Teachers unions ignoring big payoffs of evaluations

The bosses of New Mexico’s teachers’ unions have finally admitted openly that they want zero accountability in the area of student improvement based on test scores. Refreshing honesty perhaps, but a stance that does a grave disservice to the many amazing teachers who educate our kids as well as to taxpayers and students.

Last week, after the state Department of Education proposed further adjustments lowering the weight of student growth on standardized tests in teacher evaluations, the heads of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation and the National Education Association New Mexico made it clear the only reform they would find acceptable in this area is no reform at all. And that sounds like they are all about protecting adult jobs for even low performers rather than recognizing great work and making sure your kid is ready for the next grade as well as graduation and beyond.

PED Secretary Hanna Skandera is proposing legislation and policy updates that would reduce the weight of student growth in teacher evaluations from 50 percent to 40 percent, cut the hours of student testing and increase the number of days teachers can be absent from three to five days before it affects their evaluation. The suggestions come after a fall listening tour that had the secretary and staff visiting 10 New Mexico cities, 21 schools and meeting with hundreds of parents, teachers and community leaders.

But Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, and Charles Bowyer, executive director of the National Education Association, New Mexico, don’t want any accountability codified in statute. Both rejected the adjustments, with Bernstein saying student improvement based on test scores has no place in teacher evals, calling it “junk math,” and Bowyer saying he doesn’t want standards put into law because that makes them too hard to change.

That position is as steeped in self interest as it is short-sighted. Under New Mexico’s school report card system, passed by the Legislature in 2011, and its teacher evaluation system, put in place by administrative rule in 2012, K-12 public schools and their teachers are graded in part on the academic progress their students make. And since then several things have happened that should make every New Mexican proud:

More schools have earned A grades — back in 2011-’12 there were 40 A schools; in 2015-’16 there were 118.

Schools in the Cloudcroft, Española, Hobbs, Los Lunas, Lovington, Gadsden, Melrose, Silver and Socorro districts and the Explore Academy charter school increased their 2016 school grades by at least three letters, to A’s and B’s from D’s and F’s.

The statewide four-year graduation rate has increased from 63 percent in 2011 to 71 percent last year.

Teacher absences have plunged — there have been 55,000 fewer substitute-teacher days since 2012, meaning there have been 55,000 more days students have had their trained and licensed teacher in their classroom. (Back in 2011-’12, 47 percent of New Mexico teachers were absent 10 or more days — what the state considers “habitually truant” for students. In 2016, only 12 percent were.)

The number of teachers rated as highly effective or exemplary has increased by a third — from 21.7 percent in 2014 to 28.6 percent in 2016.

In 2016, 7,339 more students became proficient in math and 5,026 more students became proficient in reading than in 2015, with the vast majority of them economically disadvantaged and minority children.

To be sure, the systems had problems out of the box, and the state Public Education Department has made regular adjustments. Those include:

Ensuring teachers are only evaluated on the improvement of students they have actually taught (early on, first-year teachers as well as teachers of subjects not included in the annual standardized tests were rated based on how students in their grade level or entire school performed).

Teacher evaluations and school report cards are now several pages, providing detailed data points that explain how a rating/grade has been determined.

Testing windows and the release dates of evals and grades have been streamlined to eliminate lag times so data is as fresh as possible. Tests have been eliminated or shortened. And additional training has been added to increase the number of qualified classroom observers while reducing the number of times high-performing teachers have to be observed.

Now, New Mexico has more kids reading and doing math at grade level. More kids graduating ready to enter college or the workplace. And thus more teachers and schools rated as good or better or best.

Yet it has never been enough for the teachers unions, which summarily dismiss school grades as unfair labels and sued to get the data-driven teacher evaluations tossed in 2013. In various courts they have lost the claim that Skandera did not have the authority to implement evaluations, that the evaluations violated state law because they have five rankings from exemplary to ineffective, that they were unfair because professionals other than principals can be qualified to perform classroom observations, that they lacked uniformity, that they unfairly allow charter schools to apply for a waiver. The issue is still in state court in Santa Fe where unions are arguing student improvement based on test scores should be removed from the system, though several of PED’s adjustments were in response to the judge saying the metric was hard to understand.

The unions conveniently ignore the fact evaluations that include student improvement based on standardized test scores are an integral component to the state’s waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and thus an integral component to getting federal funding. They ignore the progress New Mexico’s students have made with the help of their dedicated teachers and school leaders who are not afraid of accountability. And they ignore the important work yet to be done to ensure all of New Mexico’s students are ready for the next grade and beyond.

You cannot begrudge them for taking this position. Union leaders’ jobs are about making life better for teachers, not kids. And adults’ jobs are always easier when there is no accountability.

And at least now that’s out there in the open.