Real education standards are very important. Good standards measure value add or progress rather than a simple pass fail hurdle. They require professional support to work. They won’t get this support if they lead to league tables in newspapers. Under the Official Information Act this is inevitable. We need a law change to prevent this happening. Together we can build a campaign to change the law and therefore give us a chance to have strong, high quality, meaningful and effective standards.
This blog is a bit like those on drug driving, mall opening and education ownership. It is designed to elicit feedback to help build policy.
We need to decide what education standards are for. In my view they are an essential tool in improving teaching and learning. Working well they can identify strengths and weaknesses of individual students, teachers and schools. Good assessment can be used to direct future learning for both students and teachers. It is a vital part of a feedback loop to parents, senior teachers and principals.
I’m a strong believer in formative assessment. As Minister of Education I invested millions of your dollars building asTTle. It is a world leading assessment system. It is beginning to work as designed because teachers trust it. And it is a high trust model. Information is collected and shared on an implicit and sometimes explicit understanding that it will not be available for purient sensational and often meaningless comparisons by way of league tables.
Anne Tolley’s proposed standards won’t add any value to most schools. They look like they have been designed to fulfil an election promise rather than to have any educational benefit whatsoever. They measure hurdles that in some cases are very very low and in others are so wishy washy that there is room for tremendous variation in assessment between schools. Most importantly they don’t measure progress or the amount a child has developed over a particular period. That is they key measure of learning and thereby of teaching.
But it is no use consulting on that question until the fundamental one of “Who are they for?” is answered.
Because if they enhance teaching and learning, they will get professional support. If they lead to useless league tables and competition between schools they won’t. It is as simple as that.
I have had an informal discussion with the Ombudsman on the issue. He has made it clear to me if we want to protect the information and prevent the league tables the best approach is for parliament to do just that by changing the law.
I’m interested in your views. If there is widespread support for this approach (and remember the mainstream media will never support holding back tables that can dominate their front pages for two days a year) then I’m happy to build a campaign to get the law changed.
If the school system was clever it would be sure to find ways of avoiding the slow learners and the troublesome ones. This way the better “clients” would be sure to lift the “standards” of that school, and then the school could safely publish their “scores” to the media. Oops. Are they being published? How sad. A closer look at the existing practices at certain schools show that some restrict the kids from attempting the sitting of testing/exams, unless they could show that they will succeed.
National Standards while providing exemplars, also narrow the focus. So much for catering for Multiple Intelligences.
The best motivation is direct Feedback teacher/child and peer/child. Tests are out of date for improving learning even a week later. Must stop, but oppose the collation of “testing” for use outside thew school.
Hi Trevor
Good post. As a school principal I have no problems with the concept of standards and in fact we have set our own expectations across year levels. My big concern, and going by the comments made by principals at last week’s ‘consultation’ meeting, is that there doesn’t seem to be any real effort being made by the MOE and Minister to prevent league tables. There is plenty of ‘lip service’ but nothing in concrete. Further, as it seems that schools will be allowed to use their own methods for reporting data to the MOE, it may not be a simple task for a journalist to compile league tables. This then could lead to data being misused and misinterpreted, for the sake of a good story. Secondary school experiences with NCEA results would suggest that the media has little understanding of the outside influences on schools such as the socio-economic background of students, an aspect that research has identified as a key influencer of school achievement. Negative news reports could be incredibly destructive to a school’s efforts to develop. Also, over the past decade we have thankfully moved away from the competitive model of the 1990s which was generally disastrous to NZ education.
All this doesn’t address another real concern. We have been very fortunate in NZ to be given the New Zealand Curriculum which my staff see as a huge opportunity to provide wonderful learning opportunities. My fear is that the focus on standards will be to detriment of the rest of the curriculum. There many people more qualified than me to comment on this fear eg. Lester Flockton, Bruce Hammonds and Martin Thrupp from Waikato Univeristy.
