Participants marched from the Santa Fe Railyard to the Roundhouse and weathered cold winds outside while multiple speakers rallied the crowd and encouraged them to visit their legislators’ offices inside.
The “United Voices for Our Students” rally was organized by the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico and the National Education Association New Mexico, two groups that represent public education and higher education employees in the state.
Protesters also spoke out against legislature linking students’ standardized test scores to teacher evaluations and Education Secretary Hanna Skandera’s role in the government.
Skandera has served in that position since 2010 and was re-confirmed by the Senate on Monday.
“What’s happening in our classrooms is child abuse when it comes to testing. There is no more time for anything else and our evaluations are based on it, which is insane,” said Ewa Krakowska, a former teacher from Shiprock, New Mexico currently working for NEA-NM.
House Bill 41 and Senate Bill 66 both deal with holding back third-graders who cannot read at grade level, but neither bill allows for input from a parent or guardian. Current state law gives parents the final say over whether their child is held back.
According to a pamphlet from the NEA, summer school and the opportunity to work one-on-one with teachers has been found to be more effective than retention for student achievement.
“New Mexico is pulling the so-called corporate reforms that have not worked anywhere they have been tried,” Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, said. “How is it possible that a Secretary of Education would not listen to the parents and teachers of the state? How is it that someone who is not an educator would impose this kind of formula [for teacher evaluations]?”
Another concern for the protesters was House Bill 76, which would give teachers an alternate way to move up a level in the licensure system. According to the bill, teachers who have received an evaluation rating of “exemplary” or “highly effective” for two consecutive years would be able to move up.
This type of evaluation pressures teachers to “teach to the test” as 50 percent of it is based off of student test scores, according to the NEA pamphlet.
Protesters said educators should not advance based off of an alternative model that has not been tested and is not reliable.
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“We spend too much time testing children and do not have enough time to teach. According to our testing coordinator, from January until May there are only five weeks where we are not testing children in some way,” Kathryn McGill-Peters, a teacher from Gallup said.
House Bill 75 and Senate Bill 92, better known as the right-to-work legislation, would prohibit employees from either being forced to join a union or pay representation fees to unions. Protesters said this legislation is, “unfair, unnecessary and bad for the middle class in New Mexico.”
“I want to make sure as we continue to advocate today that we can talk about realities ...We’ve still got the power but we’ve got to unite,” said Sen. Howie Morales, D-NM. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re not going to compromise when the fourth floor (the Governor’s Office) has demonstrated that they’re not willing to compromise. We’ve got to make sure that we’re going to stand strong and put the truth out there.”
Marielle Dent is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. You can reach her at mdent@unm.edu or on Twitter
@Marielle_Dent.
