coaches on each campus, district specialists, dual-language programs (Gadsden reported about 13 dual-language elementary schools), and a district-wide “community district” model of community centers for family supports. On attendance, PED and district staff said pandemic-era federal funds had been used in some places to hire attendance coordinators but that those positions were not always sustainable as one-time funds expire.
What the report does not claim: The report does not propose new mandates beyond the recommendations; PED staff repeatedly noted that PED can recommend best practices and send “tiger teams” into schools but generally cannot mandate local implementation without statute or rule. LFC’s recommendations call for more systematic measurement and funding, not immediate statewide mandates.
Next steps and follow-up: LFC recommended that the Legislature consider funding the principal-coaching pilot and a PED dashboard/rubric for SSRAs, and PED agreed to share SSRAs on school boards and continue monitoring. LFC staff said they will follow up in subsequent hearings and LFC evaluations. The report also points to further LFC work on pre-K program evaluation and attendance.
