Heather Roy released her “Step Change” report yesterday. I got a copy last night and am working my way through it.
I’m into educational innovation and initiatives based on research, so won’t bash it for the sake of it. If there are bits I like, I’ll say and if there are bits I think won’t make a difference I’ll say.
I do get wary when I hear about parental choice which sounds great in theory, but, if this report is targeted at the choices of the bottom 20% and top 5%, I wonder about the impact on choices of the remaining 75%. That’s just something to keep in the back of the mind as debate about this heats up.
I do support ‘personalised learning’, but whether this report’s take on personalised learning, and my take are the same thing, remains to be seen.
I’m wary of language where students become ‘clients’ and the people who help them learn become ‘brokers’. I prefer to use the terms ‘kids’ and ‘teachers’, but at the end of the day the most important result is raised achievement, so I can get over the terminology.
I’m also wary when expectations are that this will be fiscally neutral.
Someone will need to explain whether kids in the country will have the same opportunities as those in the city. The logistics of accessing various ‘brokers’ just aren’t the same up north as they will be in say Whangarei even.
Page 12 of the report talks about several permutations within this initiative (sorry don’t have time to elaborate this morning). The on- the- ground logistics of those permutations seem pretty complicated, so I have to get my head around them all.
There will be more to come. I’ve really only got into the 15 page “Step Change” report and will need to read it over a few times to let it sink in, there’s a bigger report called “Free to Learn” that came with this that needs digesting as well.
is it publically available?
James – I had to print off a hard copy. Sorry not in office today so can’t email it to you.
Another concern – ‘brokers’ would be able to cherry pick the top 5% who are bound to succeed.
Also, how do you determine who is in the bottom 20% or top 5%/ A child may be in the top 5% in reading and writing, but may be in the 75% of ‘regular’ kids in maths. How does it work for them? What about those kids who are in the bottom 20% of PE, Music, Science, Technology students – how are they helped?
I get very depressed when people who should know better keep calling children “kids”. I was always taught that kids were baby goats and perhaps that shows what the problem with our education system is, when ministers, MPs and educators aren’t sure what species they are referring to, and attempting to educate. Please try to do better and then you might have more credibility. I don’t expect better from Tolley or Key but you could set an example.
Sounds good in PR theory.
But what about the parts of the country that produce NZ’s income.
The rural areas miss out again unless they send there kids away to school.
I like the idea in principal, but it wouldnt work and why wouldnt it be open to all students?
It would create alot more private schools and these would focus on one core subject maybe (but again, only in cities).
It wouldnt work because all schools have different timetables, and these would have to mix with another school. If we are going for a broker/private type model what school in its right mind would work to accomodate a competitors time schedule to teach a student. They just wouldnt.
Why do politicians look at an idea and say thats good before having a look at the logistics, you dont start building a house before the foundations are laid.
I worry that schools will be very happy to kick out the bottom 20% but what will the choices for that group and their families be? And who is going to pay for their transport if they have to go 50 kms to find some private company (think of something along the lines all those poor quality English language schools)who is prepared to take them. But -
Main question 1: How does this fit in with standards testing? Or has there been no consultation between the Minister and her associate on this?
Main question 2: How does this fit in with the Special Education Review that Heather Roy is currently running? I’m not aware that this scheme has been raised in the consultation.
James, both reports can be downloaded from H Roy’s website: http://www.roy.org.nz/royters
Kelvin, the terminology is very important. The nats in the 1990s adopted this very ploy to create the illusion that everything we do is about business and choice so when things go wrong government has someone else to blame.
Janice, thanks for the laugh of the morning
A child may be in the top 5% in reading and writing, but may be in the 75% of ‘regular’ kids in maths. How does it work for them? What about those kids who are in the bottom 20% of PE, Music, Science, Technology students – how are they helped?
The Stuff article said …the top, gifted children and the bottom, worst-performing children would be able to switch between schools during the school day for different subjects.
So the top kids leave the school for a different class in reading/writing, and stay at ‘regular school’ for the rest. Seems simple, what am I missing?
Janice, What establishes credibility for me is open-mindedness. What Kelvin is showing here.