Hi Trevor – I completely agree, and concerned about National’s direction on this. The international research tells New Zealand that its biggest gaps are inside classrooms ie. a huge range between best and worst performers under the same roof, under the same teacher.
these national standards, by being one-size-fits-one-year, and externally imposed, encourage a “race to mediocrity” … e.g if the target is 7 then those schools worried about the league table will put more effort into jonny on 5 and jane on 6 to get them over the bar, and less on scotty on 2 cos he’s got no hope of getting there, and nothing happens to extend bobby either who’s on 15 and bored out of her brain.
the problem though – and the reason this policy sucks so bad – is that schools *don’t* behave the way i just described – they are full of caring and professional educators determined to do their utmost with the scottys and the bobbys in their care – but this policy doesn’t encourage or reward schools for the “value add”.
we must add maximum value to every student, building on their strengths and interests – funnily enough if that happens they might stand a better chance of remaining engaged later on.
i didn’t think anyone still thought that having a sausage factory schooling system was a good idea – the current govt still appears convinced by a cadre of elitists who think the ultimate aim of the system is to find out which kids and which schools are the winners. It’s weird cos people easily understand the concept of ‘value add’ in other areas of their lives and in other professions – given the amount of research that goes on in education surely we must come up with better measures than national standards.
As Minister at the time you will recall the 2001 amendment which required schools to set *their own* achievement targets for student learning based on some sort of evidence of student need (the good ones like Allan were already doing it). I think that policy was the right way to go to focus schools (and the Ministry) on what really matters. At the time principals were saying it was the thin edge of the wedge, slippery slope etc, and that sooner or later the ministry (government) would start setting the targets for them. i’m sorry to see that day appears to have come.
Back to the original question:
EDUCATION STANDARDS – WHO ARE THEY FOR?
(1) Education Review Office – makes their job easier. If a school is out of favour, education standards are wonderful stick to beat the living daylights out of any teacher, manager or board! “What are you doing about low reading levels among your Year 1 Maori boys?” for example. Justification is created for a review in 1 year’s time – need more reviewers – empire building.
(2) Ministry of Education – they can get the ERO Report and use that to bash schools over the head! Increased intervention, advisor, stat manager, commissioner – need someone to manage them – empire building!
(3) Governments and Oppositions – MPs have absolutely no idea of learing in the modern liberal environment, and sadly there are ex-teachers in Parliament who are way out of touch. It makes it possible for an MP to say “40 percent of students leaving Year 1 do not know their alphabet!” I am serious.
(4) Parents – They are provided with a big stick to beat teachers and managers over the head – and to complain to the Minstry of Education. This is good because we can’t have state employees or MPs being proactive in a positive way. Why not cash in on the worst fears of parents? This fuels the demonisation cycle.
(5) The media – They get their headlines by collating league tables as we have seen effectively in Metro, North and South, Nanny Herald and Sunday gutter press.
Teachers survive by teaching to the tests, and pushing marginal students over the line. And god says this is good.
Very young students stress out trying to make their school look good. They learn early if they are to be a success or a failure. They get force fed numeracy and literacy. Gifted kids start to play up after being tested on “Key facts” for the umpteenth time.
Teaching of culture and development of creativity ? Well they don’t fit on the production line do they?s
What has happened to the new curriculum – differentiation anyone?
I have had horribly negative experiences where I have told parents that even tho their child is trying hard and making progress they are well below the norm. One couple were so crushed they stopped coming to interviews even tho their child did a tremendous job of catch up in her year 4 year.
They should be treated with extreme caution. Much better to concentrate on progress made.
anne collins
These are all very well thought out comments.
I wonder if Anne Tolley reads Trevor Mallard’s blog?
I am a principal of a school and we discussed the national standards consultation information at staff meeting yesterday. Two key points emerged.
1. The setting of, and reporting on, national standards goes against everything we believe about education and how children learn. For many (paricularly students) it will till take the joy out of learning and for many (particularly teachers) it will take the joy out of teaching. We value the importance of play, artistic expression and children taking responsibility for their learning. We also believe and commit to the notion of meeting our children’s NEEDS. This will get lost in the drive for standards.
2. We enjoy positive relationships with our school community. We celebrate our children’s successes and the ‘value added’. We have no desire to label children and their parents as failures. (Our SEA data already tells us that the majority of our chilren arrive at our school lacking the basic literacy skills.) We are proud of the job we do and our data tells us we do our job effectively.
Schools will spend 80% of their time trying to lift the bottom 20% whilst focusing on reading writing and numeracy. ERO will bury these schools for narrowing their curriculum. The press will crucify these schools if they do not.Demographic shifts will be accentuated – putting quality curriulum delivery at risk.
