Sept. 21 - SFPS Superintendent Joel Boyd Sides With Teachers In Case Against Evaluation System

Lawyers for a New Mexico Public education department are in a Santa Fe courtroom today defending a teacher evaluation system from teachers' unions who call it ineffective. Unions want the system, which is based on standardized student testing, to be stopped immediately, before it does more damage. Already, opponents of the system claim, it has pushed many veteran teachers to retire early or have their licenses jeopardized. Among those who testified last week in favor of the injunction was Santa Fe public schools superintendent Joel Boyd. Boyd had previously called for the evaluation system to be halted until what he called ”obvious problems" could be worked out. In a commentary he wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican he said he initially supported the idea of this evaluation system but that the execution was deeply flawed. Among those problems was timing and also a lack of funding for proper analysis of data.