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<\/a>f_a_r_e_w_e_l_l \/ Creative Commons<\/p>
The state’s Public Education Department says it no longer has a study it used to justify creating a new teacher evaluation system in 2013. (photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n And the department violated the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>\u00a0(IPRA) in the way it responded to\u00a0a union’s request for the documents, a judge ruled last week.<\/p>\n The department (PED) and Gov. Susana Martinez have repeatedly criticized the\u00a0old system they characterize as\u00a0wrongly rating\u00a099 percent of teachers effective.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have 99 percent (deemed) effective teachers and \u2014 when I first took office \u2014 63 percent graduation rates,” New Mexico Watchdog quoted Martinez as saying in 2013<\/a>. “You can see that the math doesn\u2019t match up.\u201d<\/p>\n That was a primary justification for implementing one of the administration’s most controversial and significant reform measures — an evaluation system that\u00a0relies heavily on student test scores\u00a0to rate teachers.<\/p>\n The National Education Association, which opposes the new evaluation system, wanted to know where the 99 percent figure came from. It filed a formal request for that information in May 2014. When PED responded months later<\/a>, it said the information came from a study “in the early part of 2010” that examined professional development dossiers submitted by teachers between 2005 and 2010 who were seeking a better ranking and a pay increase.<\/p>\n