Kris Nielsen

This summer, an ongoing action by New Mexico teachers is to send in Inspection of Public Records requests (IPRAs, for short), asking the Public Education Department (PED) to send evidence that backs up teacher evaluation reports received this year, and the means used to calculate the scores.  We’ve waited.  We’ve waited some more.  Finally, some of those teachers received notices that the request is “burdensome,” and it would take the PED longer than expected.

Which is silly, since the PED happily reported the results of teacher evaluations to the press long before teachers were allowed to see them (and, of course, none of those press outlets thought to ask for substantiation).  You’d think PED would have access to the reports quickly, since they just finished them up…

Hanna Skandera tells us, in a recent Albuquerque Journal guest editorial, what should have been an inspirational and heart-warming story about her glory days in track, when she trained for months for that one big cross-country race at the end. She came in second. It’s implied that the rest of them were ranked-and-filed as, I assume, winners and losers?

First, academics and cognitive development are not cross-country. Learning is not a race; learning is a process. Learning is not a competition; learning is a quest…

Education Secretary-Designate Hanna Skandera recently wrote an editorial to the Albuquerque Journal stating more untruths, vague ideas, and plenty of blame against those who are questioning her initiatives.  She suggests that there will be some “discomfort” during her period of reforms.  I suggest that discomfort isn’t the problem; what we’re fighting against is the actual damage being done…

Standardized testing is no longer a valid measure of student learning.  It has become an institution unto itself—created to unfairly evaluate teachers, punish schools, and create business opportunities for investors.  The tests drive the current “reform” movement in public schools, which has nothing to do with preparing our kids for life and success.

Race to the Top infused a whole new nightmare into our public schools, and privatization groups, like Jeb Bush’s ironically named "Foundation for Excellence in Education," have taken it all and gone full-sprint.  Thanks to Jeb’s foundation (and the cash they generously raised), our governor was happy to hire Florida’s former Education Secretary to “reform” New Mexico’s schools…