Anne Tolley needs to explain how National Standards and plain language reporting lead to raised achievement.
Having a target to aim at doesn’t mean that the target will be hit.
If we take the target analogy – say an archery bullseye – the best way someone can hit that bullseye is if they are taught how to do it.
Now I can tell someone to hold the bow and arrow, take aim and fire, but there are no guarantees that I’ll be an effective instructor - whereas an expert archer will have more chance of getting the learner to hit that target a lot sooner, more often, from a greater distance with a lot less effort.
I could also report that the target has been missed by a few centimetres, a few yards or a country mile, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the person to actually hit the target.
This is where the fixation on National Standards and plain language reporting are missing a vital point – the only way we will get kids to learn is by making sure they have expert instruction – or should I say excellent teachers.
Anne Tolley, in her recent speech to the NZEI says “National Standards will help us get the best possible results for our children”, that “National Standards will lift student achievement by providing clear expectations af what students should be able to achieve in literacy and numeracy and by when, and will help inform teaching and learning.”
I say she is missing a vital point and that is National Standards are simply words on a bit of paper, they do not teach anyone, anything.
Only excellent teachers can make kids learn in the classroom.
Only excellent teachers will analyse the results of achievement data and be able to make decisions about what the next steps s/he needs to take to make kids learn.
Excellent teachers would make kids learn regardless of National Standards.
When Anne Tolley decides to support all teachers to become excellent then we will see achievement rise.
Excellent teachers:
- use research based best practice teaching strategies
- have excellent relationships with students and their families
- teach a relevant and engaging curriculum.
Teacher training and teacher professional development needs to focus on supporting all teachers to be able to do this and creating the conditions where those excellent teachers can weave their magic.
Until we focus on improving teaching so that kids learn we won’t see a significant improvement in student achievement.
Plain English for the parents and textlish for their children.
I agree, a bad teacher can just make a student watch the clock.
If I stand at the bottom of Mt Everest point to the summit and say to a climber “that’s where you want to end up” there is no guarantee he’ll make it, even if after 6 months I tell his parents in plain language “He’s a quarter of the way to the top now. He really should be half way there” it doesn’t mean he’ll make it to the top.
What that climber (learner) needs is an expert mountaineer beside him/ her all the way giving specific advice, guidance and instruction as to what needs to be done every step of the way and going on the journey with the climber.
An excellent teacher is the same – guiding, advising, instructing, explaining, repeating, coaching, leading, explaining in different ways – until progres is made.
Just stating the final objective is pointless without the support to go with it.
In fact, a mountain climbing instructor without his ropes, crampons, climbing axe and expert knowledge, will be unable to support the novice climber – just as a teacher without the resources and expert knowledge to teach will be unable to support the learner.
For our kids to learn, our excellent teachers need to be supported with the knowledge, skills, attitude, conditions and resources to do the job.
If excellent teachers are so important, why then insist on paying all teachers, excellent and otherwise the same regardless of the quality of what they do?
@Mark Wright – So you don’t agree that excellent teachers make kids learn? How do you suggest excellent teachers are identified?
Mark: It is very hard to know what is excellence in teaching. Some say that a silent room and neat writing and following directions on how it must be done is good teaching.
Some say that a busy classroom full of busy work is good teaching.
Some say that a busy room with many intersactions between teacher/learner and between learner/learner and learners making mistakes is good teaching.
Maybe they all are but different. Then take on the variables. Have a go mate!
Ian and Kelvin,
The idea that you can’t identify good teachers is nonsense. I agree with your implied point, teachers should not be paid solely based on the success of their students. But you can identify good teachers without solely looking at grades. Every other private sector employer manages to do it. You go and ask a principle, another teacher, heck even a student and I guarantee they will be able to identify who the best and worst teachers are at their school.
So why not pay good teachers more, to provide an incentive to become those excellent teachers that we sorely need?
As a parent I welcome this move. Anything that makes it easier to understand how my children (and the school they attend) are performing is welcomed.
I do understand why teachers, particularly under performing teachers and their respective principles would be worried. It is human nature not to want to be exposed as being less than adequate at your profession. But surely this is the whole point. If the standards allow schools to be identified as having an over-representation of under performing teachers then those schools can be targeted for assistance, or remedial training for those teachers who need it.
As a Labour supporter I really scratch my head at the objections to this, this seems to be well in line with giving all our kids a fair go, with teachers being integral to this concept.
You are missing the point with this post. Yes of course its about ‘hitting the bulls eye’ and having excellent instructors / teachers to enable that. But how can you know if you have those excellent teachers without the measurement tools. Dont be afraid of assessing teachers and schools performance, after all, they subject our children to it each day they are at school.
Greg
I wanted to know how Mark Wright would identify excellent teachers.
Again the argument moves from supporting all teachers to becoming excellent, to one of performance pay.
Performance pay won’t make good teachers great or great teachers excellent.
