Albuquerque Journal

Schools Have to Write a Formula for Success (Editorial)

New Mexico schoolchildren may grow up believing "Thank God for Mississippi" is the state motto. Too bad 83 percent of them would have trouble writing it.
   
The U.S. Department of Education puts New Mexico's eighth graders in a four-way tie for last place— with Hawaii, Nevada and Mississippi— when it comes to writing skills. Reading and math skills also recently ranked near the bottom of the U.S. pack.
   
Students must score 114 on the 300-point test to demonstrate basic writing skills, 173 to demonstrate proficiency. While the national average is a depressing 154, in New Mexico that drops even lower to 143.
   
And the 2007 scores aren't markedly different from scores almost a decade earlier. Back in 1998, the average score in New Mexico was 141. The percentage of proficient writers is also stalled— at 17, compared to the national average of 29 percent.
   
New Mexico has been commended in recent years for raising educational standards and holding school districts accountable, for investing in children early on via pre-K and kindergarten-plus. But a significant part of those standards, accountability and investment has got to be in imparting basic writing skills.
   
The National Writing Project— a federally funded program with five sites in New Mexico— has shown student success by focusing on the teaching of writing. That's significant— the ability to write, and comprehend writing, is rarely innate and requires classroom time to explain, attempt and critique. And then to explain, attempt and critique again.
   
Like any lifelong skill, writing is learned by doing, and doing takes time. In a school day filled with disciplinary issues and remedial coursework, in a school year filled with standardized testing and in-service days, time is the one thing nobody has.
   
But New Mexico educators have got to make some. It's not a coincidence writing is one of the fundamental three R's in education. Lacking this basic skill, it won't be a coincidence New Mexico students keep thanking God for Mississippi.