New Mexico’s Teacher Evaluation Lawsuit: Final Day Five
The final day in the New Mexico’s Teacher Evaluation Lawsuit in Santa Fe was this past Thursday, October 8th. Unfortunately I could not attend day five (or day four) due to a prior travel engagement, but here are two articles that highlight the events of the final day (for now) in court.
The first comes from The Santa Fe New Mexican. This article captures some of the closing arguments on the plaintiffs’ side, primarily in terms of (1) the state model “incorrectly rating nearly 10 percent of the state’s 20,000 teachers,” (2) the state using flawed data, leading to incorrect results, and (3) attempts to convince Judge Thompson tosuspend the provision that these teachers — who purportedly post low value-added scores — be put on “growth plans” that lead to termination. As per one of the plaintiffs’ two lawyers: “The mere issue of a notice that you are minimally effective or ineffective puts each district in a position where they can terminate these employees…These are the [high-stakes consequences and] provisions that need to be removed” from New Mexico’s teacher evaluation model.
The main attorney on the defendant’s side avoided talking about #1 and #2 above, and instead focused on #3, “that no teacher had reported losing a job, license or promotion as a result of the teacher evaluations”…yet. In other words, so the defense argued, the system in New Mexico has not (yet) caused “irreparable harm,” although how one defines that is certainly also up for debate (e.g., good teachers leaving teaching because of the system in and of itself might be considered “irreparable harm”).
This defendant’s attorney also focused on what it might mean for the state of New Mexico to lose its No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver, which by federal mandate requires New Mexico (and all other states) to have a teacher evaluation system in place as based on student test scores. However, the defendant’s key witness on this topic – Matthew Montaño, Educator Quality Division, New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) – evidently overstated claims about these purported threats while on the stand, after which New Mexico’s Teacher Evaluation Lawsuit: Final Day Five | VAMboozled!:
