Call for ERO boss to resign over national standards

National standards legislation was based on "distortion akin to a lie", according to a former senior schools inspector.

Kelvin Smythe, a former teacher, principal, university lecturer and inspector, is calling for the Education Review Office boss to quit.

He made the call for Graham Stoop's resignation at a principals' conference this week, and announced he was seeking legal advice on taking a judicial review of the legislation that ushered in national standards.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said: "This nonsense is not worthy of comment."

ERO was a "well-respected independent government agency". It was disappointing that those who did not agree with the standards continued to "attack anybody and anything they don't agree with".

Mr Smythe said a 2007 ERO report found about 90 per cent of primary schools could demonstrate pupils' achievement and progress in English and mathematics.

The same report showed schools' abilities to demonstrate pupils' achievement and progress in all curriculum areas, including social studies, arts and physical education, was satisfactory in only 57 per cent of cases.

But when the Government publicised national standards, which focus on literacy and numeracy, it quoted the 57 per cent figure, seriously overstating the need for better literacy and numeracy reporting, he said.

"My strong contention is that, if the figures for literacy and numeracy had been in the bill, it would not have appeared, let alone passed," he said.

"This massive discrepancy, akin to a lie, was continually repeated by the minister then, in a legislative disgrace, ended up in the legislation as the justification for national standards."

He accused ERO of creating a similar 2009 report for Mrs Tolley "as a source of propaganda" to justify the standards implementation.

However, ERO said its 2007 report used an external reference panel of assessment experts, including university academics.

It found that, although schools were collecting assessment information, in 40 per cent of schools teachers were investing time and energy in assessment activities that did not result in useful information about pupils' achievement and progress.

Dr Stoop said using assessment to improve teaching and learning programmes was essential to good teaching practice. Half were not reporting achievement information effectively to parents and school communities.

Quality Public Education Coalition vice-president John O'Neill, a Massey University education professor, called for an independent review of ERO. "I have concerns about the basis on which factual claims are being made."

The 2009 report would have failed peer-reviewed research tests, and was largely taken from classroom observation, he said. "They are taking subjective opinions and turning them into objective facts."

Massey emeritus education professor Ivan Snook said the 2009 ERO report was not genuine research "with a hypothesis and robust methodology for testing".

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