EDITORIAL: Education college evaluations next reform
Albuquerque Journal
By: Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
June 16th, 2014

http://www.abqjournal.com/416127

Since teacher quality is a major factor in student achievement, it makes sense for the state to start issuing report cards to the New Mexico colleges that prepare them for such important work.

This is an important step in the process of graduating more students capable of doing college-level work or moving into a job. And it will give college students thinking of pursuing a teaching degree a better idea of how their prospective college rates.

The report cards will be based, in part, on how well a college of education’s graduates perform on the state’s teacher evaluations. Other factors include how long the teachers stay in the profession and retention rates for those rated as “effective” or better; how the college’s students fare on the state’s mandatory teacher exam, which will be made more rigorous; and whether the colleges increase the number of science, technology, engineering and math teachers they graduate.

New Mexico has education colleges at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Highlands University, Eastern New Mexico University, Western New Mexico University and Northern New Mexico College. Together they graduate about 1,000 teachers a year.

The grading system was developed by the Department of Higher Education and the Public Education Department with the help of college and university presidents, deans and regents from each institution.

While it’s a definite plus the state sought the input of the affected universities, because the initiative will be partly based on the evaluation system now being launched by the PED it is imperative the kinks in that effort get worked out so teachers and the colleges they graduated from are evaluated accurately and fairly – with minimal controversy over the scores. PED attributes problems in this initial year of the evaluation system to bad data from districts.

The initiative is another good step on the path to reforming the state’s public schools and improving New Mexico students’ academic performance.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.