At the end of last year eighty Principals in Te Tai Tokerau said they were going to boycott the implementation of the National Standards until the Minister could produce evidence that they were going to make a difference to student achievement.
The most vocal of these Principals I know personally and they run hugely successful schools. They set high achievement standards, have high expectations of their staff and achieve excellent results – probably better than the National Standards expect.
If they go ahead with this boycott it will be interesting to see how the Minister responds. If they break the law then what will the consequences be?
Will the Minister sack them? Will she sack their Boards of Trustees? That would look great for the Minister, sacking successful Principals because they wouldn’t do what she told them to do. How naughty of them.
These Principals actually know how what it takes to make kids learn. All they are asking is for evidence that National Standards will make a difference. I’d like to see the research evidence that Anne Tolley referred to when she decided National Standards were the way to raise achievement as high and as fast as possible.
@George – my impressions are the opposite of yours. I have done some research on education histories and been on boards of trustees. Historically, especially when corporal punishment was common and teachers could get away with some questionable and unfair teaching practices, there did not seem to be much respect for them from students who are now of course parents and grandparents. The occasional teacher may be singled out for praise but mostly people reported that they disliked school and could not wait to leave.
However, kids and parents of the schools I have been involved with are much more positive about schools and teachers generally. I think teaching standards are expectations are much higher now (especially in lower decile schools where some teachers are particularly innovative and dedicates). I was on a board when the teachers had their wage dispute when Trevor was minister and that was a testing time for all, but the result was better pay and conditions and throughout it all there was more public sympathy than anger for the teachers. (Although of course Trevor might see it differently.)
I have yet to find a parent who is in favour of this new regime after the points in the above posts have been explained (eg@Matt). The teaching and management of some schools is a bit tired or conservative and they aren’t reporting and relating to parents and students as they could do, but the answer to this is professional development and mentoring from peer enthusiastic educators.
@ Matt – The statistics were produced by Tolley’s own Ministry, under her watch, and were released by the Minister herself. If they were manipulated, then it was a spectacular failure on her part!
@ Fizzelplug – I think that you’ll find the reality is the opposite. Every government has (at some point in time) been challenged by the public service on the policies it seeks to implement. Sometimes that challenge is done in public (such as Correction staff threatening to strike over double-bunking) and sometimes in might just be a quite word to the Minister that the policy they’re seeking to implement is crap and will not work. In government, public servants are the only constant – while governments come and go in 3 year periods, public servants can remain for decades. As such, they have considerable experience, and understand the issues better. They are the experts, and that is the reason Ministers take advice from them. Public servants should not simply walk away if the government is going to make a mistake – they should challenge the government. For instance, if the government was going to remove cancer treatment for anyone over the age of 50, I would expect all of the doctors employed in our public hospitals to refuse to implement such policies.
@ George – All of my acquaintances at the local bowling club think lawn bowls is the best game in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s a popular game.
HF : “@ George – All of my acquaintances at the local bowling club think lawn bowls is the best game in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s a popular game.”
I think that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make as well…
@ H.Fee im sure Tolley didnt manipulate the statitics either but if you look at it this way she could have easily overexatrated the situation to make a Political Point like many politicians do nowadays.
This is what politics is about using sometimes cunning moves to survive, of coarse not all politicians act this way but i suspect a certain minority would at some point in their political career
@Matt
The 20% of children that are failing I’ve read somewhere are the ones where english is their 2nd lanuage, have learning difficulties or families that don’t value education. These children are not going to do any better by testing them with the national standards tests.
@ Matt – Tolley could not possibly have over-exaggerated the situation to score political points if she tried. The statistics speak for themselves and they tell us that an overwhelming majority of parents have only negative things to say about the introduction of national standards to New Zealand’s education system.
All they are asking is for evidence that National Standards will make a difference
I just want to know how my kids are doing. Compared to a benchmark. What’s wrong with that?
Do they still have the reading comprehension tests that showed what level we were at? Is that not sill around? Just wondering if that is around still.
@Bea – OK, you get a Minister-approved plain language report that says your 6 year old is in the bottom 20% of New Zealand 6 year olds at reading a particular book on a particular day.
What then? That is the difficult part that this policy does not address.
I see John Key at Ratana claimed that his main focus this year will be on standards testing which will somehow ‘give every New Zealand child a chance to succeed at life’. Actually, no, not with this policy.
We already know how John Key thinks every child in NZ can have a chance to succeed in life – send them to a private school. He demonstrated this during the election when he told a group of primary school kinds that his children go to a private school and if “you work really hard, you might be able to one day too”. The National government also demonstrated this last year when they gave out scholarships for poor children to attend private schools to give them a better chance in life – state schools are obviously not good enough.
@HFee – I think this policy has come about partly because many of the MPs pushing it have children in private schools or high decile schools. Private school and high decile school reports are often incomprehensible and their reporting to parents – and engagement with families – often not very user friendly. So parents assume this is how it is with most schools. They also assume that the private school education is superior – well they have to with the huge amounts of money they spend on it – and think national standards will show their children as somehow superior.
