New Mexico teachers burn evaluations

By Mary C. Tillotson | Watchdog.org

Teachers in New Mexico burned their evaluations, citing unfair standards and saying the evaluations don’t accurately account for student growth during the school year.

Choice Media discussed this and other issues with Jennifer Depaoli, education adviser for Civic Enterprises, in its most recent episode.

Depaoli, a former public school teacher, said most teachers don’t object to being evaluated, but they want those evaluations to be fair.

“I think teachers want to know if they’re doing a good job,” she said. “You go into a classroom and you want to know that the kids are learning, and if you’re being measured on things that you don’t think are fair to what is actually happening on a day-to-day basis, then you’re not going to respond well to it.”

“A teacher who is doing the best they can, who is doing a really good job, they want to be fairly evaluated,” she said. “There’s always going to be those teachers — just like in any profession — that they don’t want to be evaluated because they know they’re not living up to the standards, then … those people shouldn’t be in the profession to begin with, if they’re not interested in getting better and learning from their mistakes and being evaluated on a fair and just system.”

Depaoli and Choice Media also discussed a donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for public schools, a backpack ban in the interest of student safety, a study discussing the racial makeup of Florida charter schools, new education technology, graduation rates and an education lawsuit.

Contact Mary C. Tillotson at mtillotson@watchdog.org.