Last night, three candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor in New Mexico debated, and the woeful state of education was a major issue. All three pledged to reverse the policies of Hanna Skandera, who was brought to the state by conservative Governor Susana Martinez to impose Jeb Bush’s punitive Florida model of high-stakes testing for teachers, Common Core, and choice. After seven years in office, Skandera stepped down and was replaced by a TFA alum, Chris Rutkowski.
I spoke in Santa Fe a few weeks ago and told a large audience that New Mexico is at the very bottom of the nation on NAEP, vying with Mississippi for 50th, but #1 in child poverty, 5 percentage points worse than Mississippi. During Skandera’s seven years, she targeted teachers as the biggest problem and imposed a harsh teacher evaluation system that is currently tied up in court. During her tenure, New Mexico did not see any improvement at all on NAEP, not in any grade or subject. The Florida model failed.
Her successor hailed the teacher evaluation system, which found more than 30% of the state’s teachers “ineffective,” but he did not suggest where the state might find new teachers if he fired them all (which he can’t do since the whole evaluation program has been enjoined by a judge). The state has low salaries and a teacher shortage. Punishment is not the appropriate response from the top education official.
The problem in New Mexico is not teachers but poor leadership and a lack of a positive vision to solve the state’s problems and improve the lives of families and children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I haven’t had the chance yet to fully read the Aspen Institute document that Michelle Lujan Grisham is modeling her proposed changes after, but have to say it is a bit disappointing she is relying on that group given the history of the Aspen Institute’s education platforms…
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In recent years, nothing good has come from the Aspen Institute in the area of education. I was invited a few years back to debate Wendy Kopp, and the place was crawling with reformers and hedge funders, all doing deals.
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I share your concern, and that point was the one negative that stood out to me among a number of positive ones that were mentioned in the debate.
Sara Attleson’s post below notes that Ms. Grisham has received state education labor endorsements. In the recent past, I have not found these endorsements to be reliable indicators of which candidate is the best for public school teachers, so I’m interested in knowing what makes here better than her opponents. I’ll be doing my own research as well.
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Michelle Lujan Grisham received the endorsement from AFT NM and NEA NM. Her education platform was created with the help of AFT NM leadership along with the help of the leadership of my local, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation (ATF). Lujan Grisham is modeling her education platform on AFT NM and ATF’s input along with our document which explains our platform on public education and labor. Personally, I am excited to finally have an opportunity to vote for a candidate who has proven to be informed and supportive of public education. Lujan Grisham respects educators. She has supported AFT NM and ATF’s lawsuit fighting the punitive evaluation system. She has been opposed to all the corporate reforms that our out-going, anti-public education and anti-labor governor has implemented or tried to implement.
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Do you have a link for her education policy platform? Thanks!
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Here is her education policy platform. I googled.
She calls for more funding, an end to PARCC, more.
http://www.newmexicansformichelle.com/policy/a-new-direction-for-new-mexico-s-public-schools
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Thanks, Diane! Thought it would be appropriate for the discussion.
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Here is the link to Michelle Lujan Grisham’s policy on public education:
http://www.newmexicansformichelle.com/policy/a-new-direction-for-new-mexico-s-public-schools
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Thanks!
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This link has a more complete statement:
Click to access MLG_P-12_FINAL_Formatted_CR_4_18.pdf
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You now have two links to her platform. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham signed onto a letter today along with Congressman Grijavla and others opposing the closing of public schools in Puerto Rico. She is against the corporatist reformers. Out of the three candidates running in the Primary, she wants to give educators the largest raise.
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I think you’ll see more and more pro-public education candidates running. You’ll also see anti-public education incumbents desperately trying to portray themselves as supporters of public schools, just in time for the next election cycle.
Like Scott Walker: is doing :
“For much of his governorship Walker has focused on lowering income and property taxes across the board, while cutting spending on education, though in his latest budget he has pumped more money into K-12 and higher education.
The latest poll found a shift in attitudes on those issues. In March 2013, the Marquette poll found 49 percent said cutting taxes was more important than increasing school funding, which was favored by 45 percent of respondents. In the latest poll, 63 percent said increasing school funding was more important, compared with 33 percent who favored tax cuts.
“That has shifted a lot over the four years since the first time we asked about this,” Franklin said. “It’s reflected in other questions we ask as well that show a greater concern for public education and K-12 spending.”
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/as-scott-walker-campaigns-for-a-third-term-poll-finds/article_350e3e03-429b-558c-b95d-ec1e0c77c523.html
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Anyone who votes for Scott Walker is voting against public schools and teachers.
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The test-based “Value-Added Method” (VAM) of evaluating teachers and now principals, too, has been “slammed” — quoting The Washington Post — by the very people who know the most about data measurement: The American Statistical Association (ASA). The ASA’s authoritative, detailed, VAM-slam analysis, titled “Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment” and has become the basis for teachers across the nation successfully challenging VAM-based evaluations.
Even though it’s anti-public school and anti-union, the Washington Post said the following about the ASA Statement: “You can be certain that members of the American Statistical Association, the largest organization in the United States representing statisticians and related professionals, know a thing or two about data and measurement. The ASA just slammed the high-stakes ‘value-added method’ (VAM) of evaluating teachers that has been increasingly embraced in states as part of school-reform efforts. VAM purports to be able to take student standardized test scores and measure the ‘value’ a teacher adds to student learning through complicated formulas that can supposedly factor out all of the other influences and emerge with a valid assessment of how effective a particular teacher has been. THESE FORMULAS CAN’T ACTUALLY DO THIS (emphasis added) with sufficient reliability and validity, but school reformers have pushed this approach and now most states use VAM as part of teacher evaluations.”
The ASA Statement points out the following and many other failings of testing-based VAM:
“System-level conditions” include everything from overcrowded and underfunded classrooms to district-and site-level management of the schools and to student poverty.
A copy of the VAM-slamming ASA Statement should be posted on the union bulletin board at every school site throughout our nation and should be explained to every teacher by their union at individual site faculty meetings so that teachers are aware of what it says about how invalid it is to use standardized test results to evaluate teachers or principals — and teachers’ and principals’ unions should fight all evaluations based on student test scores with the ASA statement as a good foundation for their fight.
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This is exactly why AFT NM and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation have filed a lawsuit against the Public Education Department of New Mexico and why a judge has issued an injunction.
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What is the “this” to which you start your sentence? Thanks.
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