An Española School District administrator is blaming her district’s low test scores on the high number of Hispanics who attend the high school in comparison with other nearby school districts

In a PowerPoint presentation to the Española School Board Dec. 7, 2011 Curriculum and Instruction Director Christiana Blea-Valdez said Española’s ACT scores cannot be compared to Los Alamos or La Cueva High School because of differences in the racial makeup of the districts. She said that 69% of students at Los Alamos are Caucasian while 24% are Hispanic. At La Cueva almost 68% of the students are Caucasian, while 29% are Hispanic. Nearly 90% of Española’s students are Hispanic, according to state Education Department data. According to information Blea-Valdez provided to the Board on Dec. 2, 2011 Española’s students had the lowest 2009 ACT scores in English, math and reading and tied for last in science when compared with the school districts of Gadsen, Moriarty, Pojoaque and Rio Grande.