Most of us know that we are amongst the leading group of OECD countries for education results.
Most of us are not satisfied and want improvement. That’s why Labour spent tens of millions of dollars financing the development of the world leading aSStle assessment system. Since abandoned by the Nats.
aSStle had a vital post assessment component. It suggested next steps for the kid. It didn’t matter whether they were average, in the top 10% or in the so called tail. It allowed us to push all kids.
Now under National standards we have a system where the standards are so low Key and the National Party expect every kid to pass.
If a standard is that low it is not worth having.
You do realise @NZNational is a parody account, right?
IMHO
Kids need to be motivated with rewards that are not monetary when they are in high school. (Not that I am saying schools are using money to motivate kids just that it seems like getting a job is the only reason they are there). The idea of self improvement/developenemt for its own sake needs to be encourage in our young . Increased earning power (and happiness) will be the natural result as they grow into adults. There’s nothing like being competent.
Looks like more and more Bushism’s every day.
Dude, that’s not the National Party twitter account.
Try here: @NZNationalParty (https://twitter.com/NZNationalParty)
Or here: @natcampaign (https://twitter.com/natcampaign)
IMHO
Teachers should be on performance pay, measures should include how they identify children that need additional assistance and how they communicate with parents, among other measurable factors.
A few comments.
First to Indiana – how about reading Drive, by Daniel Pink, before mentioning performance pay in any work place? Also, please find out what learning is, and that any testing of literacy and numeracy has little relation to learning? Argue from informed base, not humble opinion.
Second, for Trevor: E-aSTTLe is being reworked as a national testing tool, to be ready to go in 2104. MOE is in the process of signing up the project manager to develop a computer based testing programme (software or online) that will provide empirical data, to be processed using Rasch analysis, that will result in numerical rankings of children.
Documents available to substantiate this.
@ Indiana: “Teachers should be on performance pay”
Another idea that sounds good in theory but fails in practice.
There is only one way to measure teachers and students “performance” and that is from their grades.
It turns school into a contest were the winners go on to the best life possible and the losers are left scrambling for the ever decreasing minimum wage. Great if your a born winner (cause you can now vote national).
Education as a commodity in which individuals purchase teaching expertise from other individuals to somehow improve their individual offspring’s ability to succeed in the marketplace is an outdated neo-liberal view, and not how the real world works. Education is about team work, partnerships and community. To succeed as a society we need to work together, by sharing expertise, encouraging critical thinking, enhancing creativity and recognising that diversity is a strength.
As i have said before about performance pay , the only true indicater in any business that you can gauge performance is by money generated.
How are you going to do that with teachers and children.
And yes ive worked the majority of my worrking life other than present on performance / commision / profit sharing.
And yes it is a motivator, but does create competition amonghts the team and i have seen some shocking cases of undermining other staff.
Oh, the statement that we want 100% of students above the average is a great line given that numeracy is supposedly such and issue.
I think it will be an amazing day in this coutry if we ever get more 50% of people above any averge, the mathmaticians wil have a lot of work to do should that ever happen.
Reminds me of a Tory poly in UK thundering that HALF THE CHILDREN WERE BELOW AVERAGE AND WHAT WERE LAB GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
@ waterboy
I think encouraging kids to out do themselves, to reach ‘their’ next level is the best way to raise the averages. Setting a standard bar is too easy for some and too hard for others. Leave that for the Universities maybe?
Come on it is perfectly possible for an entire population to be above or below the average of another population. Would anybody deny that 100% of the current Labour opposition are below the long run average of opposition politicians in application and ability? It might be a big ask for all future school children to exceed the current average but it is not totally impossible.
Dear John
You should not tweet and drink, although it seems you are becoming more Muldoon like in your looks and demeanour everyday and you both have an animal name as a nick name, take a lesson from piggy, alcohol and political communication don’t mix… you can be assured that advice is 120% right.
And not 120% proof, aye
@ Hilary:
Education is about cooperation and competition, creativity and competence… One without the other doesn’t work.
Phaedrus said: “Second, for Trevor: E-aSTTLe is being reworked as a national testing tool, to be ready to go in 2104. ”
Oh in that case I wouldn’t worry about it
indiana, your opinion appears to stem from a belief that amajority r teachgers do not do what you suggest. That is a fallacy peddled by those without knowledge and relying on ideological motivation rather than genuine understanding and assessment of how our teachers work and what our children need.
“$1 billion of the fund would be tagged to modernise and transform New Zealand schools over five years.”
By “transform” he means build new ones and update old ones (that’s about the physical buildins and not the occupants. Meanwhile under his watch about $1bn is being unnecessarily funneled into the wrong pockets with misguided funding for leaky building repairs which are in most part unnecessary and overstated.
One prominent Auckland school’s head of building management took a proposal to his board for a less costly repair and was told to never show it again because they were getting brand new buildings.
George W Bush: “Is our children learning?”
John Key: “All kids above average, don’t you understand
100%?”
Education is the area where Labour can really knock over the National-led government. I would be interested to read Labour’s policy on Education as soon as it becomes available. Thanks.