Yep, you could ask teachers, principals, students and parents who the excellent teachers are, and that would be one measure, but that’s a fairly unscientific way of doing things and I doubt if it would be helpful in raising achievement on its own. Believe me, I’ve seen crap teachers pull the wool over parents eyes, and I’ve seen teachers praised by some parents and some students, who are roundly condemned by other parents and students. Similarly some teachers are recognised by some colleagues and condemned by other colleagues.
Teacher aides and support staff often have fairly strong opinions as to who is a good teacher and who is not. We could ask them too.
I’ve also had conversations with local newspaper reporters who have an opinion on who in the community is a good or bad teacher, we could ask the local media.
Also locals in the pub have an opinion on whose a good or bad teacher, we better not miss them out.
Gus
Being able to report in plain language doesn’t mean a teacher is effective and that is the whole point of this post. I know poor teachers who will be able to report where a child is achieving, but that doesn’t mean the child will be achieving a National Standard.
I’ve got no problems with plain language reporting. I was getting staff at Kaitaia Intermediate School to do that 6 years ago.
We were stating what the achievement expectation was (against the achievement objectives and Levels in the NZ Curriculum) where the child was achieving, whether it was above below or at the expected achievement level, what the child’s progress since the last report was, what the child had learned and what the child and teacher would concentrate on next.
We didn’t spend millions of dollars to make this happen, we just did it. Many other schools also already do it. The Minister could save a whole lot of time and effort by putting out examples of good reporting formats and then get ERO to check that its being done well, and just those schools who aren’t doing it well get help to do it right.
Why are people falling into the trap of mistaking:
Good reporting = Good teaching?
when the reality is…
Good reporting = Good reporting (nothing else)
and…
Good teaching = Raised achievement.
If we want to raise achievement we need to focus on the act of teaching.
Kelvin, you misunderstand me and it’s my fault. I didn’t intend for the context of this thread to imply support for the reporting initiative – I’m fairly ambivalent about that. But to make the point that I find it a bit rich for a Labour MP to argue for excellent teachers while supporting a national award for teachers which has virtually nothing to do with their competence.
You ask how I’d identify good teachers and imply that unless there’s a thoroughly accurate, “scientific” way of doing so, there’s no point. Is it your contention that teaching is somehow special in the difficulty of recognising good performance? Or is is that teachers are special and should only have performance pay if it’s foolproof.
How would you identify good software developers?
You can’t find a scientific way to do so? Better pay them all the same to make sure we don’t underpay anyone. That includes paying the ones who get to work at the nice lab in Napier the same as the ones who are stuck in the middle of nowhere working on futile projects.
You say, “Performance pay won’t make good teachers great or great teachers excellent”. Of course it won’t. However it will discourage many crap teachers from staying on and might just prevent some of the really good ones getting fed up and quitting as they see their achievement recognised.
Why do we have varying pay rates for teachers depending upon their qualification, a degree will get a teacher on a Q3 step 10 level $12k/p.a extra than one with a diploma Q1 step 10. Both performing the same duties?
By implication you could get the impression that teaching qualifications are far more important to the union (And with their association also with Labour) than outcomes to the students.
What’s missing from this discussion is the fact that different kids start school with different levels of skill/knowledge and learn at different rates. Some kids attend ECE, some don’t. Some kids have parents who read to/with them at home, some have parents who can’t read themselves (tragically).
An average teacher can look good if the kids they are working with are starting higher up the ladder, while an excellent teacher can be undervalued if they are working with kids who are behind before the ‘race’ has even started.
Schools know which teachers are good and which aren’t. They know in part by measuring performance using some sort of standardised assessment (like the National Standards would be based on).
Most state schools have appraisals twice a year, where teachers are observed (planning/assessment records also checked) against such measures as the NZ Teachers Council’s Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions – soon to change to the registered teacher criteria. Competency provisions already exist, whereby Principals can put in place a programme to assist a teacher to improve their skills. If this fails, then dismissal can ultimately occur.
Herodotus, you have bungled up the primary teachers (including APs and DPs) base salary scale and have reported some incorrect facts. Take another look on page 14 of the Collective Agreement. It is rather complex and while a teacher’s starting salary step is determined by their tertiary qualifications, movement up the scale relates to experience and promotion, and then on top of that there are 4k/year units for extra responsibilities.
Kelvin, I think Chris is touching on a matter that you and your mate John Hattie appear to down play. I have taught in low decile and high decile schools. Most of the high decile students who I currently teach have above average achievement in reading, writing, speaking/listening, maths and topic areas. And no I don’t rest on my laurels once they reach the ’standard’. A significant amount of their achievement relates to some of the points Chris touched on, including early childhood experiences and literacy/numeracy experiences in the home. In many ways children a product of our incredibly stratified society and their academic performance is not solely indicative of their teacher.
Labour should focus on closing the socio economic/class divide that has emerged in the last 25 years. Most teachers do the best that they/we can and work long hours. Our job would be a lot easier, especially in middle to low decile schools, if we didn’t have to deal with the social dysfunction (and disruptive behaviours) that have erupted from social inequalities.
Chris, the reason the fact that kids “learn at different rates” is missing from the discussion, is that it’s irrelevant.
