I was at the NZPF Conference in Queenstown today to hear Anne Tolley speak.
- She said later the Principals applauded as she left. Wrong. They applauded because she left.
- She said they have no right to criticise her as they are public servants. Wrong. They are employed by their BoTs of which they are also a member. So go for it.
- She claimed on Campbell Live that 1500 principals didn’t attend the the conference because they supported her. Wrong. They didn’t turn up because they had better things to do.
- She said she is happy to engage with Principals. Wrong. She bolted without fielding a single question.
- She said she had to leave immediately to open something somewhere. Wrong. She was outside grandstanding for the media long enough for the coffee lady out in the foyer to make my mate and I a flat white each after dwawdling outside to have a yarn.
- She said they listened politely. Wrong. They were pissed off.
- She said they just needed to get on and implement National Standards. Wrong. It is Principals’ moral obligation to criticise, condemn, protest, moan, bitch and grumble about poorly conceived policy they believe will hinder achievement.
- She said the sector is slow to embrace change. Wrong. She botched the change management from the start.
- She said she wanted to work together with the sector. Wrong. She wants to give that impression.
- She said this year is an embedding year. Wrong. She ordered the Standards to be implemented as from this year. She’s softening her language because she knows she’s cocked up.
- She said the standards themselves won’t raise achievement. Correct. Excellent teachers given the conditions they require to weave their magic will raise achievement.
Maybe she was referring to how National Standards implementation is going in her alternate universe, Kelvin?
Just a thought as that would fit the facts you relayed.
“She said later the Principals applauded as she left. Wrong. They applauded because she left.” LOL
Talk about flogging a dead horse!
What is it the education sector is so afraid of here? *cough* accountability
I had a look at my young brothers report today, its a huge improvement in terms of conveying the basic information.
I’m fortunate that I come from a reasonably academic family, but tell me what use is the crap that some teachers used to put out?
What use is it to the early school leaving solo mum in south auckland to know that her 6 year old is “developing their conflict resolution skills?”, what does that even mean, this takes reporting back to where it needs to be, heres the standard, heres where your kid is at, heres what you can do to lift their performance. BASIC stuff and seemingly foreign stuff to those in the education policy sector trying to justify their existance.
Ben, it has nothing to do with accountability. That is the boring mantra spouted frequently by Joe Public who seem, as you do, unwilling to look with a little more intelligence at what principals are saying.
A major objection is that standards are confusing and unworkable.
Lets look at a standard that is clear and workable….like say ‘all children can count to 10′. Clear, easy to measure and report against with consistency.
Now consider Tolley’s national standards for reading at Year 4….
“By the end of Year 4 students will read, respond to and think critically about texts in order to meet the reading demands of the NZ Reading Curriculum. Students will locate and evaluate information and ideas within texts appropriate to their level, as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes….”
This is not a clear and easy to understand standard. It could mean different things to different people and would need hours of work for each child to get the same judgement between teachers let alone between schools.
I say good on Principals for calling a dog a dog!
Actually Ben, it may be VERY significant that Ben has developed conflict resolution skills – particularly if he previously had anger management problems prior to that.
I never put much faith in school reports myself. Much hard work fot the teacher with no benefit. I never learned anything surprising about my kids.
Ben said:
Trust everyone except those who do the actual work with children, right Ben? Someone in Wellington knows better and can jam their theoretical frameworks down the throats of those who are actually on the front lines, right Ben?
Don’t choke mate.
Tolley is delusional. She has done more to damage the standing of teachers than anyone in recent history. No other profession has to put up with daft media and know it all types telling them they have to put up, shut up. If the Minister of Health mandated blunt scalpels then I would expect surgeons to kick up a stink. Principals should push this to the brink.
It is certain that no one knows what makes a good teacher. Strict, laid back, friendly, unfriendly, detailed planning, sequential steps organised, children planning, emergent responsiveness, questioning are some of the variables.
Perhaps one of the few commonalities is the enthusiasm of the teacher and the willingness to make the most of each minute.
So where do the National Standards fit in this? If anything it diminishes the enthusiasm. Beware of assessment. Unless the standards are valid, the feeling of being undervalued spreads through kids and teachers.
And great innovations in education have, in NZ, always come from the bottom to the top. Seldom top to bottom. Politicians telling teachers how to teach has never worked. In countries where it has been tried – disaster!
