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I’m a data geek; I believe robust data from multiple, reliable sources should drive decisionmaking, especially when it comes to the education and well-being of kids.

I am also the parent of four children who attend Albuquerque schools and a former fourth-grade teacher.

So, when I heard that school boards spend between 0% and 5% of their time focused on students’ academic and outcome data, I was shocked. 

The reality is that school boards spend too much time naming buildings and debating sports schedules or determining which paper towels to buy.

School boards play a vital role in empowering local governance and harnessing the power of democracy to address challenges closest to home. So in 2021, I decided to channel my shock at how little attention my hometown school board paid to academic outcomes and ran for a seat. 

I knocked on 8,000 doors, and today, I’m president of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education. We now spend significant time on matters related to student outcomes at our meetings. During one recent session, we looked at state assessment data and focused on unconscionably low achievement rates among Native American students. The conversation shined a light on the problem, and the district superintendent committed to doing things differently, starting with sharing this data with tribal leaders. 

Shifting conversations, and the way the board works, hasn’t been easy. Political distractions and ingrained practices like trying to manage schools instead of letting superintendents do their job get in the way.

But focusing on student outcome data has never been more important, as the recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress results show. The data is troubling.

Students are still experiencing declines in reading. Scores on the NAEP —  also known as the Nation’s Report Card — are down nationwide in both fourth and eighth grades, and that compounds declines seen on the 2022 report card. In math, scores increased in fourth grade, an area of resilience, but they’re flat in eighth grade after crashing historically the last time the test was given. 

NAEP is the only common assessment that allows policymakers and education leaders to compare student achievement across states and more than two dozen urban districts. Albuquerque is among those districts that get NAEP scores, and I’ll be studying our results with my colleagues. 

For example, I’m particularly interested in what’s going on with middle school, because our eighth-grade scores dropped in both math and reading. And I also want to know why our fourth graders posted flat scores in math while the nation overall made progress.

Of course, the work can’t just be about studying the data. We have to act on it, too. Our board has set goals for math, reading and college and career readiness, and we assess progress in these areas every month. We also hold our district’s leadership accountable for these goals, which ensures critical issues get the attention they deserve. For example, we’ve seen grade-level proficiency grow for targeted student groups from 11.3% in 2023 to 12.8% in 2024. The proficiency rate today is 2.5 percentage points higher than in 2022 and represents real learning for students who are Native American, African American, economically disadvantaged or English learners, or who have learning disabilities. 

If you’re a school board member, or a citizen who wants to see action on these issues, here are steps you can take today.

• Read the NAEP results. These are reported for the nation, by state and for 26 large urban districts. NAEP also disaggregates data by student subgroups. As a group, Hispanic eighth graders nationwide saw the biggest declines in reading and math. It warrants asking how they are doing in your community. 
• Think about questions you want to ask your school district leaders after looking at the data. 
• Set measurable goals based on multiple, reliable data sources. Use your power, either as a board member or engaged parent or citizen, to hold your district accountable for meeting them. 
• Don’t forget about non-academic data points. The Nation’s Report Card includes student survey data on confidence and chronic absenteeism, both of which are improving somewhat but aren’t back to pre-pandemic levels. Analyze this data and see if it offers insights into the well-being of your students and the culture and climate of your schools.

As a parent, I experienced the frustration of seeing my sixth grader doing fourth-grade work during the pandemic. I could clearly see the problem because she went to school virtually from my kitchen table. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get school or district officials to respond to my concerns. That is among the reasons I ran for the board. From this perch, I know school board members can play a leading role in ensuring that schools are responsive to student needs and parent concerns. But they can’t do that unless they turn their attention to the things that really matter. 

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