Meriana
i recently heard Anne Tolley speak in person at a Teacher’s conference. She was asked about the word “productivity” or the “lack of productivity” she mentioned in the education budget, when it came to achievement at schools. I hope someone else can either confirm what I heard or deny (and i will hope i have got it wrong) that the national govt are cutting funding for extra teachers because there are enough in schools already and the outcome (student achievement) is still low, or below where it should be, so we need to get what teachers we have got to do a “better” job by implementing these national standards. Meanwhile, cost cutting has already occured – EHSAS funding (which means Extending High Standards across Schools) gets cut from end of this year. THere are other examples – and for what! to put funding and (National Standards) efforts into Literacy and Numeracy AGAIN. I fear that what we will end up with is already stressed out, pressured teaching professionals, and stressed out pressured kids – AND what of the 21st Century learner, curious and creative, AND them not being allowed to be curious and creative till their literacy and numeracy standards are where they have to be. What of the wonderful New Zealand Curriculum and Marautanga o Aotearoa in one hand and all the opportunities we have to develop life long learners then in the other hand (twisted behind our back)are the national standards! WHat a contradiction, hypocritical situation we find ourselves in.
Oh and if funding is not being made available for more teachers I am also concerned about small schools (sole charge ones)being on the agenda once more – to cut costs or pay for their “promises”.
I’m not sure of the right way to do this technically but Chris Ashby sent me the following email which gives a quite different point of view – not one I share – and he has given me permission to copy it here:-
In my view, league tables that jolt people off their backsides are good for driving institutions and individuals within them away from complacency into action – government (of whatever colour or blend) invests enormous amounts in education, so why should the tax payer not see the results across institutions – publish the league tables which include completions, enrolments, periods of study over years, etc … put it in the public arena and discuss it positively. Better than the weak go to the wall and quietly disappear.
If government cannot justify the investment, then why do it? But also back league tables up with published discussion around what they mean.
We spend so much time on anti-smacking in the media, when kids and adults are being killed from all sorts of perversions arsing in part from poor educational standards and lack of self worth – educating the mind holistically around human values as well as skills. Its about time that government actually put sensible issues out there in the community to be debated – like quality of education and its impact on social and economic development …
Chris Asby BSc PhD
Project Manager
Projects Office
Waiariki Institute of Technology
Rotorua
Reality check. It’s a competitive world and we all want the best for our kids whether you are a parent or a school. Our merit assemblies,trophy shelves and hallways of champions bear witness to this. Our kids leave school and lo and behold find that it’s competitive out there as well for jobs etc. They soon learn that our country competes for business on a global market…you get my drift. League tables support competitive ways of thinking and reinforce competitive practises for those who choose to acknowledge them as a means of proving their worth or what they do.
But any good educator knows that there is more to learning measurement than league tables, and as some of you have already implied, league tables can be used to compare peas with peas or peas with beans. They can be used to mean whatever you want them to mean and for whatever purpose, and we are all aware that there are many agendas out.
Schools that are in touch with their communities and are innovative enough to rise to the challenges of ‘communal disparities’ with good leadership and sound learning and teaching practises imbedded in up to date research have nothing to fear from the likes of league tables. A school’s best champion is it’s community. Keep them well informed and schools have nothing to fear from outside publicity that might not tell the full story of its school’s performance. Rest assured that when a school does well by its learners everybody knows!
National Standards are a national shame,and will undermine the new curriculum. Anne Tolley isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to formulating sound education policy. This is not about reporting to parents in plain language, it’s about teacher bashing when the gaps aren’t closing and schools will be blamed. What about socio-economic factors? Is there no correlation anymore? We need to have conversations with parents but not media driven ones.
Megs
The teacher bashing you refer to is unfortunately a symptom of the negative environment that schools have become.
Specifically Under National, schools of low decile will tend to get the annual bashing from the education police – the ERO. Schools of high decile will coast along, with a friendly ERO review every five years – except for the odd one that will embarrass them from time to time!
Morale of the low decile schools will slump further. Who can blame parents for not wanting to stand for Boards of Trustees? Who can blame teachers and families for maximising their decile when choosing a school?
The first requirement for good learning and creativity is to minimise stress levels, but this never receives a weighting from the education police – even though it is conducive to higher motivation levels of learner and teacher.