Good post by the way Kelvin.
I think that the Principals may have decided to be very polite regardless of how provocative Tolley was. Otherwise the headlines would undermine their professionalism. Didn’t stop them from seething however!
Ben – excellent.
Kelvin I assume your post is purely for political purposes. However, if it reflects your true beliefs then the teaching profession is far better off with you out of it.
If anything I think that the principals are going to take back some strongly confirmed impressions of Tolley back to their regions.
Ben, Tolley accepts that the information re standards conveyed in children’s reports due out this week might not be accurate because the system is so new. I heard her say so on the radio earlier in the week. So the information about your little bro might look all good and proper, it might give the impression even of much better than previous reports but equally it may well not actually reflect anything properly accurate or useful at all. No one is sure that the standards are set right because the process has been so rushed.
Jan – the fact the information is not correct is more likely to reflect the attitude of School Principals and theachers who are rebelling against Government requirements.
Oops – middle line should read School Principals and the teachers………….
@ Ben – name one Principal or teacher who is opposed to high standards or giving parents the information they want about their children.
All Anne Tolley needed to do if she wasn’t happy with report formats is:
1. produce an exemplar report template for schools
2. ask ERO to review schools’ reports and processes compared against the exemplar
3. provide targeted support to just those schools who need help.
Producing your brother’s shiny report could have been achieved at little cost.
As far as the standards are concerned, we have curriculum levels that students are assessed against eg Year 8 students are meant to be achieving in Level 4 by the end of the school year. There, I’ve set a standard for free and it took me 3 seconds. No drama.
Kelvin, unlike the other commentators above, your last comment makes so much sense. Keep up the sanity!
Ben – you ask – “What use is it to the early school leaving solo mum in south auckland to know that her 6 year old is “developing their conflict resolution skills?”, what does that even mean, this takes reporting back to where it needs to be, heres the standard, heres where your kid is at, heres what you can do to lift their performance. BASIC stuff and seemingly foreign stuff to those in the education policy sector trying to justify their existance.”
Are you implying that solo mums in South Auckland don’t know what the word developing means, or that they don’t know what conflict resolution skills means? Why would you think this?
Do you think parent’s don’t know when their child is struggling? If they don’t know do you think this is ALWAYS the teacher/school’s fault? I have met with many parents to talk about their child’s difficulties and been met with responses from, “thanks, what can we all do now?” to “there is nothing wrong with my child I don’t care if they don’t learn anything” to “I was rubbish at school too.”
I continue to engage with all the children and families and do what I can with/without parental support, because I beleive all children can learn.
‘She said they have no right to criticise her as they are public servants.’
Shocking.
I’m sure she probably thinks that no one has the right to criticise her, full stop. This is the National “entitlement to be right” as it were.
National Standards have been a disaster everywhere they’ve been tried. In the UK there has been a huge rise in the number of children reported as “school phobic” – it used to be extremely rare, most kids like seeing their mates even if they aren’t academic.
Found John Key reading a prepared speech but it was 2 February 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10623753&gallery_id=109044
And John Armstrong on the need for John Key to be more up front over National Standards but it was 3 February 2010.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10623753
Well said Kelvin.
As Dorothy notes everywhere else in the world where National Standards have been tried they have resulted in disaster for kids and their education.
Let’s also be real. Our National Standards are not in fact national they are just standards. The national part will come when League table tests are implemented. Watch this space.
Kelvin – did you record or video her speech? That would give more credence to you different perspective to her. I am nOT saying you are not right, but you are interpreting the same event, and could be wrong?
“If the Minister of Health mandated blunt scalpels then I would expect surgeons to kick up a stink.”
That is an amazing line – you should work in advertising or something…
I think a year long test is 100 odd schools would be a good compromise at this point, lets see if Tollley is smart enough…
@ Tracey – yes I did record her speech. Quality is not good though.
(either the recording, or the speech)
You are absolutely correct in all the points you are making. I was also there and came away quite stunned that this misinformation is allowed to continue.
LOL
For a balanced and sensible post on National Standards all commenters and particularly Kelvin should visit Homepaddock and read her post today on the subject.
Sorry I do not know how to link to it.
