The Government is holding its ground on controversial national standards for primary schools, and on the first day of school next year the rules will be put into action. NewsWire reporters talk to educationists about what might happen.

New school standards ‘gut reaction’ politics

FETU TAMAPEAU looks at why teachers and education academics are resisting:

EXPERTS are warning the national standards policy is ill-timed, irrationally targeted and will have damaging effects on children the policy is promising to help.

New Zealand’s leading education assessment academics have released an open letter to Minister of Education Anne Tolley saying the policy will not achieve its intended goals and will lead to dangerous side effects.

But Tolley is adamant the national standards will fulfill an election promise to raise New Zealand children’s reading, writing and maths abilities.

Her leader, John Key, backs her fully: “They will lift achievement levels for children in primary and intermediate schools, and report children’s progress on literacy and numeracy to parents in plain English twice a year

Professors Martin Thrupp of Waikato University, John Hattie from the University of Auckland, Terry Crooks and Lester Flockton of Otago University say the standards have been rushed through and will “distort and impoverish the culture of teaching and learning and assessment within schools”.

The new curriculum, which has taken years of extensive consultation and development, was something teachers were excited about.

But a hurried introduction has experts and teachers questioning their merit. Now, they are disheartened because they claim the standards and curriculum are an ill fit.

Lester Flockton, emeritus director of Otago University’s Educational Assessment Research Unit says the idea that standards will serve the demands of the curriculum is wrong.

Island Bay School principal Perry Rush agrees: “No matter how hard you stir it, the component parts just keep separating.”

He says the curriculum and national standards policy do not mix well, which is evidence that the teaching profession was not consulted properly.

“Standards centralise achievement expectations, but the curriculum localises achievement. Standards understand achievement to be linear and age-referenced, but the curriculum enshrines the unique nature of achievement personal to each learner.”

Lester Flockton says the rushed 40-day consultation process is a great concern, but even more worrying is the absence of proper engagement with the education sector and its work.

He says the rush is a symptom of “gut reaction” politics.

“They set up policies they think will have public appeal because they want to get voters to the ballot box.”

The Government has pushed the plain language message and it has been popular with parents.

What the national standards actually mean has been harder to agree on.

The way the standards have been written is a paradox, because experts and teachers are finding it hard to understand what they mean, says Flockton.

For example, the reading standard by the end of year 6 says: “Students will locate, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas within and across a small range of texts appropriate to this level as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum.”

By the end of year 7 it is expected students “will locate, evaluate, and synthesise information and ideas within and across a range of texts appropriate to this level as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum.”

Massey University education lecturer Dr Bobbie Hunter says there is “complete chaos, because nobody really seems to know what it all means”. She says the idea of the standards being used in less than three months’ time is worrying.

Experts believe all the confusion could be avoided if they targeted the 20% of under-achieving children they aim to help, instead of applying a new system to the whole country.

Martin Thrupp, professor of education at Waikato University says there is an obvious mismatch between national standards for all New Zealand children and the claim that national standards are most needed to address the problem of the 20% of children.

Flockton says the Government is not looking at the wider picture and needed to consider bigger issues that cause under-achievement, such as poverty.

That’s an issue Anne Tolley argues is too often used as an excuse for under-achievement.

Research shows 20% to 30% of achievement can be credited to school. The other 70% to 80% is influenced by a child’s circumstances in life, the opportunities they have in their family and their personal makeup.

Instead of spending money to assess a whole country, Flockton says the Government needs to target problem areas.

The Government says the policy will help identify which students and schools are at risk, but Flockton says we do not need standards to identify those at risk.

He says most people could “walk off the street into a classroom” and identify which children had learning problems.

Pacific and Maori children are highly represented in the group of students who are at what has been described as the tail end of under-achievement.

Hunter, as well as lecturing at Massey, researches and works with numeracy education in diverse classrooms. Her research in a lower decile school in West Auckland resulted in some students gaining six years of progress in one year.

She is deeply concerned about the impact the new national standards will have on Maori and Pacific children.

Despite numeracy being a focus of her research, she still views the standards as damaging to the education system.

“For Pasifika and Maori children, national standards are going to paint a really bad picture.”

Many Maori and Pasifika students are in low-decile schools that struggle to get teachers and often those schools get a lot of student teachers who leave as soon as they are registered.

“These schools and their children are on an uneven playing field.”

She says the one-size-fits-all approach with national standards does not consider greater inequalities that some of these children face every day. For these children, she says education is their only chance, and telling children they have failed from the age of five is wrong at a number of levels.

Hunter’s work encourages children to develop their skills by asking questions and challenging others about maths, which she says supports current research that children should be encouraged to think like mathematicians.

At the recent launch of the revised Pasifika Education Plan 2009-2012, Anne Tolley said Pasifika achievement had grown in virtually all areas, “but there is a lot more work to be done”.

Hunter says the national standards policy will reverse the “remarkable” progress that has been made in numeracy at these schools already.

Although the Government insists the standards are signposts for achievement not tests, Hunter says schools are already trying to figure out ways to test how students will reach the national standards. That will result in pressure for schools to teach to the test.

