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Resolution to Cast a Vote of No Confidence in Hanna Skandera, as the NM Secretary-Designate of Education Submitted by: Angela Reynolds, Truman Middle

School and Laurie Harris, Jefferson Middle School Action Item - May 1, 2012 Whereas, Hanna Skandera has not been confirmed by the New Mexico State Legislature after three legislative sessions; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera has never taught in a classroom, and therefore has no experience on which to base her educational reforms; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera accuses teachers and their unions of being tied to the status quo, but yet refuses to involve them in reform efforts in any meaningful way; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera fired dozens of Public Education Department employees and replaced them with highly-paid out-of-state consultants, one of whom has notably disparaged the New Mexico laws and promoted an English-only approach to education and testing; and Whereas, Hanna Skanderas Effective Teaching Task Force was a farce, which included only one practicing classroom teacher as a member, heard almost no public comment, and merely copied the Florida plan for teacher evaluations rather than create real evaluation reform; and Whereas, Hanna Skanderas teacher evaluation system, using Value-Added Models based on students test scores to measure teacher effectiveness, is highly flawed, inaccurate and misleading; and Whereas, Hanna Skanderas evaluation system cannot possibly ascertain the quality of all types of teachers equitably, which will most likely result in driving great teachers away from the students who need them most, and will thereby destroy teacher morale; and Whereas, Hanna Skanderas 3rd grade retention plan ignores family and teacher involvement and flies in the face of decades of established research that retention is harmful to student progress; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera cut off participation in decision-making from Indian, Hispanic and Bilingual education stakeholders when she disbanded each of their associated state advisory councils; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera sent $800,000, once appropriated for Indian education, to Teach For America, which then used only one percent of the money to recruit and train Native American teachers; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera calls for any school that is failing for 3 out of 5 years, as judged by her A-F rating system, to be converted to a charter school, and calls for students to have the option to enroll in online learning instead of attending public schools, which will result in a loss of revenue for public schools, and which results from deep, ethically questionable connections to private charter school advocacy groups; and Whereas, Hanna Skandera ensured that charter schools would receive nearly $2,000 more per student in the funding formula than public schools, and she designated an extra $50 million to

open new charter schools in New Mexico; and Therefore, be it resolved, that the Albuquerque Teachers Federation Representative Council has taken a vote of No Confidence in Hanna Skandera, as the New Mexico Secretary-Designate of Education; and Therefore, be it further resolved, that we direct ATF leadership to lobby state senators to vote against Hanna Skanderas confirmation as the New Mexico Secretary of Education.

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