Time to step up, Key tells teachers
By JOHN HARTEVELT - The Dominion Post
What do you think of the new national standards for primary and intermediate schools?
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The Government has attacked teacher unions, with Prime Minister John Key writing directly to parents to counter alleged misinformation on the new national standards.
Mr Key signalled yesterday that two-thirds of primary school leaders and 30 per cent of teachers would have to pull their socks up.
Alongside embattled Education Minister Anne Tolley, he introduced a $200,000 information campaign promoting the literacy and numeracy standards. The campaign would deal with the "misinformation" being spread by teacher unions.
"Inevitably, national standards will identify some teachers who need to change their ways and step up," Mr Key said. He suggested that union opposition to the policy was motivated by protecting members who feared greater accountability and "put their own vested interests" ahead of young Kiwis.
National standards will be introduced in primary and intermediate schools from this week. All children aged five to 12 will be assessed as at, above, below or well below the national standard for reading and writing at their year level. Parents will get reports at least twice a year.
Mr Key said the Education Review Office had found two-thirds of school leaders were not properly managing assessment and 30 per cent of teachers were not doing a good job of teaching reading and writing.
"And many principals aren't adequately sharing their school's achievement information with their communities," he said.
The national standards would identify poor performers and demand more from them. "Unless you are prepared to measure, monitor and report on something, you will ultimately never change. It shouldn't be any different in education."
Mr Key said he had written to about 350,000 families to explain the policy. The letter includes a pamphlet paid for out of his leader's office budget at a cost of $200,000.
A further $26 million would be spent on "targeted teacher training" and $36m on helping struggling pupils.
He also announced that an independent advisory committee would be set up to give advice on how implementation of the standards was going.
Mrs Tolley said the policy "would take several years to bed in". "The good teachers" that she had spoken to felt there was no reason why the standards could not work.
The Government had "parted ways" with the unions in October when they called for a trial of the standards, she said.
Labour leader Phil Goff said the information campaign amounted to propaganda. "It's not focused on the kids any more, it's focused on trying to sell their side of the story when they've got so many people offside."
He said Mrs Tolley should have been sacked over the introduction of the standards, which had turned into a shambles.
Frances Nelson, president of the primary teachers' union, the New Zealand Educational Institute, said the policy's rollout had been haphazard and the standards were untried and untested.
"The purpose of the school system is not to provide a lifetime sinecure for every teacher, but to prepare children for adulthood."
The NATIONAL STANDARDS DEBATE
The Government says:
* International results show that between 2001 and 2006 there was no progress among Kiwi children in literacy and numeracy.
* New Zealand fell from No 1 to No 24 in the world and, for the first time, there were more countries ahead of New Zealand than behind.
* The Education Review Office found in 2007 that more than half of schools weren't using assessment data well.
* Another ERO report released last year gave 30 per cent of the teachers of year 1 and 2 children a "pretty damning" verdict on their performance, Education Minister Anne Tolley said.
* The standards will clearly identify those most in need of help, who will get a share in $36m of support.
The critics say:
* More assessment data on children does nothing on its own to improve academic performance.
* Persistently below-standard results could damage self-esteem.
* Test-based standards overseas have done nothing to improve performance. The Cambridge Primary Review of English schools late last year said the "standards agenda" narrowed curriculums.
* The new standards are untested, meaning no one can be sure what will happen when they are implemented.
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I have to agree with Chris#1, philsosophically I'm not against this testing. But what I am against, is unsound populist political idealogy without scientific basis. All academic researchers seem to be saying that 'teaching to the test' contravenes all that is known about what constitutes good quality education. What we effectively end up with is a bunch of kids that are very good at passing exams, but come to the real world are unable to apply their learning to real life situations. When it comes to substantiated opinion I am more inclined to believe and follow expert professional advice and comment ,than popular political sentiments. If we bothered to look for comparisons, I could highlight an article printed in the Irish Independent newspaper about two weeks ago. In the article American companies were quoted as criticizing the quality of Irish graduates coming out of schools despite having very high grades in their exams. The reason for this they said, was that the Irish education system still relies on a teach to the test system, resulting in students good at rote learning but very low creative skills. I'm sorry but from what I can understand, and my faith in science over sentiment, i am inclined now to feel that this move is step back for the quality of NZ education long term.
