Every New Mexico student deserves the opportunity for an education led by high quality teachers, no matter their zip code. The system brought in when the PED threw out the old one is doing the opposite – driving great teachers away and limiting the time available for the teachers who remain to provide a high quality, well-rounded education as they sacrifice that to a test-driven standardized curriculum.
New Mexico students are being short-changed by the new evaluation system implemented by Secretary Skandera and Governor Martinez, based on the false assertion 99.8% of teachers were evaluated as satisfactory under the prior evaluation system.
State District Judge Sarah Singleton seemed to agree with the union, telling department representatives at the conclusion of last Thursday's trial, “You have a very important statement that has been made, and you really have no basis to document that statement.”
They repeated their unfounded statement before legislative committees and to the media: so much so it became accepted as the Truth as shown in these May 16, and July 26, 2014 Journal articles http://www.abqjournal.com/401212/news/76-pass-teacher- evaluations.html , http://www.abqjournal.com/435674/news/state-changes-evaluations-for-teachers.html, and KRQE story on the new system: http://krqe.com/2014/05/16/evals-rate-nm-teachers-effective-or-better/.
They used that political claim to impose their system which unfairly subjects students to over-testing and thereby short changing students with an emphasis on only those subjects which are easily tested.
“You can’t have 99 percent (deemed) effective teachers and — when I first took office — 63 percent graduation rates,” New Mexico Watchdog quoted Martinez as saying in 2013. “You can see that the math doesn’t match up.”
At the National Education Association-New Mexico (NEA-NM), we knew from experience the 99.8% claim could not be supported by facts. That would mean only two of every thousand teachers were rated as Unsatisfactory by their District administrators. With 21,000 teachers that would mean only 44 teachers statewide were rated Unsatisfactory. Our "field staff" of seven UniServ Directors, aided by attorneys at The Jones Firm, had assisted many more teachers respond to poor evaluations each year. Together with colleagues at the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico (AFT NM), we and our leaders knew it was false, but how to prove a falsehood is false?
Our public information request and their response to it proves there is no basis for that claim. The Emperor has no clothes. The public has a right to know the truth: the PED chose to deceive the public in order to throw the baby out with the bath water. It was not necessary for the PED to impose (by Rule) the number-seeking standardized test-based system New Mexicostudents are suffering under. The successful elements of their new system could have built upon the prior one: keep it mostly based on administrator observations, but provide the significant trainings, multiple observations,four domains now and five levels of rating of teacher performance.
Making those significant upgrades to the prior system would have created the type of effective and fair accountability system teachers could accept. With public support, we continue our work with legislators to create such a system; one which will provide greater opportunities for all students to achieve, no matter their zip code.
Their new system unfairly puts a specific number on each teacher and then they use that number to also grade schools on how many teachers of different ratings under the flawed systems are at which schools. They are using those numbers to award pay bonuses to teachers claimed to be highly effective or exceptional under this system – and to punish teachers whose evaluations are short of those levels. This though the test-based VAM scores have never been validated by outside professional sources.
Every teacher knows many colleagues whose ratings under this new system make no sense whatsoever. Even after years of trying to get their ill-conceived system correctly implemented, the PED still do not have their new system right. There are thousands of teachers throughout the state whose districts support their claims there are problems with this year’s evaluations.
Students are being deprived of quality teachers who are fed up and leaving the profession in droves.
Students are being taught by teachers who provide them excellent education, but who are being told otherwise by this new statewide evaluation system that has removed much of the Local control and the professional autonomy of administrators as well as teachers.
The flawed new system of rating teacher quality, imposed under cover of the 99.8% myth, is debunked by every credible policy and professional organization as an invalid use of the student tests. The American Statistical Association says it is plain wrong to use these test results as the measure of individual teacher’s quality or performance in the classroom.
Every parent knows the over-testing craze is causing undue stress and harm to their children. New Mexico parents understand tests should be used to help guide instruction to optimize opportunity for their children to learn, not to punish our teachers.
Every New Mexico student deserves the opportunity for an education led by high quality teachers. The system brought in when the PED threw out the old one is doing the opposite – driving great teachers away and limiting the time available for the teachers who remain to provide a high quality, well-rounded education as they sacrifice that to a test-driven standardized curriculum.
The testing, which takes at least nine weeks of the school year in New Mexico, has done more harm than good, for students and teachers.
The public demands and it is the law of this land that government agencies be responsive to public information requests. The PED has shown a blatant disregard for the public's right to know.
Fortunately, at the national level a bill moving through Congress could dramatically reduce standardized testing for kindergarten-through-12th grade students in New Mexico and around the country.
Betty Patterson, President of the National Education Association of New Mexico, says the Every Child Achieves Act would stop much of the testing linked to the No Child Left Behind law.
With our recent New Mexico IPRA court decision proving as false and misleading the justification for the counter-productive use of standardized student test scores, along with positive movement toward new national legislation removing the federal-level requirements for such systems, New Mexico students just may see brighter skies ahead!