Man wouldn’t there be some time wasted being stuck in traffic travelling between schools? Like, learning time being taken away by the travel itself?
So, the bottom 20% go elsewhere in each subject they are in the bottom 20%? When they stop being in the bottom 20% do they immediately have to go back to their old school class? Or is the idea to slowly empty the schools at the underachieving level and fill up the “achieving” schools?
How will it work rurally? I confess I haven’t read the report and will do so this afternoon.
He he he – who’s gonna take the low scorers? The Sallies might teach them.
I see the report recommends the US charter schools. These are basically like our private schools and can operate how they want, take who they want, and teach what they want but get lots of taxpayer money. They are known for only employing non-unionised staff.
That’s terrible
The charter schools are also very popular:
“In a 2008 survey of charter schools, 59% of the schools reported that they had a waiting list, averaging 198 students.” – Wiki
They sound very similar to private schools here, except they aren’t allowed to charge for tuition.
@Hilary there is a union for independent/private schools in New Zealand – ISEA [Independent Schools Education Union]which has membership in most independent schools and several of these schools have collective agreements for their teaching and non-teaching staff.
Have just finished reading it – interesting paper, with quite a few fish hooks that are of major concern for where this country does what it does best in the education system. Will post some of these shortly once I have re read it and digested implications for the sector. As it stands on my first reading of it, I fail to see how this can be fiscally neutral – not unless – and heres the rub – the monies used within education are reallocated – and I have misgivings about how that might happen. Timely with the special needs review happening. (from memory, also being conducted by Roy – funny that) Biggest concern I have is the statements about schools being ‘for profit’ – this is a model that I worry about – schools are not for profit (also not for loss!) places of learning. (and to have Roger Douglas as a key person in the group – that in itself is scary! What the heck does he know about quality practice) – there are far better models out there that should have been looked at – but will post later about that.
ps in order to encourage innovation in schools and clusters, collaboration is the key – not competition.
The perception that the top 5% ‘will succeed anyway’ is a fallacy. The top 5% by ability may be underachieving for a wide range of reasons and because of their intellect, feel the frustration very acutely. This programme could work for the top group by providing funding and advise for extention work within current class e.g. while Yr2 moves through reading levels, the child/ren that’s been reading anything since kindergarten works with a higher class/teacher aide/computer-based programme. There are programmes available but cost is often prohibitive for families and access for rural prople difficult. I don’t like the idea of physically moving children between schools during the day but groups working online and meeting up for a day each term would be my idea of a great plan for G&T.
prople =people.
Is anything like the system they have at the moment? They have a gifted class in the hutt where students go for one day a week and regular class the rest of the week.
I know it is in other centres as well, another is Palmerston North. Rata Street is where the gifted childrens program is in the hutt and other schools send their gifted children there for one day a week.
I am with Janice on terminolgy
I heard Trevor calling children/students “kids” this morning, I know there are older type teachers that called their students ‘kids” but it sounds so disrespectful and lazy
A Mother, this sounds more like it’s ‘per subject’ e.g. i’ve known plenty of people bad at maths but good at the humanities, possibly a better approach.
gifted kids program
@Janis and Raymon – are you kidding me?
Ooops, it’s spelt Janice.
No not per subject. They ask more questions, they study things in depth, Explore how things work etc, its more intense and in depth in certain subjects.
These type of children need to be extended or if they cover the same thing over and over again it would drive anyone crazy. They soak up information retain it so repetition is not needed as much. They will just tune out. Their minds work differently.
From what I understand they study concepts and other things in much greater detail. Its like they have an older mind in a young body, and this in itself can cause problems in a class room, especially if you have a child who has the reasoning skill of a 10yr old and is 6. That makes it hard to make friends. They need to meet children on their own wave length or childhood can become very lonely.
They do learn maths reading etc in their normal class rooms, but at the level they are at. I think this is run like an extension to keep them motivated about learning as being made to do things you already know can be very un-motivating.
SURELY SURELY Trevor
Its your birthday again ..
Te Ururoa Flavell and the Maori Party must be taken to the cleaners over this!
