One of the points from Heather Roy’s Step Change report is a need for cultural competence in schools. I agree.

It would be relatively simple to introduce a Cultural Audit into all schools. A cultural audit could be incorporated as part of ERO reviews. I’ve seen an example from a First Nation tribe in the U.S.

A cultural audit could look at – what and how teachers teach their Maori students. How do they involve Te Reo, customs and culture? How do they engage with students and their families? How does the teacher and school reflect the ethnic make up of the school in the curriculum, in the school grounds, in their practices and systems?

A cultural audit could be developed for any ethnic group represented in their student body.

If a school is found wanting in the way it relates to the various ethnic groups in its student and parent bodies, then professional development specific to meeting the needs of that ethnic group should be provided.

Again, it comes back to investing in teachers.

I like personalised learning programmes. This type of learning has been talked about for a few years now.

It makes sense that teachers, students and parents sit down and develop goals for the student’s learning and then together monitor the student’s progress towards achieving those goals.

It’s being done in many schools and is considered best practice. Those schools that aren’t doing it need to be identified and professional development provided to them so they can be brought up to standard.

It comes back to investing in teachers – not giving kids vouchers so they can swan off to another ‘provider’.

There are just under 760,000 students in the NZ compulsory education system. Under Heather Roy’s plan, twenty five per cent are going to be allowed to choose between different classes provided by different schools or providers.

Let’s look at what that actually means.

One hundred and ninety thousand students on any given day will be boarding cars, buses, trains, taxis and bicycles to travel from one school/ provider to another. For a student in Auckland, it may mean a twenty minute car ride to a school and a twenty minute car ride back. For a student in Kaitaia it may mean an hour in a car over to, say Kerikeri, and then an hour back.

Is this what New Zealand wants for its children? Almost two hundred thousand children spending hours each day sitting in a vehicle instead of a classroom?  Kids will get dumber rather than brighter.

Who is going to plan and fund the three hundred and eighty thousand trips to and from another ‘provider’ each day? What happens if a student has to attend TWO other schools in a day?

Has this report had any cost analysis?

Does this mean every school has to teach the same subjects at the same time? There’s no point in a child heading off to a ‘better’ maths lesson at another school/ provider in the morning, only to come back to their ‘regular’ school / provider to find that maths is being taught in the afternoon. Will school timetables have to be standardised?

The more I look at this report, the sillier it becomes. There are good points such as personalised learning and cultural competence, but there is some rubbish as well.

I’ve just got back from a select committee up in Marton. Apologies for not having yet read posts from this morning’s blog. Instead I have started going through Heather Roy’s ‘Step Change’ report in a bit of depth.

There are quite a few points to be made, but I’ll make them in separate blogs for risk of overkill in one post.

The report is a bit misleading around the identification of the top 5% of kids who the report says are gifted and talented.

The top 5% of kids are not necessarily gifted and talented – they may just be very bright.

I had a bit to do with setting up a school for gifted and talented kids in Kaitaia in 2000 when I worked for the Ministry of Education.

The children accepted into this school were assessed in areas that schools simply did not assess. Asttle certainly doesn’t assess for G&T, nor does NCEA.

It cost about $400 (at the time) to get them assessed by a specialist group in Auckland.

Gifted and talented kids did not usually fall into the top 5%, instead they normally fell in with bunch.

I remember some G&T kids not being able to write more than a couple of sentences in script that was barely decipherable, but their ability to concentrate on a single task like building the Eiffel Tower (for example) out of matchsticks was amazing.

They may have the ability to fixate on single complex tasks for hours on end, often at the expense of eating, sleeping and interacting with others, then once having completed the task losing complete interest in it.

Ask a bright kid what they would do if they were President of the World for a day and they may say they’d choose to go to Disneyland with twenty friends and eat ice cream. Ask the same question of a G&T kid and they’d probably say they’d like to settle the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict, design earthquake proof homes to rebuild Haiti,  and negotiate a peaceful withdrawal of American and allied troops from Iraq.

G&T kids may get in trouble in class because they understand concepts immediately but get bored because they have to wait while lessons are repeated over for others.

Often they don’t do work, get caught staring out the window or antagonising other kids who they know they can manipulate. Chances are teachers think they are trouble makers or lazy or both.

Not all G&T kids behave like this, but it is wrong to suggest that the top 5% of achievers are G&T. It shows a lack of understanding of the G&T issue by the authors of the report.

Many teachers don’t have the skills to recognise the gifted kids in their midst.

Sending them off to another school that is perceived to be a ‘good’ school may not make a difference to G&T kids if the teacher they are put in front of is unable to recognize a G&T child and how to address their needs.

The best way to cater for the needs of G&T kids is to provide professional development for teachers to be able to identify them, assist schools to pay for the assessment to determine exactly where their gift or talent lies and then provide teachers with the professional development to cater for those specific needs.

I’ve said it before that the way to raise achievement is to invest in teachers.

Heather Roy released her “Step Change” report yesterday. I got a copy last night and am working my way through it.

