When Minister of Education, I launched a Literacy strategy. In 2004 we started doing extra training for primary and intermediate teachers. By the November 2008 briefing for the incoming Minister 44% of teachers had had the training.
The results were pretty impressive. On average, kids doubled their progress but the average was dragged up by the most at risk kids whose average progress quadrupled.
But when will this impressive work hit NCEA level 2? In 2015 for those kids who started in 2004 and have had substantial support since. And never for many kids if Anne Tolley continues her 25% cuts to professional development.
Lets get that 44% up to 100%.
Sounds like you did a great job!
Wow, how could one forget a report like that?
Tolley was Really Reciting Rubbish that day
Trevor
Do you know who has brought out Sir Paul? SST has devoted a coupleof articles to him, it certainly paints a great picture of national Standrds solving the problem of wayward and poor youth? Very timely for Nats.
Tracey, found the item thanks.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3481638/Sir-backs-national-standards-in-schools
Note this from Sir Principal of a successful East London School:
“National standards test, based on tests, used to be carried out in Britain at ages seven, 11, 14 and 16. When the tests at 7 and 14 were abolished,….”
He is talikng about the British National Standards in Secondary levels where here the roll out is for 5-11 year olds. Misleading headline?
I was wondering the same thing BUT again perception is all that matters, Mrs Tolley’s Sunday brekkie will have passaged more easily this week.
I hope his school isnt the only one that “succeeded” otherwise he is an anomoly not the trend.
Hey, Trev you have quoted on a previous blog post of yours when I asked you if the TLF (The Learning Federation) project which was/is a joint Aussie & NZ initiative to develop learning materials to improve school children’s numeracy skills of both countries (when you were the Education Minister) and you stated that the TLF had delivered that purpose since it started. In other words, you mean that it has been a success.
Just curious if you can quote a figure of how much improvement to date that TLF has helped to raise the numeracy skills of our school kids so far?
I believe that part of the TLF funding was wasted on reproducing materials that were already covered in text-books into online. The only difference is instead of a student flipping the pages of a textbook, the learner (student), is now scrolling the page up/down on a computer screen. There is no evidence that one can learn better from a computer screen than from a text-book (provided that they’re exactly the same content).
I was trying to bid in 2004/2005 to become a contract software developer to develop math learning objects for TLF project, but I was told (people from Australia) that I should work with or under the main local suppliers, because I am a single person and not a company. In NZ, it was CWA & Synergy (now Fronde) in Wellington. I had face to face discussions twice with these local suppliers but it never led to any contract work for me.
The way I see the funding of TLF was wasted in developing learning objects that are too simplistic, I mean that they’re reproducing things that the text books already covered in depth. They should have concentrated on developing learning objects that stretch the limitations of the textbooks. Don’t duplicate the textbook online but bring the textbook live online.
At the time when I was trying to get involved in the TLF project, I had already developed some simple CAS (computer algebra system) to be used by my students. I’ve seen how good my CAS program in helping students understand algebra; I thought that I should bid for TLF because what I had already developed was something awesome that can bring the material in the text-book alive. I’ll give an example, a problem can be randomly generated by the CAS if the user chooses to or otherwise that user has to type in the equation in free text such as the following:
8 = 17 – 3*x
the press the solve button. The system will show the middle steps up to the answer, which is shown below:
3*x + 8 = 17
3*x = 17 – 8
3*x = 9
x = 9/3
x = 3 (simplified)
This was the sort of interactive computation that none of the math learning objects that have been developed so far for TLF project (to the best of my knowledge). I had a clear vision of what I could have contributed to TLF had I been selected to participate or involve in the development of math learning objects. There was too much time & money wasted on duplicating materials that are already well covered by textbooks. See, I recommended the parents of my students to buy the prescribed school textbook and then encourage their sons/daughters to use it together with the learning object software that I have given them. If they want extra then they can go on the internet, but they shouldn’t do that unless they have fully comprehended the specific topic that they want to find extra on. I try to limit them from information overload because it can be harmful. I start my students with software that I had written, then when I feel that they’re ready to explode into the world of Math, then I encourage their parents to buy the student versions of best commercial CASs available today, either Mathematica from Wolfram or Maple from Maple Waterloo Inc.
