From question time today – the woman is trying to argue that because the Chair of STA got clapped boards support her botched attempt at improving literacy and numeracy. Go figure.
Have a look at the OIA response here.
Update: Tolley didn’t read briefing letter.
6. Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour-Hutt South) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement in relation to the implementation of the national standards “The Trustees, who govern schools on behalf of communities and parents, were extremely supportive”?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) : Yes.
Hon Trevor Mallard: Did she read all letters and emails she received from trustees between 2 July 2009 and 13 May 2010 on the national standards issue?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Yes. I get a lot of emails and letters into my office. I attempt to read all of them.
Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave to table a letter from Lorraine Kerr of the New Zealand School Trustees Association, complaining of the Minister not reading a briefing letter on national standards.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection.
* Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Louise Upston: What reports has the Minister seen from boards of trustees about national standards?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have seen one report from a school board that said “We believe that parents have a fundamental right to receive information regarding the progress of their child through the school.” This Government agrees with it.
Hon Trevor Mallard: What has lead her to believe that boards of trustees are extremely supportive of national standards, when of the 51 letters and emails she received and released earlier this month only one was supportive?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: If one takes a quote out of context it does not always work. The quote in the primary question related to a press release I made after attending the national conference of the New Zealand School Trustees Association. I can tell members that its members were extremely supportive of national standards. I know, because I was there and that member was not.
Hon Trevor Mallard: Does she feel that she has misled the public in claiming trustees are supportive of national standards, when less than 2 percent of the correspondence she has received from trustees is supportive of national standards, and she has publicly interpreted that as trustees being extremely supportive?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: No. As I say, at the annual conference of the New Zealand School Trustees Association, the president of that association, who along with her executive has been extremely supportive of national standards, got a standing ovation. That was a very good sign that the 600 representatives at that conference were supportive of the executive’s stance.
Hon Trevor Mallard: Which of the following comments about national standards that she has received from members of boards of trustees led her to believe that they are extremely supportive of those standards: “We hold grave concerns.”, “National standards will stifle student and teacher creativity.”, “It is my opinion that this project would be best dropped.”, “I wish to formally state my concerns against the proposed national standards.”, or “We have decided we will not be implementing national standards at out school.”; which of that representative sample of the correspondence to her from trustees, 96 percent of which expressed opposition, led her to believe that trustees are extremely supportive?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Those individual boards and individual members have every right to hold an opinion about anything that a Government or an Opposition does. However, boards of trustees are Crown entities and they have to obey the law of a democratically elected Government. If they do not, there are consequences.
Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave to table the entire correspondence that the Minister has received from trustees, which she released to me under the Official Information Act, and which indicates that 96 percent of the boards that have corresponded with her are opposed to the standards.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? There is objection. I call Rahui Katene.
Rahui Katene: Thank you, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: I have called Rahui Katene. She is towards the back of the House and I want to hear her supplementary question.
Rahui Katene: What involvement has there been with boards of trustees of kura kaupapa Maori and kura-a-iwi about nga whanaketanga rumaki Maori-Maori medium national standards-and what feedback has there been from those trustees?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Consultation and information gathering about nga whanaketanga were based on 14 regional hui. These were held from March to May of this year, and offered an opportunity for iwi, families, whanau, teachers, and school leaders-including boards of trustees-to provide feedback on the standards. More than 800 participants attended and feedback was received through both oral and written media. The third source of information is ongoing, in-depth engagement from March to December of this year with the sector, including boards of trustees from 42 schools with Maori medium settings. Most of the feedback, I understand, has been extremely positive and constructive.
LOL
L L Y C A T I 
N
T
strikes
again
The sheer audacity…surely Tolley understands how thin her justifications are? It won’t take much more honest comment for parents and BOTs to blow the lid off this thing. The Otatara School incident this morning highlights the way this minister has dealt with the sector…bully teachers and BOT’s into compliance and it will at some point bubble up and bite you in the backside. Schools are quitting NZSTA in droves disgusted at their fawning and undemocratic position relative to their membership. Good on you Trevor.
The NZSTA has lost all credibility with schools. The BOT of my school has resolved to write to Mrs Kerr seeking her comment as to how the NZSTA is representing school Boards by backing National Standards – a policy that the vast majority of schools see as fundamentally flawed. It is most likely that we will be withdrawing from NZSTA at the earliest opportunity.
good job – interesting support coming from rahui? Gives one food for thought…
I already said this in another post but the teachers union is gonna take action over some of anne tolleys reform
The NZ School Trustees Association (at Lorraine Kerr’s level in particular) is just a face of the Ministry of Education. The NZSTA is not a credible voice in the Education sector – it pushes down from the top, and draws nothing but dollars from the grass roots.