I’m into educational innovation and initiatives based on research, so won’t bash it for the sake of it. If there are bits I like, I’ll say and if there are bits I think won’t make a difference I’ll say.

I do get wary when I hear about parental choice which sounds great in theory, but, if this report is targeted at the choices of the bottom 20% and top 5%, I wonder about the impact on choices of the remaining 75%. That’s just something to keep in the back of the mind as debate about this heats up.

I do support ‘personalised learning’, but whether this report’s take on personalised learning, and my take are the same thing, remains to be seen.

I’m wary of language where students become ‘clients’ and the people who help them learn become ‘brokers’. I prefer to use the terms ‘kids’ and ‘teachers’, but at the end of the day the most important result is raised achievement, so I can get over the terminology.

I’m also wary when expectations are that this will be fiscally neutral.

Someone will need to explain whether kids in the country will have the same opportunities as those in the city. The logistics of accessing various ‘brokers’ just aren’t the same up north as they will be in say Whangarei even.

Page 12 of the report talks about several permutations within this initiative (sorry don’t have time to elaborate this morning). The on- the- ground logistics of those permutations seem pretty complicated, so I have to get my head around them all.

There will be more to come. I’ve really only got into the 15 page “Step Change” report and will need to read it over a few times to let it sink in, there’s a bigger report called “Free to Learn” that came with this that needs digesting as well.

I see Anne Tolley’s Ministerial role has been downgraded so that she can focus on the implementation of National Standards. It had to happen.

With the naughty principals up north threatening to defy her, with no research to prove National Standards have merit, with the country’s top academics refusing to back her, with all her teacher bashing, with her claims that National Standards are the biggest thing to hit NZ education in twenty years, with $32 million sunk into her gamble – she has to focus on making the standards work.

You’d think though that if they are as good as she claims, they’d work anyway.

At the end of last year eighty Principals in Te Tai Tokerau said they were going to boycott the implementation of the National Standards until the Minister could produce evidence that they were going to make a difference to student achievement.

The most vocal of these Principals I know personally and they run hugely successful schools. They set high achievement standards,  have high expectations of their staff and achieve excellent results – probably better than the National Standards expect.

If they go ahead with this boycott it will be interesting to see how the Minister responds. If they break the law then what will the consequences be?

Will the Minister sack them? Will she sack their Boards of Trustees? That would look great for the Minister, sacking successful Principals because they wouldn’t do what she told them to do. How naughty of them.

These Principals actually know how what it takes to make kids learn. All they are asking is for evidence that National Standards will make a difference. I’d like to see the research evidence that Anne Tolley referred to when she decided National Standards were the way to raise achievement as high and as fast as possible.

Chris Finlayson came up to Ahipara today to sign an “Agreement in Principle” with the five tribes of Te Hiku o Te Ika (Ngati Kuri, Te Aupouri, Ngai Takoto, Ngati Kahu and Te Rarawa). Hopefully with this signing we are nearing the end of the settlement process for these iwi. Amongst a few other things they’ll get some land returned and some money. The total value of the settlement will be but a fraction of what was flogged originally.

It was overall a very interesting and productive day.

A couple of observations:
1) One speech acknowledged that the negotiations were  one way of getting something back for iwi, but that there was another path as well which was to continue the type of protesting and occupation that is going on at the moment at Taipa on what used to be the camping ground. That’s the same path we’ve been going down since Hone Heke took to that flagpole with an axe.

I’m  annoyed that many fail to see that education of our youth is yet a third path to Maori getting ahead.

When the speeches are going on there’s a bit of the old fighting talk, as if some speakers say what they believe people want to hear. I wish these kaumatua would start talking up education. We keep saying our rangatahi (youth) are our leaders of tomorrow, but no one on our marae are urging parents to get their kids to school and to support them to be successful.

2) Part of the settlement is to include funds for social solutions. I hope like heck that this doesn’t mean just supporting youth who get kicked out of school.

There should be some plan developed between iwi, parents and schools that prevents kids getting kicked out of school in the first place.

I believe a partnership between iwi and schools is a solution. That partnership should involve cooperative  analysis of schools’ achievement data so that iwi and schools can work together to identify areas of strength and weakness and failing students. Then decisions can be made together as to what needs to happen when underachievement is identified.

An appropriate iwi educator could be appointed to set up and monitor alongside the students, parents and teacher individual education plans for each child. If a child is identified as falling behind, then the iwi person could be a support person for the parent and child to get help from the schools.

The iwi education person could help parents who are unsure/ afraid/ unable to ask questions of teachers regarding their progress and/ or behaviour.

Or if the schools need support from home, then the iwi person and teacher could liaise with the parents.

3) One of the speakers wished everyone a Happy New Year. A kaumatua sitting next to me leaned over and said, “Kelvin, the best New Year’s wish for me would be not to have our courthouse full of Maori each week.”

I reckon if the five iwi of Te Hiku o te Ika sit down with schools and come up with a decent education plan based on the use of achievement data, it would be a productive use of some of the settlement monies and we may just be able to fulfil that kaumatua’s wish.