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FOR THE RECORD: This editorial incorrectly stated the Albuquerque Teachers Federation was handing out gift cards to members who show at Hanna Skandera’s confirmation hearing. In fact, the AFT said in an email blasting the secretary-designate that it would enter members in a gift card drawing if they worked a phone bank to oppose Skandera.
The editorial also said Skandera had been on the job for three years; she is two months into her third year.
Critics of Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera undoubtedly will spend much of today’s Senate confirmation hearing talking about the constitutional requirement that a “qualified, experienced educator” fill her job as they parse the definitions thereof.
They also should note that for the past three years under Skandera, New Mexico has finally been talking about — and reforming — an abysmal public education system that fails to teach 57 percent of its students to read and 64 percent of its students to solve math problems at grade level. A system in which three of every 10 students fail to graduate in four years.
That conversation and action are happening because of Skandera and her extensive experience and reputation as an education reformer.
And it’s a conversation and attempted change the status quo wants to shut down. In fact, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation is handing out gift cards to members who show up at the Roundhouse this session to fight the reforms Skandera has championed for three years. With our dismal numbers, who needs reform?
The commonsense changes Skandera has been pushing include A-F letter grades for schools based on student improvement and performance, teacher evaluations that finally reward great educators who are improving student proficiencies and mentor those who are struggling, and K-3 reading interventions that require students be literate at grade level before advancing to fourth grade.
Skandera got the first one though the Legislature, has implemented the second administratively and is still fighting for the third. Her efforts have gotten all the public schools out from under the constraints of No Child Left Behind and garnered $25 million in federal Race to the Top funds for New Mexico.
No, she has never been a K-12 classroom teacher. But she is highly educated, graduating cum laude with a bachelor’s in business and first in her class with a master’s in public policy. She has counseled students in grades six to 12 and taught classes at the college level. She is an accomplished teacher trainer and administrator of teachers in California, Florida and New Mexico. She has spent the past three years traversing the state to visit every school and classroom possible to observe challenges and success stories firsthand.
And according to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “Hanna’s a part of this next generation of state chief officers that I think are just going to be extraordinary. She is passionate; she is committed, knows both the strengths and the challenges in New Mexico and is pushing every single day to give every single child a great, great education.”
New Mexico’s Public Education Department oversees 89 school districts, 831 schools and more than 330,000 students. Classroom teachers are the most important front-line employees in the mission to educate New Mexico’s students and future leaders.
And those classroom teachers and students deserve highly qualified and motivated administrators who will support them and are dedicated to ensuring all New Mexico students can read at grade level, do the math necessary to join the workforce and leave the public schools with a diploma.
Three years into the job, the Senate should finally confirm Secretary-designate Skandera so she can continue doing just that.
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.