Many other experts voice the same concerns and view the policy as a step backwards, because similar systems overseas have had “disastrous” results.

“New Zealand has a really well-respected system worldwide,” she says. “We are not going into the 21st century, we are going backwards.”

She says it is hard for people to trust the policy because no one is certain what the Government is going to do with the information.

“Parents need to know in plain language what will happen to schools that have high under-achievement under this policy.”

Lester Flockton says there is little confidence the system developed by the Ministry of Education – with little involvement with the education sector – will work.

Along with his expert colleagues, he recommends it needs to be adjusted and trialled and if it does not achieve what the Government says it will, it should not be continued.

“It’s a waste of taxpayer money, by leading people down the garden path.”

Standards will disadvantage those learning English as second language

Teachers of English for other language speakers across the country will be put under pressure by the Government’s new national standards scheme, reports BONNIE TAI. She looks at how it will affect a Wellington intermediate school:

FORMER international student Pouy Lewis recalls moving to New Zealand at a young age and not speaking a word of English.

The 22-year-old (pictured right), who is now fluent in English, now works as an accountant in Napier.

She is worried the new national standards will severely impede the academic success of international students.

She feels that if it were not for the help of ESOL teachers in school she would not be where she is now.

“If their English is as bad as mine was, they’re not going to pass,” says Ms Lewis.

South Wellington Intermediate School hosts five refugee students (three from Somalia and two from Iraq) and 11 ESOL students.

The  school is home to students from Samoa, Tokelau, Fiji, Cook Islands, Thailand, Ethiopia, Germany, Cambodia, China, and India to name but a few.

Deputy principal Christine Sangster is worried.

“The national standards scheme does not take into consideration the needs of these kids.”

She expects a fair amount of pressure will be placed on ESOL teachers as the overall achievement standards for schools will be affected by the number of students who are not reaching the expected levels.

“This will really make it hard for them to meet these students’ diverse needs,” she says.

Research has found that children who speak English as a second language take about three to four years to get a good oral understanding of the language and five to seven years to get the reading side down.

“There is just no way that they will be able to achieve at the expected standards in their particular year level,” she says.

Some of Ms Sangster’s students have been in the country for less than two years. She says those students are just going to be “penalised all the way through” if the standards are implemented.

She says the students, especially the refugees, will experience culture shock on arriving in the country.

“Some of our refugee students have never been to school at all until they get to New Zealand.”

“They can’t tell us how they feel, or what they want, so it must be incredibly difficult and lonely for them.”

The school tries to place these students in a class with another speaker of their mother tongue if they can, as this helps them acclimatise more quickly and gives them someone who can help translate for them.

According to the Ministry of Education, the implementation of national standards will set clear expectations that students need to meet in reading, writing and mathematics in the first eight years at school.

Ms Sangster concedes the idea of national standards is a good one but “there’s just nothing to get them motivated to succeed.

“At the moment, we can let students know that they’re making improvements, but when they see a ‘did not succeed’ – it’s just going to demolish these children.”

She says the marking criteria need to be clearer.

“The maths is going to be easier to implement that reading. The reading standards are going to need a bit of fine tuning before they can be applied.”

Principal Michael Debney says it is good for schools to be held accountable for student success in the long term, but he fears they could potentially be reporting back with inaccurate data, as marking schedules are so vague.

“If you are going to introduce it, then you need to do it carefully,” he says. “It just seems to be a bit rushed to me.”

The Ministry of Education says the parents involved in the consultation period supported the Government’s proposed national standards scheme. All wanted better information about their children’s achievements and progress.

Labour education spokesperson Trevor Mallard says the scheme unnecessarily labels children as failures early in their schooling career.

Chak Wa Yau (24) immigrated to New Zealand at the age of seven.

Mr Yau (left) is now fluent in English and recently graduated from Massey University with a degree in multi-media design.

He remembers when he was placed into a classroom by himself with a special teacher, as he experienced extreme culture shock.

“I just couldn’t function in a normal class environment,” he says. “It was just really scary.”

“I had come from Hong Kong where my schooling was done in groups of 40, coming to a foreign place and being taught by this white lady was just nerve wracking”.

He says it is not fair for international students to be graded on the same level as everyone else when it comes to literacy.

NZ Education Institute (teachers union) president Frances Nelson believes the country has two conflicting education systems.

“We are meant to report to parents what their kids can do basically and what their next learning steps are,” she says.

“We don’t say you’ve failed because you haven’t met this particular standard. We’re here to look at how far they’ve come and how much improvement is made.

“It’s fair to say that there are real fears that the standards will narrow the curriculum, undermine children’s broader learning and achievement, and lead to the creation of simplistic school league tables.”

The Education Minister Anne Tolley believes the standards will lift achievement levels for children in NZ.

She says that the policy will allow parents to be better informed about their child’s academic achievements.

National unswayed by standards ‘consultation’

By Vaughan Elder

WHEN the National government launched national standards last month it was fulfilling a major election promise which it believes will raise New Zealand students reading, writing and maths abilities.

