New Mexico is ranked 50th in the Nation for education. Academic proficiencies for New Mexico schools are shocking. According to US News, only 11% of Las Cruces High School students are proficient in math and 29% are proficient in reading. The students attending Organ Mountain High School (formerly known as Oñate, where I graduated myself in the 90’s) have math proficiencies of 10% and reading proficiencies of 25%.
Albuquerque students are struggling, too. Only 10% of students at Manzano are proficient in math and 29% are proficient at reading. At Del Norte High School, 12% are proficient in math and 25% are proficient in reading. When 3 out of 4 high schoolers can’t read well and 9 out of 10 can’t do math, it’s clear that NM schools are not preparing kids for success as they move into adulthood and careers.
NM’s school boards, Public Education Department (PED), and legislature try many different things, but they continually neglect one of the most important things they could be doing, which is increasing parental involvement. According to the Annie E Casey Foundation, “For decades, researchers have pointed to one key success factor that transcends nearly all others, such as socioeconomic status, student background or the kind of school a student attends: parental involvement… Students whose parents stay involved in school have better attendance and behavior, get better grades, demonstrate better social skills and adapt better to school.”
The American Psychological Association’s (APA) meta-analysis of 448 studies on parental involvement had similar conclusions. A meta-analysis is a study of studies that helps to find the overarching conclusions across a large number of research papers. The APA’s meta-analysis found that parental involvement increases children’s academic achievement, school engagement, and motivation.
Clearly, parental involvement in education is a key factor in academic success. So why aren’t our schools, PED, and legislators working harder to help more parents get involved? I organize a group of over 200 teachers statewide and they’ve reported that since the COVID school closures, parental involvement has been drastically reduced. In a letter to the PED, the teachers’ group wrote, “Besides providing support for their individual children, having parents volunteer in our classrooms helps us ensure there is enough attention and care for all the students in the class… We need to be able to work in partnership with the parents, yet it has become increasingly difficult for parents to be present on campus and in our classrooms.”
One barrier to parental involvement is the required background check in order for parents to volunteer in the classroom. For instance, parents must pay $59 for the background check required by Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS). This is an obvious financial barrier to parental involvement.
When a local community member suggested to the LCPS board that the district cover the $59 fee to help more parents get involved, it was acknowledged that “volunteers in our schools are highly beneficial” and it “wouldn’t put undue stress on our budget.” Nonetheless, LCPS said, “we don't pay this fee for volunteers and there's no plan to change direction in the future.” This relatively simple change would help more low-income parents volunteer in schools, yet LCPS was not willing to do it. What a shame.
Statewide, I hope that legislators and the PED will create incentives for school districts to increase parental involvement. They could even create an atmosphere of friendly competition among school districts to see who can be the one to achieve the greatest parental involvement. We know that parental involvement is key so this is the right thing to do, for the children’s sake.
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Sarah Smith is co-leader of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance (non-partisan statewide grassroots coalition) and Vice Chair of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action in Las Cruces. As a mother of two teens, Sarah leads a homeschool group for dozens of local families. She is a natural healthcare practitioner and former NASA aerospace engineer.
