Local schools bump English, math scores

Students in eastern New Mexico and around the state continue to show progress on English and math exams but are still falling short of proficiency.

The New Mexico Public Education Department on Thursday released the results of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests students took in April.

Both Clovis and Portales experienced increases in proficiency for English language arts and math, but the 2018 results in both subjects show still nearly seven out of 10 students are not reaching that goal.

Clovis saw about a 1 percent jump in English, up to 32 percent proficient, and a 4 percent jump in math, to 28 percent proficient.

“I think we saw quite a bit of growth throughout the district,” Superintendent Jody Balch said. "It doesn’t meet proficiency in lots of areas, but it’s growth and that’s a good thing.”

Balch said one pattern he saw in the data released Thursday was that the majority of the district’s third-grade numbers were down.

“Third seems to be something funky. I mean something occurred because third grade was a downer for almost everybody,” Balch said.

Balch said he would have a better idea of how the district fared in a few weeks when the individual school grades are released by the PED.

“That’s what everything is based on is the school grade and it’s an aggregate of what each individual did at that school,” Balch said.

Portales’ results were mixed. Math went up 2 percent to 24 percent proficient while English dropped nearly 2 percent to 31 percent proficient, same as this year’s statewide average.

“I’m out of town so I haven’t really been able to make any comparisons but I know our junior high did well in both language arts and math and our others stayed pretty steady,” Superintendent Johnnie Cain said.

Cain attributed the bump in math to some additional training the district did around Christmas last year. Now that the training will be in place at the beginning of the school year rather than midway through, Cain said he expects an even better showing on next year’s test in math.

He said he was not sure why the reading numbers dipped slightly.

Elsewhere in eastern New Mexico, Texico saw considerable jumps in both subjects. Texico received 55 percent proficient in English and 35 percent proficient in math, increases of 25 percent and 15 percent respectively.

For the other area school districts the PED released only a range of its exam results.

In Curry County, Melrose had a range of 55 to 63 percent proficient in English and 25 to 31 percent proficient in math and Grady had a range of 35 to 44 percent proficient in English and 46 to 53 percent proficient in math.

In Roosevelt County, Elida had a range of 40 to 49 percent proficient in English and 30 to 39 percent proficient in math, Floyd had a range of 25 to 31 percent proficient in English and 20 to 26 percent proficient in math and Dora had a range of 45 to 53 percent proficient in English and 30 to 36 percent proficient in math.

Fort Sumner had a range of 45 to 53 percent proficient in English and 28 to 33 percent proficient in math.

Statewide, students experienced about a 2.5 percent increase in proficiency in both subjects. English proficiency was 31 percent and math proficiency was 22 percent across New Mexico.

In English Texico High School was the third ranked large school (over 100 students assessed) with 79.8 percent proficient and Melrose Junior High was the fifth ranked small school (under 100 students assessed) with 81.3 percent proficient.