I am not surprised that this pseudo-democratic and pseudo-representative ark is being deserted by the schools. It is an insult to the intelligence. Anne Tolley mercilessly exploits these silly self-important nobodies. Enough!
Thank you TREVOR! Yet another example of the Minister of Education unable to answer a question! Other than to say that if BOT’s do not comply there will be consequences!
One clearly mentally unwell parent gets the wrong end of the stick re an authentic learning task of creative writing and manages to get a direct line to TOLLEY! Something hundreds of BOT’s have attempted to do for a year now to no avail. This is then made a personal and political attack on the Minister and becomes the lead story on TV3? It beggars belief? Is Ms Tolley suffering stress? She ought to be directed to take leave, as for implicating Lorraine Kerr? NZSTA have got a crisis on their hands. More NZ BOT’s are leaving this organisation than are staying. Lorraine too has performed well below standard in the listening stakes. One public meeting wrote to her asking if she intended surveying BOT’s re Nat standards and has never received a reply… This letter was signed by 23 schools.
Clearly these two believe they can continue on without stopping, looking and listening… Now if a child did that whilst crossing the road… What would be the most likely outcome?
http://thestandard.org.nz/lorraine-kerr-national-standards-schools-money/
This is another example of Kerr’s consultation (which strangely echoes Tolley’s echoing Lorrain’es echoing ….
What more can I say that hasn’t been said before? She needs to go.
Peter
STA is a sorry mess funded largely from our taxes. A puppet organisation and Lorraine Kerr has no credibility or educational expertise to really express an opinion on NS that could have any standing. Another silly little noise to back Nacts distraction.
BOTs actually pay money to belong to STA and I understand the membership is dropping.
Groups of schools are looking at hiring their own legal advise as it will be cheaper and more reliable.
Hmmmm A Mother, I think that goes for the lot of them.
Since when have Boards of Trustee’s been ‘Crown Entities’?
I thought they were made up of parents of the students?
Anne has really lost the plot…………
The NZSTA legal advice is provided by the Government through NZSTA – schools do not have to be members to avail of it.
Brent – Autonomous Crown entity means a statutory entity named in Part 2 of Schedule 1
board—
(e) means, in relation to a school board of trustees, the persons who comprise that board and who number not less than the required quorum acting together.
The whole subject of National Standards is now SOO..oo embarrassing!
Bill English, when spokesman on Education for National, was enthusiastic about National Standards. Where is he in the time of Anne Tolley’s needs? For that matter where is John Key.
The verdict is out. Scrap National Standards now!!
TREVOR
The letter from Lorraine Kerr that you tabled – is there a copy of that we can link to please?
Sounds fascinating
Pfft – If thats the amount of schools that have written in – then yep – I’d say most are supportive.
There will always be a few slowcoaches that are slow or scared to adapt for whatever reasons. But its hardly the uproar you are making it out to be.
As a parent – Im glad that this information is coming out. For too long poor performing teachers have been able to hide.
There needs to be transparencey and we as parents should have this information available to us so we can make informed decisions.
As I have said before – Give the good teachers more $$ and reward them – sack the useless ones.
Chris, what are you basing your comment on? This is an uproar of Tsunami proportions! And the National disaster is not going to improve educational outcomes for children. It is tragic, sad and deeply distressing that a very complex issue of teaching and learning has become so divisive. And just when NZ was leading the way implementing a fabulous curriculum full of rich learning experiences. trevor Lorraine Kerr received a standing ovation for her 21 years service to education… This is a direct quote. The conference were not applauding the National standards!This was another outright LIE from the ever growing Minster Pinnochio!
Chris, you don’t understand at all. The Minister is on record as saying that Nat Standards are about lifting achievement. Not once has she stated that they are about lifting the performance of teachers.
Secondly, the information provided by National’s Standards will not in any way assist you to make informed decisions about quality of teaching or school performance.
Thirdly, although the information to hand signals the comments of 50 Boards many more are against the standards and are relying on then quiet considered work being undertaken by both the NZPF and NZEI to finally get the Minister to discuss what are fundamentally flawed processes and policies.
Don’t forget that the Minister is on record as saying that ’she has received many letters and emails of support’ for her Standards. The post highlights that this is untrue. She has never said that she has not received and negative correspondence from Boards and parents around the Standards. My guess if she does then she will get a lot of post the next day!