Sure, you have to take it in to account when deciding *how* to structure performance pay, but it has no bearing on the question as to *whether* to pay according to performance. A straight equation of school grades to teachers’ pay is not what any of us has in mind (well certainly not me).
Why does this argument always get raised? There are dozens of professions in which pay is determined with far more nuance than a naive output figure calculated independently of input.
Note too that I’m not talking about performance bonuses, determined at year on some metric, but about basic salaries which, like salaries for other professions should be set according to a range of attributes affecting the teacher’s ability in the job.
As someone involved in the shaping of the current agreement I think a couple of points are missing. We did move to encourage teachers to improve their qualifications by paying them more. We also put in thousands of additional flexibile units into schools so that leading classroom teachers could be recognised with extra pay. Previously the only way of paying them more was to take them out of the classroom.
Plain english reporting – been there, done that six years ago. It’s a good thing, just do it without pretending it’s going to raise achievement.
National Standards – having a target doesn’t mean the target will get hit. National Standards could have been set up in ten minutes using the existing achievement objectives and curriculum levels in the NZ Curriculum. There’s been a lot of ‘busy work’ developing them over the last 11 months. For those who aren’t teachers, ‘busy work’ is what poor teachers get kids to do to give off the impression stuff is being done.
Performance pay – if you line educational issues up in order from ‘most effective at raising achievement’ through to ‘least effective at raising achievement’ it sits somewhere on the continuum, just not in the top ten most effective issues. It’s time will come, but only when the really important stuff is dealt with, such as making sure every child, in every class, in every school has an excellent teacher in front of them.
Many have omitted that the fact that for the excellent teacher to weave magic in the class room the children need to come from an excellent environment. Factors in an excellent environment include a clean and warm bed, nourishing food, clean and comfortable clothing, parents who are present taking an interest, fun and meaningful regular physical activity, set routines and a knowledge that they are cherished.
For parents to provide an excellent environment they need meaninful and well paid work, afforable housing, a supportive health system, effective and efficient trans port systems, a clean ecosystem and the multitude of other factors the make for a highly functioning society.
National standards provide none of this.
I keep saying that the government needs to “create the conditions where excellent teachers can weave their magic”, this includes dealing with all the social issues out there, but even when those conditions are dealt with, if we don’t have excellent teachers achievement won’t improve.
Again, as Principal of Kaitaia Intermediate School, a school deemed ‘most at risk north of Auckland’ in 2001, we managed to raise achievement when we focussed on improving the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the teachers. You can be assured the social conditions outside of the school gate didn’t improve at all, but when we focussed on what we had the power to change inside the school gate, i.e. our behaviour as the teachers, achievement improved.
I’m not saying it was easy, but teachers can’t wait around for all kids to turn up to school well fed, loved, clothed etc before they decide they are going to make a difference.
I was in education for twenty years and not once did I have a class where every child came from a nice environment. If I used that as an excuse, then no kids would have ever learned.
Well said Kelvin. Good teachers will make the best of what they have. And yes Vivienne, the results will vary according to the background of the children, but better teachers should still achieve better results.
However Kelvin, I think you miss my point when you say (of performance pay), “It’s time will come, but only when the really important stuff is dealt with, such as making sure every child, in every class, in every school has an excellent teacher in front of them”.
My contention is that performance pay is one (big) thing you can do to help get excellent teachers in front of every child. Or at least get bad teachers out from in front.
Well organised performance-based pay would also make me (as a taxpayer) feel much happier about paying (good) teachers much more.
National standards
I don’t think the profession has an issue with National Standards per say – heck, we already have those in some various forms. The issues are more indepth than that – for starters, using them for performance pay is inequitable – as previous posts have highlighted. To suggest schools do not know where their students are is ridiculous – teachers and principals know where their children sit, after all, there are many tools, including the curriculum, that measure this. The majority of schools do this well already. To use the data in a misinformed way – that is the main issue, as the context and variables are not easily shown.
Plan Reporting to Parents
This occurs in the majority of schools already. I agree that to provide a number of good examples, and have ERO check it out, is a better solution. To suggest this is the driver behind Nat Stds is a political play that got votes – a party playing on the public in an irresponsible way. Do not be naive enough to think there is no other hidden agenda. Nat stds will lead to all the ‘goodies’ of league tables, further inequity, bulk funding, performance pay, vouchers (did she not go and see these overseas recently?) and national testing – all the things that have ruined the education system in many countries. The research on this is clear. What is disturbing is that despite this clear research, the Minister refuses to listen. Yet again.
Schools already set targets – for each school the targets depend on the context – what areas need work. IF all schools are selecting the same target – irrespective of the needs of students – whose advantage is this for? Not the level of attainment for the students, rather, the agenda for the Nats. Why? To further wreck what is actually a system set up to help all students. Perhaps it is to find more money, especially if you close all the low decile schools, to give that money to the private schools.
A pig doesn’t get fatter the more times you weigh it. Just as a child doesn’t learn more the more times you test it. If someone could show me some statistical evidence as to the effectiveness of national standards then I would be all for them.