When you visit the post on Homepaddock make sure you read the excellent comment by Hollyfield.
pdm: I went to read Holyfield and I do not believe a word of what she says. I wrote half a dozen questions for her but I bet she/he won’t respond.
No 6.was: “In what way would National Standards help her young daughter (who has dyslexia and hearing loss?)”
The column by John Minto on Home paddock sums up the problem well:
http://johnminto.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/government-fails-national-standards-in-honesty/
pdm:
1. Same question I asked Ben above – name one Principal who is opposed to either high standards or giving parents the information they want?
2. surely ERO could be made to review school reports against a best practice template and identify the schools that aren’t giving parents the information they require. Targeted assistance is a whole lot cheaper than broad generalisations about all schools.
3. The curriculum levels are a good standard to measure against, and didn’t need millions of dollars to develop because they are there already and National Standards are based on them anyway which is a complete and utter waste of resources by doubling up.
Do you even understand the curriculum levels, strands, sublevels and the objectives contained within and their rediculous similarity to National Standards?
4. The reports we developed at Kaitaia Intermediate School stated the Achievement Expectation – based upon the curriculum levels which are nationally consistent – whether a pupil was achieving at, below or above the standard, how far they had progressed since the last report, what the student could do now and what the pupil and teacher were going to do next to make the pupil progress. These reports were given to parents at three-way conferences (teacher/pupil/parent)where we had over 90% attendance. The 10% who didn’t meet on the day were followed up, so the reality is pretty much 100% of parents were met with.
We raised achievement from 4% success in 2001 (in one strand in one curriculum area – but similar results in other strands of other curriculum areas) when I arrived to over 80% success by 2007 my last year there.
I reported analysis of achievement across the curriculum by year, class, gender, ethincity through newsletters and face to face meetings with community and iwi groups.
Every BoT meeting focussed on achievement in one aspect of the curriculum – whether we were on track to meet our standard or not and what we needed to do to make sure our pupils were successful.
The asTTle commentary says that a 15 asTTle point gain across the course of a year was ‘the result of good teaching’, we were moving our pupils 60 – 80 asTTle points in a year some times. We certainly beat the 15 asTTle point gains in every area we assessed. In some instances we progressed over 100 asTTle points.
This is better practice than Anne Tolley is asking for. Being a Principal under Anne Tolley would be a piece of piss because her expectations are so below what I consider best practice. Schools all across New Zealand have been exceptionally accountable and transparent for years. Some haven’t so identify them and pump all the tens and tens of millions of dollars used to bash all teachers, under the guise of National Standards, to support just those who need it.
Kelvin:”Schools all across New Zealand have been exceptionally accountable and transparent for years. Some haven’t so identify them and pump all the tens and tens of millions of dollars used to bash all teachers, under the guise of National Standards, to support just those who need it.”
Just wonder if the bash the teachers is hiding an underlying softening up for something like performance pay, or bulk funding, or accountibility? Ah. Conspiracy theorist again.
Kelvin Davis supports the teachers. Wrong. Kelvin believes that teachers are the reason Maori are at the bottom of every socio-economic level we have. He even wrote a piece in the DomPost to tell us all about it. What we have here is called (among other things) hypocrisy.
And Ianmac……. since when did accountability become a bad thing ?.
johnbt – here’s the link, read it again http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/2721701/Excellent-teachers-every-childs-right
Poor teachers will hurt Maori achievement, excellent teachers make all the difference especially if the government creates the conditions for them to weave their magic. Those conditions include professional development based on proven research, dealing with social issues and removing all those jobs that teachers do, but detract from them being able to teach. National Standards don’t make kids learn.
I stand by my Op Ed piece. Glad you brought it up again for others to read and reinforce my beliefs.
Kelvin…. I reread your op ed and the first comments showing. I can only assume that you are totally opposed to the teachers union and the principals who employ the many second and third rate teachers we have. But no. You are opposed to Tolley. Who is at least trying to do something.
I am sure we all know that the National Standards are really about showing up all the crap teachers. They are all in a union. Labour gets a lot of support from the unions. End of story. Apart from the one in five kids leaving school without adequate literacy and numeracy skills.
johnbt I am for raising achievement by (1) making sure every child in every class in every school has an excellent teacher and (2) creating the conditions where excellent teachers can weave their magic.
