NM’s teachers deserve a great education, too

“Low teacher admission requirements and licensure standards perpetuate low student performance . .... The Public Education Department could better oversee preparation programs to improve teacher quality . ... Practitioners and employers agree about recent program completers’ areas of weakness . ... The Higher Education Department should incorporate teacher preparation program outcome data and employment retention rates in the higher education performance-based funding formula.” — “Teacher and Administrator Preparation in New Mexico,” Legislative Finance Committee, December 2012

More than a decade ago, the LFC “evaluated five teacher preparation programs in New Mexico, finding revenues exceeded expenditures at each program, low percentages of full-time faculty, lower requirements for field work than what is considered best practice, and low requirements for passing scores on the New Mexico Teacher Assessments.” Six years later, a 2012 the LFC follow-up found “minimal programmatic changes occurred and student achievement has remained disappointingly low.”

Yet in 2018, when NMPED has finally started to make good on those LFC marching orders to implement a real accountability reporting system for the state’s teacher education programs, it is told it is ridiculous, overreaching and premature.

Remember this accountability system has been 12 years and two critical LFC studies in the making.

NMPED’s proposed system, which would be implemented by administrative rule and just finished its public comment period, would rate teacher preparation programs at New Mexico universities on an A to F scale, mirroring the letter grades given to K-12 public schools. It would factor in program applicant acceptance rates, how they do on performance and licensure tests, how graduates are rated in the state teacher evaluation system, teacher retention in the state, and others.

And while critics have raised legitimate concerns over some of those — for example, getting dinged if graduates take jobs out of state —there is little question N.M.’s teacher programs need serious improvement.

Teachers have told the Journal Editorial Board over the years there are no classes on how to teach reading or middle school, and they had to figure it out on their own and with the aid of their new colleagues. It isn’t teachers’ fault that lack of preparedness shows in our pitiful K-12 academic results.

Imagine taking out a student loan to become a teacher and then finding out after graduation, at the same time your payments start, you didn’t learn what you needed.

Unfortunately, instead of stepping up to ensure the state’s teacher programs are setting students up for successful careers, the largest school district in the state has resorted to name-calling. Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education President David Peercy says the rule is “a very bad idea” and “nonsense” and the national accrediting bodies have the training and expertise to oversee educator preparation programs.

Really? Those groups that supposedly have done such a bang-up job are the ones that signed off on the results cited by the LFC. And the University of New Mexico’s College of Education dean stepped down as administrators hit the “reset” button on teacher education. There has been no recent update on the multimillion-dollar revamp, which Provost Chaouki Abdallah said was likely a five- to 10-year plan. Last month new President Garnett Stokes was not yet up to speed on the makeover but acknowledged UNM does not track its graduates to see where they end up working or how they perform in the workplace.

Perhaps Peercy should talk to Texico Middle School teacher Dawn Bilbrey, who welcomed the accountability measures in an op-ed this week, writing that when she graduated from Eastern New Mexico University “I had no idea I was about to begin the most challenging yet rewarding experience of my life completely unprepared . ... I was not adequately prepared for the day-to-day, year-to-year details that make up the art that is teaching.”

Higher Education Secretary Barbara Damron says her department agrees the current system needs improvement and has met with PED. PED Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski says the review process should take a month and “all feedback will be considered.”

It should be — including the input from teachers like Bilbrey who know firsthand what it’s like to be thrown in the deep end without a swimming lesson. The program also must remain nimble so adjustments can ensure it is truly evaluating what it should be:

And that is if New Mexico’s next class of teachers is getting the educations its members — and their future students — deserve.