The issues of state education seem to be too formidable for the politicians and bureaucrats to handle at all levels. Trying hard does not automatically produce results!
The way things are going, it is only a matter of time until the current government gets burned on education. Adult Community Education, Special Needs, Early Childhood .. all about to be out of kilter from what I can make out from good sources of information like Red Alert.
I’ve just been to a presentation from some nice Ministry people about how these standards might be reported to parents. There’s a consultation on through the Ministry’s website for feedback before 3 July. (They’re the Ministry so they can’t challenge government policy, but have to implement govt policy.) The proposed way of reporting was presented in the now ubiquitous A3 sheet with coloured diagrammes (there must have been some directive from cabinet that all policy stuff must be presented this way).
There are some good aspects, for example, in the brief summary of the child’s progress against the National Standards (which are only in three areas – maths, reading and writing) there is a box explaining some examples of what the school will be doing and what you can do at home eg ‘make a regular time to read quietly together’.
But the dangerous part is that progress against the national standard is tracked on a Plunket like graph, or with little figures showing ‘well below’ or ‘just above’ standard etc. Graphs are fine for those who fall in the middle or above, and parents whose children are in the top percentiles will be very happy and probably boast about it (and I imagine unofficial league tables will result).
But what about kids with special educational needs or whose strengths are not in standardised maths and literacy, or who are already disengaged from school, so who will be lower on the graph or judged to be below standard? They will very soon feel like failures and their parents despondent. So much for life long learning and continuing expectations of achievement. This exclusionary and judgmental practice will see the tail of underachievement continuing to grow.
These standards and reporting against them (and this actual way of reporting is still in draft) is actually contrary to good educational practice which seeks to engage students in life-long student-centred learning. Good schools are already reporting to parents very well on their child’s progress and also general aspects of the curriculum, such as parent evenings on numeracy. By all means give specific examples of what parents can do to help at home (such as was done in that Team Up campaign with Tana Umanga), but reporting so visually and bluntly against a national standard is dangerous and unfair to our children, who are not starting on a level playing field.
The Ministry of Ed’s consultation for the standards and reporting is at http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/Consultation/nationalstandards
and the A3 sheet is here
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/Consultation/NationalStandards/~/media/MinEdu/Files/NationalStandards/ReportingToParentsExampleA3.pdf
Sorry the previous post I did on this seems to have got lost in a blogosphere dark hole. It related to potential reporting on the standards and the A3 sheet that parents will/could get. Presented like a plunket graph and visually like paper cut out dolls – it will be fine for the high achievers, but devastating for those children and parents who will be mapped below the line or labelled as below standard, eg those with special needs, ESOL, or those whose strengths are not in maths and literacy, and especially those already disengaged from school. These are just the groups that we need to put extra effort into, not turn them off learning as soon as they get their first report.
Good schools already have very good reporting to parents, based on each child and their progress, and also run curriculum evenings for parents. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage good schools to teach those who are struggling rather than map each child against some national standard?
I forgot that programme of inter-school educational mentoring and partnership got cut in the Budget.
Used in the right way, the A3 sheet could be a very useful document. I recognise it as the kind of output that asTTle is capable of producing.
There have been times in the education progress of family members, where the classroom has been a black box to me – with little in the way of homework (such as research, reading or revision) coming home.
The approach could be used to positive effect for negotiation among teacher, parent and student.
On the other hand, care will need to be taken, because each learner is a unique individual. There needs to be acceptance that there will not always be correspondence between Year at School and Level of Learning. But then there is not always a correspondence involving personal maturity and confidence either!
However a systematic series of learning goals from new entrants to Level 1 NCEA does have appeal. It exists in national curriculum documents now – there does appear to be merit in national stepping stones to save a lot of reinvention of the wheel.
I see Trevor that you are offering to assist Anne Tolley in finding a compromise for National Standards implementation, that would stop the league tables. Hot off the press:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10581428
In Morning Report however, I think Anne Tolley was implying that there was nothing she could do to stop this happening. Am I correct?
I would be suspicious that the National Party likes the idea of league tables. Your offer will be a good test – we should find out whether there is a hidden agenda here.
The Official Information Act is NZ law. Parliament can change the law. I agree it is a Tolley test which will establish whether she has been acting in good faith.