Every school with a high Maori proportion will be vulnerable because under the criteria of the report, most will be failures and Heather Roy and ACT will want to close them.
It is like they are trying to define away the 20 per cent – who would simply end up in some other learning environment with same disadvantages!
It will be good to see spirited Opposition under way again.
This paper is essentially a disastrous cut-and-paste from Education Forum material.
It cites the Swedish “free schools”, English “academy” schools and US Charter schools as models.
I had a quick look here at the way the Swedish system is holding up:
http://publicaddress.net/6473
Very poorly, in short. Swedish students are plummeting down world rankings in some subjects, and the head of the country’s Nation Education Agency admits the system has “”not led to better results”. Additionally, costs are rising.
And here’s last year’s comprehensive Stanford University study on US Charter schools, which found that only 17% of students received a better standard of basic education than they would have in public schools. And 37% received a “significantly” poorer basic education than they would have in the public system.
http://bit.ly/b1NLv1
The nearest to a success are the English academy schools, but that’s a very mixed bag and the working group’s paper completely mischaracterises a report on their results. Most of the problems they aim to address — school autonomy, local authority control — aren’t an issue in our system.
Frankly, if Labour members can’t blow this piece of nonsense out of the water, you should perhaps consider alternative careers.
haven’t read the artical on stuff. Just know that children in the top 5% have diffent needs and a whole range of different problems, that can lead to problems later in life if these children go unreconised and not picked up on early on, than mainstream children.
I know at the schools I went to, for maths and reading etc we were assigned to a differnt teacher and everyone went to a different class within the school depding on their ability for those subjects. Hmmm. I wonder how that would work if it came to pay preformance as different teachers would teach your child. This worked well in the state primary and intermediate school I attended anyway, though we are talking about the mid 80’s.
Posted this on Heather Roy’s site but not much action over there.
My proposal: A government-funded Educational Psychologists assessment for all children by age 7! Identify the gifted, identify the at-risk and twice-exceptional, identify the strengths/weaknesses of the average and arm the school with truely individual information with which to best educate the child. Expensive -yes, relatively, but the economic gain for NZ could be huge.
Also, if a child is above the National Standard for a Yr 1 student (across the curriculum) at aged 4 why are they not able to be educated at their level. Pre-schools have no GATE funding or advisors and schools can’t enrol before 5 yo (insurance??). If the child is well-below average they can stay at pre-school until 6 yo or have special provisions within school from 5 yo. Tall poppy syndrome alive and well within the legislated education provisions.
first issue – Property Issues
In 2006 the auditor general (at least I think it was AG) commissioned a report into school property and found glaring issues with the way it was applied and managed – these issues were not addressed and still remain – if anything it is worse (would like to say Lab fixed them but that was not the case).
The policy Roy speaks about would have significant property implications that I doubt would be cost neutral. It would be good to see the red tape, inconsistent application of policy, inequity and incompetence rectified to save wastage, but I see this Roy policy to be problematic on how property funding would be applied. At best, it would ensure the ‘charter’ schools (which are likely to be the higher decile, well funded re property schools) get further enticements and money to build grand facilities, (not to mention the private schools get more of the public purse for this) and leave schools who are desperate to have their facilities improved, left out to rot. This would further perpetuate the inequalities in our system.
In order to pay for this rejigging of property for flash buildings, I think they would need to:
- Sell off more schools/crown assets for their land (eg: Aorangi as an example)
- Sell off the land to ‘Private’ providers who are about making money and not interested in best practice for students
- Close down schools in lower decile areas to prop up the higher decile schools
- Instigate dodgy private/public partnerships where a strict business model would be employed to ensure the private sector raked in money – problematic in many areas (plenty of research to back this offshore, including Australia examples)
- Cut funding to state schools that are not identified as being the ‘charter’ schools (essentially leaving them to rot)
Then there is the issue of schools in rural areas missing out on vital property funding in order to prop up city providers.