National modus operandi/logic – teachers are in unions and unions support Labour, therefore to take Labour apart we will take teachers apart.
Giving people credit for doing the wrong thing because they are “at least trying to do something” is generous of you.
You make it sound as if National Standards is all about improving teaching standards in NZ…I thought it was supposed to be about improving the educational outcomes of children…no idea how it can do either, actually.
Two main arguments from opponents:
1. Lack of engagement with parents and the sector about valid concerns. You’d have a better time teaching your Grandmother to suck eggs.
Granny Annie aint listening.
2. Teaching children to pass tests or assessments is old-fashioned teaching practice and not reflective of the real world. Assisting children set and pass goals while noticing where they stand against their peers is more productive.
Again the Minister has shown her own personal lack of understanding in regard to what these standards trult mean as they are in their current form. I attended the NZPF conference and I was deeply concerned with the number of Principals struggling to implement them in their flawed state. The facts remain:
1. The MOE PD to date has been a total farce, the trainers can not explain or answer questions about the implementation.
2. The designer of the national standards, Mary Chamberlain presented a workshop titled How to use the National Standards to Improve Student learning. We all attended awaiting important information to clear the fog on the ” how to use” part. we are still waiting!
3. Mary Chamberlain has in the past presented the new NZ Curriculum, she was my hero, vibrant, passionate, engaged about the potential this new curriculum had, I left her sessions motivated, informed and excited for children, teachers, parents and learning opportunities.
4.The presentation she attempted to deliver clearly stuck in her gullet like an undigestable piece of food choking her inner being. This was a woman a shade of her former glorious self, she could not ” sell” the standards to us as she I sense shares our concerns about them but is caught up in the raced and botched Tolley directive.
5.She has been in charge of the roll out of professional development that has been a shambles all over NZ. Her explanation to us was, I know we got Phase one wrong, I understand phase 2 was not that good either, but just wait and see what we have planned for 2011?
6. This was followed by Tolley the next day saying YOU MUST ATTEND THE TRAINING!
7. Any Principal with moral courage and integrity should not tolerate that the mid year reporting may not be 100% accurate if they use standards this time and that this is acceptable when we already have accurate and valid data in our schools.
8. I am shocked and appalled that Tolley told us that was OK with her because the school had tried their best….
9.Tolley instructed us to have dialogue with her via her high trust e-mail, 550 Principals have tried to do that for 9 months and got for their efforts a resounding cyber space silence.
10. Finally her comment that ” the genie won’t go back in the bottle” well in I dream of Genie you always get 3 wishes… Guess what they are for the Princiapls that attended her speech and the how to use farce of a workshop?
This fight has nothing to do with Unions, bad teachers , disobedient principals and everything to do with common sense and intelligence. The standards as they stand are unworkable, our sector is seeking the opportunity to say to Tolley… Lets STOP, BREATHE, REWORK, REWRITE, ALIGN WITH CURRICULUM etc etc.
I mean US, not her so called academic advisors who have never taught in a classroom or for that matter even stepped into one!
Principals want to raise student achievment, as do teachers, this is NOT going to happen until TOLLEY passes her own standard of active listening. She was accorded extreme politeness in Queenstown, she does not deserve this as she has undermined her sector and shamefully degraded teachers and educators. It was a collective self management for all that were subjected to her shameful speech and unfounded assumptions all is well….
And as for the one Principal that e-mailed how excited he was with his mid year reporting…. The key word here is…. ONE PRINCIPAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all know the saying… There is always ONE do we not???
Marlene – I agree with you about those good people in the MoE. They are mostly passionate educationalists with years of experience in teaching and learning, now forced to implement something highly flawed, just because the Minister says so. Who should they be serving as our public servants: the minister, or the children and schools of NZ?
Mary Chamberlain told Northland Principals that she is fully behind the Standards. She said that she is close to retirement and wouldn’t be involved if she wasn’t right behind them.
She giggled and blustered through that meeting incredibly unprofessionally in my opinion.
I hear now that Team Solutions are not permitted to work with schools who are not actively implementing the Standards.
Horribly, horribly divisive
She demonstrated that retirement may be a better option than selling your soul to the devil.
Interesting article from the BBC on incompetant teachers in the UK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/education/10464617.stm
My wife is a teacher and has first hand experience of the same sort of thing happening in NZ.