Silver City, NM- The students of Dr. Allison Evans’ 201 Political Science class gathered three prominent members of the Grant County community to discuss today’s current education system. Three panelists were gathered by the students of her class to discuss the state of education in the climate of 2017, particularly in the Grant County area. The panelists were Dr. Isaac Brundage, Jodi Crocker, and Audie Brown, the superintendent for Silver Consolidated Schools. Both Brundage and Crocker had experience working with the public school system- Brundage worked as a public school teacher long before taking on his role as Vice President of Student Affairs, while Crocker serves as a parent volunteer when not working as WNMU Foundation Director.
Standardized testing and their effectiveness with students was a major topic of the evening. Brundage admitted that while there was some value in testing, it was not the only way to measure a student’s probability for success.
This topic segued into the poor grades that local schools had recently received, with Superintendent Brown speaking about how disheartening it may seem, but he cautioned that there are a number of factors that can lead to such grades, including student performance. He cited test anxiety as an example of something that some students face, mentioning that during his time teaching, he’d seen students freeze up before taking a test and sometimes even bursting into tears. He also mentioned that a student’s home life could be a factor in their performance, giving an example of a student being too exhausted to focus in class because of lack of sleep due to his parents fighting the previous night.
“Test scores only provide a snapshot of the actual student,” Brown concluded.
Jodi Crocker, herself a mother of two children in the school system, cited an article written by a school teacher that stated that placing a value system on public schools can prove helpful to an educator. The grades can highlight the needs of each student and provide guidance for a teacher on what they need to do for their students.
While not taking part in the panel, Freshmen Danni Misquez, Clarissa Lowry and Lysandra Villegas, three students from Dr. Evans class, also had opinions on the public school system, being recent graduates. All three admitted to taking an assortment of standardized tests during their time in high school, particularly in their senior year, with Lowry stating that despite receiving poor scores on those tests, she still excelled academically. The three freshmen stated that this panel was part of a class project selected with the assistance of Dr. Evans to highlight and dispel any possible myths about the current education system that the media might have.
After the panel, pizza from Little Caesars was provided to attendees by the Associated Students of Western New Mexico University.