This issue of property has a number of headaches attached and typically, Roys plan is to implement this with great haste without due consideration for the implications, let alone any real consultation (actually any would have been better than none) with the sector. A major factor here is the less than competent property division of the MOE who struggle to implement the distinctly problematic policy they already have. This would be a total dogs dinner for them – it would make the situation worse.
Interesting to read Linda’s idea:
” A government-funded Educational Psychologists assessment for all children by age 7! Identify the gifted, identify the at-risk and twice-exceptional … ”
It might be a good idea, but I would like to see these ideas trialled first. The guinea pigs I had in mind were Heather Roy, Roger Douglas and Te Ururoa Flavell.
I would also like to hear reaction of people who are very familiar with the pitfalls:
1. Lockwood Smith – Remember the open zoning legislation?
2. Christine Fletcher – Remember the hue and cry she initiated and, above all, why?
Put yourself into the future now. Secondary school in Mangere closes. Large busloads of students depart from Mangere each morning to King’s College, Auckland Grammar, St Cuthbert’s College – as dictated by free choice of parents.
Yeah, right.
Good on you Kelvin.
In Europe, it tends to be the Left that advocate for choice in education rather than the right.
Nice to have someone actually bother reading and thinking about something, rather than just dismissing it as ‘ideaology’.
Thanks Arts.
When the busload of Mangere students arrive at King’s the bus can fill up with ex-King’s students heading to the new private school ‘King’s 2010 Ltd’. Schools become elite for a reason (usually $$) and if it’s no longer elite those seeking that status will flee. And the impact on the housing market… and several other downstream consequences
Revised proposal: Government-funded educational psychologists assessment for children identified by the teacher/principal to be not making expected progress i.e. the one or two in each class that teacher can’t quite figure out e.g. seems bright but just doesn’t appear to be learning or has problems learning and current interventions are not working.
@Linda – I have no issues with your second proposal – the issue with it is where to find all these ed pschs – because there are not enough to handle the work load now – let alone in tricker areas. In fact, I would agree its a good idea – couple with proper funding of the Special needs arena and I can tell you now we would make miles of progress for our kids who need extension or assistance – IT IS NOT rocket science – it does not require a a voucher/token system dressed up in a new jacket called step change.
@Peter.. – it is good to look at it and reflect on it – the presonalised learning is nothing new – and being used well in a number of primary schools – not so much in high schools (would need to sort their culture first), but there are major fish hooks inherent in this new jacket, and its their way of trying to hide what they are really trying to push – bulk funding, vouchers and performance pay. Oh goodie – we must all look exceptionally stupid if they thought the public would not see what is really there.
My understanding is that schools already routinely identify under achieving and gifted. It’s HOW to deal with the fact of the under achievement or giftedness that is sticking, not the identification.
One of the sad pieces of misinformation perpetuated by the national Standards issue is the idea that children are not currently assessed. They are. Assessed in all areas of education from maths to art and drama to english. Then a plan is developed and applied tot heir learning.
Yes Tracey – kids are assessed across the curriculum – the irony is that schools (now with nat stds) are not required to report on any area other than lit and numeracy.
Good post Kelvin – I think you’re quite right to take your time over your response. While there are obvious “vouchers are good/bad” arguments to be made (and have been made by others today) the detail of this paper is probably irrelevant. It doesn’t address its goals or hang together very well (and I’m supportive of the general thrust). What’s more interesting to me is what ideas get seriously picked up by National, ACT and the Maori Party (and what John, Bill, Rodney, Pita and Tariana say about it in the coming months). There are some parallels here to Whanau Ora and some common ground could develop between the parties on education. The report as it stands will probably not be picked up but some concepts will be.
Umm, whats wrong with the way we currently run our schools????
Will this move us up 4 places to first places.
How will this affect the fee paying intenational students that so many public schools rely on to prop up there income???
It depends on what you mean by how we run schools. Do you mean how we schools were run last year? or now? The standards are now in schools.
Last years schools? Nothing. Last years schools were great and they were to become even better with the new curriculum that was to start this year but National standards and the new curriculm don’t seem to mesh well.
That didn’t read problerly.
how the schools. not we schools. typing an essay for uni at the same time.
@A mother, sorry i meant secondary schools not primary.