Just look around and see what the current system has produced. IT'S JUST NOT WORKING! Things have to change
Blame the union for the criticism, eh Key. Your government's National Standards is a farce, even the parents can see that.
Is it National Standards in Education or is it National's Standard in Education to create drones for the future?
Has anyone considered the reason why there could be a change in our statistics re our educational results in the past 10 years? We now have thousands of non English speaking children in our primary schools. Countries like Finland who have very high results do not include their new immigrants in their results. As a retired teacher I ask why the government cannot identify the 30% of teachers who are not achieving, to either retrain or get out of teaching! And allow the 60% of teachers to get on with their excellent work . Our strength has been to cater for the individual child and we are known for our innovative and creative work ethic all over the world. How come Kiwis are so well sought after all over the world? And for those students who have not reached a good level of literacy, ask them how often they attended school or how often they changed schools? That is the root cause of their problem. Not the teaching! Judy J
I'm not sure if it will help the poorer performers, I think in some cases it would dependent on parental support. As a parent though I am definitely interested on how my child is performing, how can you help your child if you don't know this information. Having a parent/teacher meeting once a year and being told "Yeah their doing fine" doesn't help at all. It's all dependent on everyone signing up to improving standards; teachers, parents and students. If one of the triangle isn't fully committed it will fall down, which is a crying shame for our children's future.
It is interesting to hear how we have slipped in standards against other rated countires. I guess that given the current system is focussing on building self esteem and not solid education might have a significant weighting on this...?? Good on the gov for taking this seriously and doing something about it.
How stupid. So the great unwashed don't understand the system, and if we did, we'd all be happy with it. How arrogant and out of touch. It's obvious that John Key and Anne Tolley don't actually understand the proposed system as they have been unable to answer even basic questions regarding problems with the method itself. The fact is, it's a bad system and anyone who looks carefully at the so called 'National Standards' sees that. All the teacher training in the world about the standards can't make up for the fact that the tests will be at best inaccurate, and at worst useless. $36m for struggling kids, is that right? What about the funding that's being taken away from schools in other areas? Private schools got $30m dollars or so to 'increase choice', benefitting very few, yet all our struggling kids get $36m (less funding that's being cut in other areas). That amounts to very little for our kids who are most in need. For once I actually agree with Phill Goff, sack Anne Tolley and re-think the whole thing from scratch.
Your forgot one more criticism, and to me this is the biggie - the tests themselves are unsound and therefore cannot deliver what the 'spin' says they will. It is such a poor measurement system I'd be embarrassed to be implmementing it. Firstly, the tools are no good and are unable to be used for the purpose for which the Govt is using them. Secondly, even if they were good, the international evidence says it's a waste of time. I can't work out why the Government is blowing millions on testing, which won't work as per the actual scientific evidence, yet taking funding away from schools at the same time. I resent being treated like an idiot and told that the reason I'm sceptical is that I don't understand them. That's insulting. I looked into it and I undertsand the system just fine, I also understand the blindlingly obvious if you have a good look - parents will not get an accurate picture of where their kids are at through this system. They will only generate a false sense of security that we will know better where our kids are at. We won't.
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The facts are that we continue to perform well in all OECD educational testing. There is no evidence of a falling or decline in our standard of education. We are in actual fact in the top 1/2 a dozen countries in the OECD for maths, science and reading ahead of the USA, UK and Aussie but behind Finland who have no national standards or testing system. Even at the bottom of the pile the number of children struggling is reducing not increasing. This stuff about 40,000 people who can't read and write and 30% of teachers being useless is plainly and clearly lies.