Prof Warwick Elley gave an example from an observation he had done when the English were introducing their standards based approach. :-
Miss Latham, Principal of Dymchurch Country School, UK.
Tested 58 Yr 2 pupils 3 times, for National from a prescribed list for Yr 2.
She selected passages from 3 different books.
She prepared comprehension questions on each and tested each child individually.
On Book 1, 90% of the pupils passed the standard.
On Book 2, 72% of the pupils passed the standard.
On Book 3, 38% of the pupils passed the standard.
Which result should she report to the Board?
I love how we’re following worst practice from Europe.
If your school is to have your results published and compared with others do two things:
Discourage slow learners from school entry.
Choose book 1 90% or better still Book 1a which will give 99%
Oh dear – its obvious – if you want to keep your pay, your job, your schools reputation etc – pick book 1 and shred the results of book 2 and 3. No evidence, no worries. Oh goodie – that inspires me!
What I think I would be doing in terms of the reporting requirements is the following.
1. Reporting all info in Maori – as an offical lang the moe can not (or the minister for that matter) say the reports can not go in in Maori. The moe do not have the people or the resources (or the media for that matter) to troll through all that info and get it translated. Not much use to her if she cant use it.
There are ways of stuffing over her system – we just need to keep thinking of legal and practical ways of being non compliant while being/giving the impression that we are being compliant. How about a thread on that Trev?
RRR T
LLY RRR
I would like to know as a parent, can I opt out of having my child’s results go outside of the school (or included in aggregated data)?
No-one from the school or Ministry has asked me for permission to use the assessment data for the purposes of informing the Minister. Are they allowed to take data collected for one purpose (individual education of my child and school management) and apply it to another (National Standards reporting to MOE)?
@Linda – actually, I think you should be able to say NO to results going outside the school. All it would take is for schools to develop a quick permission/non permission slip to hold on file (for ero reasons) and if all schools got most of the parents to sign and say NO to results being published or sent off site (even in ways that do not show who the child is) then that would also stuff up the system.
Great idea Linda – you are not the first parent to voice similar concerns – I have them as a parent as well. I know students can’t be identified in bigger schools, but MOST schools in NZ are under 100, and if there are 3 maori, or 2 orrs, or only 5 girls in yr 3 etc (you get the drift) its really easy to identify individual students, and really hard to not do so. I know a school where the parents (who are maori) have made it clear that their kids are not to be Identified in reports (only a small handful of maori students) and so they do not report on maori at that school to the community. ERO can not do anything as parents have said NO.
@Paul. How can I find out what rights I have as a parent in this regard? I’m reluctant to talk to the school and be labelled the trouble-maker, especially as I have a ‘outside the norm’ child.
I don’t like making a fuss either Linda. I can stick up for my children so far but don’t like to be seen as a trouble maker and don’t tend to push things. I like to keep the peace.
My children are not yet in school but I wouldn’t know how to approach it either. Good luck.
I love how we’re following worst practice from Europe.