It will be no surprise that high decile schools have mainly high achieving students (from well-resourced middle class families) – but are these schools actually adding value to their students? This is something that standards could actually show over time with lots of resourcing – that low decile schools + good teaching and learning programmes = measurably better educational outputs.
So when you measure these students and publish the results, then what do you do? That is the work I am engaged in in the UK. It costs millions of pounds to raise the 20% who are falling behind? has anyone asked where is the budget commitment to do just that in New Zealand? if not, then why are you testing and publishing the results? Are you trying to encourage the old white flight?
I could say much more but it is nearly midnight after a long week working with schools to force improvement and I am not yet convinced that we have the answers.
@fizzleplug – “If I don’t like what I’m told to do at my job, I can leave. So can they.”
Yes – its called industrial action – and come mid year, they are able to do just that. Will it lose goodwill with the public – prob as what will parents do with all these children unable to go to school? How much lost earnings across the board will there be when parents have to stay at home to deal with childcare – what impact will this have? If it comes to pass, it will be a desperate measure, but one that should send a clear message. Teachers dont go out on strike unless its important – and if they decide to do this, or not implement stds, its because its important.
But the point will be made – replacing thousands of teachers won’t be easy and it is a mistake for Tolley to keep acting like she knows what she is doing and disrespecting the profession that does know what it is doing. There has been NO listening from her – despite reasonable requests and evidence and research provided, and compromises offered, she continues to push a platfrom that is down right wrong. What will it take for the govt to get off its high horse and listen. To not implement and to take industrial action will not be made lightly.
@George – “don’t think either has failed. If anyone has failed it was the teacher that delivered the child to teacher (a) at Level 1a in Year 8.”
Well, thats a terribly simplistic statement to make (esp if you live with a teacher) because you have not given due credit to the many many variables that need to be taken into play (special needs, including learning disability, social, emotional and behavioural factors…)that may explain why a student may present at Level 1 in year 8. It implies it was only the teachers that the student had, that is at fault (as in bad teaching) – and it is indeed these types of implied statements that (alongside all teachers getting heaps of holidays etc…) highlight how many of the public really do not know what the reality of teaching is.
@Paul – the theoretical example I was asked to comment on had a child achieving level 1a after 7 years of education, yet miraculously accelerating to level 3a in year 8. I contend that if a child is capable of that sort of attainment, which is unlocked by a single teacher, it does suggest that the teachers the child has had for the previous 7 years have been ineffective in attaining their goals.
I agree totally that the myriad of factors you quote have a bearing on a child’s attainment. I don’t think anyone would disagree. But it would be unusual circumstances which had these resolved so entirely and so quickly to allow such a stellar progression in a single year.
I’m sure, as this is a theoretical example, that we could theorise on the strange situation that caused something like this to happen. But it certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable, when faced with this sort of explosion in performance from bottom of the pile to almost the expected standard, to question why it has taken so long to achieve, and whether the teachers the child had in years 1 to 7 needed remedial training to help them to match the performance of their year 8 colleague.
Clearly inate ability in the child was not the issue in this, albeit theoretical, case…
@H.Fee – “@ Matt – Tolley could not possibly have over-exaggerated the situation to score political points if she tried.”
Yes, she can – three examples of misrepresenting data that come to mind are the teacher ratios she wanted to get rid of (not understanding that meant jobs), Aorangi schools fudged data (she said they were failing but they were not), stating the majority of parents were behind nat stds – but it was based on a small set of data, and was skewed to sound better than it was…so, yes, she can and she does. Perhaps it is based on her bad advice from her policy advisors and staff – but all the same, in each of those cases, she was given correct data from the sector, yet either failed to read it, understand it or act on it. SO, the mistrust in her that is growing by the day within the sector is justified and the public need to understand that if the sector (who are about what is best for kids) has this mistrust and concern, then so should they. Who should you trust? If it was health (as used as an example above) and the docs all said – this policy is bad for patients – we would tend to worry and believe them. This should be the same with education.
@George – point taken – however, what I was saying is that there are many many variables – and it is the same for your ‘theoretical example’. That child may have been hospitalised, may have been flicked from one school to another (some kids by the time they get to yr7/8 have been to many schools – some in the double figures)or may have spent much time out of the system for one reason or another. So, it is complex. And, of course, teacher engagement/ability may have been one factor.
Interesting article on the BBC News website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8479426.stm
In the UK two of the teaching unions (the NUT and NAHT) are threatening to boycott SATs testing for 11 year olds but the other large teachers’ union (NASUWT) says it wants to keep the tests.
Anne Tolley has dismissed the primary and intermeidate teaching profession, leading educational academics and other educational organisations.
It is time for her to produce the research that shows that national standards WILL improve learning outcomes for our most vulnerable tamariki.
I keep asking and have yet to receive a satisfactory response from anyone. ‘How does labelling a child, as not meeting the standard, enable them to meet the standard?’