The general public, uninformed of the layers of complexities of the debate assume that these so called national standards are great!If you only listened to Tolleys sound bytes, and were not in the education game, this scheme to a lay person might sound reasonable and feasible. The exact opposite is the reality! The so called national standards are far from that, the Minister continues to dismiss the educational grave concerns of placing learners at risk, the standards will never be national with no process across NZ of moderation. No interschool moderation, no professional development around this lengthy and vital process. If the Minister wants consistency then a teacher in Invercargill has to execute the same judgement on work samples as a teacher in Whangarei.Having been involved in the Jumbo days as the sector implemented NCEA this process was critical. The Primary sector has had NONE of this?
The Minister has stated not to worry about it… How interesting, then how can the school in the deep south’s league tables be compared fairly to the school in Whangarei’s league tables? Their data will not be valid or consistent. This is one small flaw, there are many others. However for me, the bottom line is learner self efficacy, all the research from Countries that have been down this long and motttled road proves that learner self belief disintegrates. When that happens, farewell any student achievement. There are many, many flaws in this botched one size cures all medicine. The people who know, love and care about kids and their education will continue to sound the siren of alarm. The politicians will continue to body slam the profession, there will be no wins for student learners. NZ is facing the biggest educational crisis ever…. If only we could have a public, considered debate to expose the real story behind National standards. And it has not a thing to do with poor teaching!
Marlene, that was excellent. I heard Tolley say on TV a while back “it’s not about the teachers, it’s about the kids.”. What planet is she on? There is no ’standard’ and as you correctly pointed out, no ’standard’ method of reporting or assessment. Personally I find this interesting being a Nat led and presumably right wing idea whereas one size fits all schemes have been introduced by left wing parties overseas, UK being a prime example. A colossal cock up there.
Chris
If it takes a silly promise of NS to give you confidence in reporting about your child then how does that work.
The curriculum is the same and teaching ongoing. Reporting and testing are a part of schools functioning and alway have been.
What is it you have learned that you didn’t know.
Most parents know their kids well enough to be discussing finer detail of learning or behaviour much wider than what NS itemises.
If you read the NS and the Curriculum documents, the highly structured design and flexibility of the curriculum relies on interpretation examples. NS has bastardised this approach for other ends and made a nonsense of teaching aims.
Children learn in different ways and while some exam based systems channel the performance goals to narrow test items, assessment of a child ability to learn and level of progress cannot tied to NS without creating real damage to the functioning of our state primary education.
The amount of teacher time wasted explaining and resisting this NS damaging stupidity is costing children.
How come you believe a politician and not a professional educators – or do you.
What do you see league tables doing for you or your children.
Is it correct that if one person objects to documents being tabled, they are not tabled? Do they have to give a reason? Does it mean the docs arent tabled and what does that mean in real terms?
Meanwhile, constant criticism appears to be getting toTolley, who let rip at a journalist after a function in Wellington on Friday.
After a tense question and answer session with kindergarten teachers, Tolley left the venue, but when approached outside for comment, she rounded on a reporter, accusing him of bullying a sector leader and misleading them about things she had said.
Tolley refused to take questions from the reporter and walked off.
This is consistent with her approach with the Education sector!
I note the PPTA is scheduling a one-day strike. Some here, including Rebecca and Monty must be excited at the opportunity to get in front of 30 kids and teach them, step into the breach and all that, on account of them knowing what is needed to be a good teacher…. 6 hours, 30 kids, teaching not “keeping an eye on”
@ John W – it depends on your defination of “professional educators”.
Just because a person derives their income from teaching – it does not make them a professional. Many of the teachers I have met are far, far, far from professional.
They are the ones I want identified and, in an ideal world fired. Get in good teachers and reward them appropiatley.
Chris, where do you expect these replacement to magically appear from? Are you considering joining a profession constantly publicly maligned by all and sundry on a knee-jerk or uniformed basis?
@ Tracy – Id rather be looking for replacements than sticking with sub-standard teachers.
Our kids deserve better.
Chris. You seem to have a blanket hatred of teachers. You could have ago at explaining how National Standards will weed out the “bad” teachers.
Today in the Supermarket a tiny baby of about 6 weeks was crying.An elderly man stepped up to me and said,”They should give that kid a good hiding. They don’t know how to bring kids up properly!”
Chris your lack of argument or reason reminds me of that strange man. And there wasn’t much I could say to him or you.