Trevor:
Who is the Official Information Act for? You might want to have a look at — and a serious think — about No Right Turn’s response at http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2009/06/mallard-vs-oia.html
And while you’re quite right to say Parliament can change the Official Information Act as it sees fit, one might think you would be the last person who’d want to see “I don’t like how you might use the information” as a grounds for secrecy.
First draft – current view has possible SOP to Education Bill before the Committee:-
Official Information (Protection of School Level Assessment Information) Amendment Bill
Member’s Bill
Explanatory Note
There is considerable concern among teachers, parents and other parts of the education community as a consequence of the Government’s policy of National Standards at primary schools.
The Government has indicated that their policy is aimed at providing parents with clearer information about student performance. However, Minister of Education has also stated that schools would not be able to withhold this information if it were requested under the Official Information Act.
The Government has denied that this is an intended consequence of their policy. This being the case, it is important to address this issue by clarifying the Official Information Act to make it clear that schools cannot publicly release school level assessment information.
Clause by clause analysis
Clause 1 is the Title provision.
Clause 2 provides for the Bill to come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.
Clause 3 sets out the purpose of the Bill.
Clause 4 defines the Principal Act as the Official Information Act 1982.
Clause 5 inserts in section 2(1) a definition of “school level information”.
Clause 6 inserts a new section 6A in the Principal Act.
Hon Trevor Mallard
Official Information (Protection of School Level Assessment Information) Amendment Bill
Member’s Bill
Contents
1. Title
2. Commencement
3. Purpose
4. Principal Act Amended
5. Interpretation
6. New Section 6A inserted
____________________________
The Parliament of New Zealand enacts as follows:
1. Title
This Act is the Official Information (Protection of School Level Assessment Information) Amendment Act 2009.
2. Commencement
This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it received the Royal Assent.
3. Purpose
The purpose of this Act is to amend the Official Information (Protection of School Level Assessment Information) Amendment Bill to ensure that schools can withhold information on school level assessment.
4. Principal Act Amended
This Act amends the Official Information Act 1982.
5. Intepretation
Section 2(1) is amended by inserting the following definition in the appropriate alphabetical order:
“school level information means data which relates to the whole or part of a school, including a class in a school”
6. New Section 6A inserted
The following section is inserted after section 6:
“6A School level assessment information must not be publicly released.
(1) Despite any other provision of this Act, organisations including, but not limited to schools, the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office, must not publicly release school level assessment information.
(2) Nothing in subclause (1) prevents the release of information:
a. relating to an individual child to the parents or guardians of that child
b. the sharing of information between teachers and staff within a school environment
c. the sharing of information between schools, the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office.
First of all, I would disagree that the hurdles set in these standards are too low. I went to a meeting of teachers in regards to the alignment of NCEA to the new curriculum and the subject of National Standards came up. Some teachers said that if the students came into class at Year 11 doing all the things currently prescribed all the things a Year 8 student can do, they’d probably be in a top streamed class. It seems that the hurdles are too high for the average student!
I suspect with the unions going the way they are there is going to be a showdown with Anne Tolley.
There are a few reasons that your side is going to have difficulty.
Firstly, the National Standards (NS) are one of the Government’s election policies. People are generally distrustful of politicians. Many have said “the government doesn’t keep its promises”. And here you are, advocating against one of the government’s election pledges.
Furthermore while you are more concerned about a possible side effect, league tables, it has muddied the waters. I haven’t seen a credible, demonstrable opposition to NS by ordinary parents. All I have seen is the Labour Party and union machines mobilise against a centre-right government policy. No member of the public (bar die hard Labour and Green supporters) is going to be terribly excited about this.
You are advocating for the results to be more secret than stuff held by the security bureau – I won’t rehash this as others have made this argument.
And regardless of the merits of NS, or league tables, the very fact that you want to hide this information from the public is damning in itself. Your main objection to NS, via league table proxy, seems to be that the public is too stupid too know. That they are unable to analyse the context (typically in response to socioeconomic status) for themselves. I find that to be a defeatist, arrogant attitude. It also makes the public think you have something to hide – I’m sure you’ve had plenty of public pressure to disclose your expenses as an MP.
National Standards for education? Where are the national standards for health, housing, equity, income? get all that stuff right and whammo no more issues around achievement at school. Double whammo – schools save money on breakfast clubs and the like, the government saves money on Special Ed/High Behaviour needs/teacher aides and the like. First things first please.