Teacher evaluation suit put off until next year

SANTA FE — A union lawsuit that aims to halt the New Mexico Public Education Department’s controversial teacher evaluation system will not go to trial for another year.

On Monday, 1st Judicial District Court Judge David K. Thomson agreed to hear the case on Oct. 23, 2017.

Shane Youtz, an attorney representing the Albuquerque Teachers Federation and American Federation of Teachers -New Mexico, had requested time to review PED regulations simplifying the evaluation process, which will be finalized in January.

An injunction that prevents PED from using the evaluations for advancement decisions will remain in place until the trial.

AFT president Randi Weingarten — visiting from Washington, D.C., to campaign for Hillary Clinton and New Mexico candidates — attended the status hearing.

“This is an important lawsuit nationally,” Weingarten said outside the courtroom. “There is the right way and the wrong way to actually build the capacity of your workforce, and what PED has done is the wrong way.”

Weingarten called the PED system “terrible,” particularly because it ties teachers’ evaluations to test scores.

New Mexico gives assessment results unusually high weight, Weingarten said, with 50 percent of the evaluation coming from scores, while the rest is made up of various measures like teacher attendance and student surveys.

As a result, educators feel demoralized and attacked, according to the union leader.

“This is ideological, not educational,” Weingarten added.

Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, said she believes the evaluations are chasing good educators out of the profession.

“Even though they know they can’t be harmed in their jobs right now, it bothers them in the core of their being, and nothing I can say can take that away,” she said. “It’s a cloud over everybody.”

PED has argued that their system creates accountability and helps teachers improve.

Spokesman Robert McEntyre said teachers “should be no different from every other profession that is evaluated.”

In January, PED announced changes that simplify the evaluations. For instance, only a few assessments are weighed and teachers are placed in three categories, rather than 107. PED says it needs a few months to formalize the regulations.