The good thing of having interactive learning like this is that the student can learn faster where they can spot their mistakes immediately or grasp/comprehend difficult concepts in a fairly short period of time. On that of that they can stretch their imagination by doing problems that were never taught in his/her classroom.
I believe that one fault/weakness in TLF process & bidding is that the learning objects’ specs are drafted by teachers where those specs are then given to the winning parties to develop them according to the specs. First it is too narrow & restricted, second since the suppliers are not mathematical programmers (umm, there is a huge difference here for those who don’t know – mathematical programming is a different beast altogether from just programming, be it database, web or whatever), they tend to simplify the developments of those learning objects which can deviate from the original specs (because it is too hard to develop mathematical algorithm), therefore leading to software modules that are not much different from the textbooks.
Trev, with your knowledge of the politics and how the education system works, would you be keen to perhaps have a word with Anne Tolley to get her experts to take a look at Mathematica CAS for possible adoption at our secondary schools. I believe that the adoption of such system will lift the numeracy of this country. It can be customized to suit the math curriculum of each level. Mathematica has a local distributor in Hamilton. The government had already spent millions in trying to lift numeracy levels and I am yet to be convinced that those millions have been well spent? Why don’t you lot (politicians and education ministry people) try out something new, such as introducing a CAS (such as Maple or Mathematica) to our high schools?
Just a thought.
Tracey.An academic friend tells me that the British testing was stopped because of the detrimental effect and that scores dropped????
This chap may well be a wonderful teacher and inspiring leader…but the system he comes from always rates far lower and the outcomes are much worse in the Programme for International Student Assessment testing, than New Zealand.
Far better to bring out someone from the couple or five countries that consistantly outscore us.
Or is the plan to go backwards?
IanMac – My understanding is that the UKis duming Nat Stands cos they dont work.
Peter Martin – agreed, make sme wonder how the media “found” Sir Paul and at such a strategic time for the Nats education policy. Another case of twoarticles which read like advertorials rather than seeking out if this chap’s experiences is reflective of the overall Nat Stands experience.
Falafulu – don’t think Anne listens to me. And on the substance of your question i Certainly don’t have the means at my disposal in opposition to break out TLF from say the numeracy professional development project. What I do know is that there is real evidence of a big drop in the proportion of students at risk of numeracy failure over the last five or six years.
Trevor
Who paid for this new National Standards Guru Sir… to tour NZ? And how do we find out?Timing is very convenient to Tolley who is currently drowning in documents she clearly needs to read and comprehend. He may have turned a failing school around but I would bet that this had nothing to do with National Standards and everything to do with kicking out 300 trouble makers and re focussing the school! This is more propaganda thats factually incorrect.
Will try and find out – might take a couple of weeks.
Peter (above): “This chap may well be a wonderful teacher and inspiring leader…but the system he comes from always rates far lower and the outcomes are much worse in the Programme for International Student Assessment testing, than New Zealand.”
Very good point; it is very easy to look tall if you’re walking with dwarves.
His next point is also valid: “Far better to bring out someone from the couple or five countries that consistently outscore us.”
That might expose some inconvenient truths though….
I’m no supporter of National Standards as a means of directly lifting student achievement – there is no evidence that supports the idea that the Standards themselves will do anything in this regard.
But I am advised by someone I trust in ERO that the term adequate when used in the Graphs pertaining to Quality of Teaching Reading and in Writing actually means ‘poor’ and that ‘poor’ actually means ‘very poor’.
This raises a whole lot of concerns about children starting school having only a 70% chance of getting a fair go at school in Years 1-3.
Where are the Principals who should be monitoring this and acting upon the results? Where are the BOT’s who should be monitoring this and encouraging and supporting the Principals to fix this?
It isn’t easy. Schools are often small and isolated in NZ. Professional Development is accordingly, scarce and expensive. Principal’s meet often but don’t often talk about nitty gritty stuff – they can either believe that the are doing the right thing, or if they choose, get away with not doing the right thing for a long time.
As I said, I don’t believe that National Standards is the answer but this does appear to be a real,serious, and worsening, problem.