New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has named Karen Trujillo to be the state’s next secretary of public education and to lead an overhaul of the state’s accountability and teacher-evaluation systems, crafted under former Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican.
The letter-grade accountability system and teacher-evaluation system that was tied to test scores was lauded across the country for its transparency and rigorous approach to school improvement. But teachers in the state lashed out against the two systems for being oversimplistic, unfair, and, many argued, ineffective.
School accountability became a wedge issue during last year’s gubernatorial race with Republican and Democratic candidates both publishing detailed white papers on how they would go about overhauling the systems if elected.
Trujillo is a long-time New Mexico educator who recently has been serving as associate dean for research at New Mexico State University’s College of Education.
Grisham also picked Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles to serve as Grisham’s education advisor.
I’ve just been appointed to be Special Adviser to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Education Secretary Karen Trujillo of New Mexico. I’m looking forward to doing transformative work with them. pic.twitter.com/jpjpC1TX34
— Pedro Noguera (@PedroANoguera) January 24, 2019
Grisham described the two hires as “an all-star team of education.”
In a separate move, the state’s legislature is working to significantly boost teacher pay in the state.