Commentary: Santa Fe – American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President, Stephanie Ly, released the following statement:
“Today, Secretary Hanna Skandera proposed lessening the rigor and requirements of becoming a teacher in New Mexico by advocating for a reduction in the amount of learning time spent on subject areas such as mathematics, science, and language studies.
“Plain and simple, a reduction in professional training required for teachers before they enter a classroom creates a system where beginning teachers are ill-equipped to best teach our students, and ultimately, we believe, student achievement will suffer.
“For her entire tenure as head of the New Mexico Public Education Department, Secretary Skandera has insisted on ‘raising the bar’ for students and our public schools, so it makes little sense to lessen the educational requirements for those primarily responsible for helping students reach their educational goals. It’s as if Secretary Skandera is setting our public schools up to fail.
“Instead of lessening requirements to be in the classroom, Secretary Skandera should be adopting the prescriptions of the bi-partisan “No Time to Lose” report which advocated making training for educators more rigorous, instead of less. It is time for the Secretary to actually listen to educators instead of relying on consultants to make decisions. New Mexico’s students deserve no less.”
The “No Time to Lose” report was published by the bi-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures and can be accessed at www.ncsl.org.