The policy, which was launched on October 23, will require year one to year eight students to be tested against a new set of national standards in numeracy and literacy.

Since its launch it has come under criticism from a diverse range of groups including teachers unions and education experts.

Despite this intense criticism, Education Minister Anne Tolley has vowed to move ahead with the policy and has accused those against it of spreading “misinformation”.

National Standards were launched on the back of National’s desire to introduce “plain English reporting”, so both teachers and parents can easily judge how well their children are performing.

According to the Ministry of Education, national standards will be rolled out to primary schools next year and aim to set “clear expectations that students need to meet in reading, writing and mathematics in the first eight years at school”’

Students, from when they begin primary school until when they leave for secondary school, will be tested against these national standards, with their performance reported to parents twice a year beginning next year.

From 2012 the results will also have to be reported to the Ministry of Education and from there the media will also likely have access to the results.

Many teachers and education experts fear media publication of results in the form of comparative league tables will result in unfair comparisons between schools and a narrowing of the curriculum.

Tolley says the policy will lift achievement levels for New Zealand children, and will give parents plain English reporting on their child’s progress.

She says the policy was launched on the back of parents’ desire to have clear information on how their children are doing at school and  due to the high number of students who leave school without gaining any qualification.

In a speech on February 17 just prior to opening the policy up for consultation, she effectively laid out the policy as it now stands, saying the National Party is committed to introducing a national standards policy that would:

• Clearly spell out what students should be able to learn and achieve in literacy and numeracy -  and by when.
• Provide a clear picture of how students are performing against those National Standards (that) are able to be analysed and used by teachers and schools to identify which areas need the greatest focus to ensure better progress is made.
• And National Standards that are used to report to parents in plain language about how their child is doing”

As early as April 2, 2007, John Key signalled National’s intentions for creating national standards in New Zealand primary schools.

“Firstly, we will set national standards in reading, writing and maths,” he said in the speech given to the University of Auckland Education Campus, Epsom. “The national standards will describe the things all kids should be able to do by a particular age or year at school.”

In that speech, John Key effectively laid out the policy as it now stands, saying: “How do we know when kids aren’t doing well? We won’t know unless we measure what they are doing.”

After National gained power, there was little mucking around. Consultation organised by the Ministry of Education began on May 25, less than six months after John Key was sworn in as Prime Minister.

Throughout the rapid fire consultation process – which lasted only 40 days – 4000 “educators” attended meetings held in schools and more than 2000 attended meetings for “parents, family and whanau”.

According to the Ministry of Education, most parents who were involved in the consultation process supported the introduction of national standards and wanted “better information about their children’s achievement and progress”.

However, a number raised concerns that the policy would ignore the different learning patterns amongst students and create for a narrow view of learning.

Some parents were also concerned it would create unfair comparisons amongst schools and could result in some students who could not achieve the standards becoming demoralised.

The education sector, while supporting giving clear information to parents about their child’s progress, expressed a wider range of concerns about the policy during consultation.

Some of those concerns – which have since been backed up by teacher union representatives – included:

• Fears the policy would narrow the curriculum.
• It would lead to unfair comparisons of schools through the publication of league tables in the media.
• The policy was being rushed in too quickly both in terms of the consultation process and in terms of the desire to have the policy introduced as early as 2011.
• It could give students who failed the standards low self esteem
• Teachers also raised concerns that it would lead to an increased workload for them.

After the short consultation process, the policy was launched on October 23 at Glen Taylor School in Glendowie, Auckland, along with funding of $36 million dollars over the next four years.

At the launch, comments by John Key and Anne Tolley effectively echoed those expressed by Key more than two years earlier.

“This government made a commitment to parents, and I’m delighted that for the first time they will now have information on what their children should be able to achieve and by when,” said Tolley at the launch.

Further examples of what the national standards look like include that by the time students enters secondary school they will be expected to be able to “locate, evaluate, and synthesise information and ideas within and across a range of texts appropriate to this level as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum”.

Some of the maths standards a year 8 student will be judged against include the ability to  “apply multiplicative strategies flexibly to whole numbers, ratios, and equivalent fractions (including decimals and percentages)” and “investigate summary, comparison, and relationship questions by using the statistical enquiry cycle”.

After the policy’s launch, it immediately came under attack from a variety of education experts and teachers groups.

Auckland University’s Professor John Hattie told the Sunday Star Times he had many concerns about the policy saying it could “pervert the nature of teaching”.

Professor Hattie – who has been credited by John Key with helping the Government with its education policy – said his major concern was the publication of league tables (tables which show how well each school is performing in comparison to each other) would lead to schools “teaching to the test”.

Since the policy’s launch, the PPTA and New Zealand Education Initiative have repeated many of the concerns which teachers raised during the consultation process.

Both groups have concerns the policy will narrow the curriculum and take away from other areas such as art, science and physical education.

The teachers unions also believe publication of results in the media will result in a simplification of how well schools are performing.

They believe this will be unfair on lower decile schools, whose students are less likely to have access to a positive learning environment home.

Frances Nelson, who represents 35,000 primary and intermediate principals and teachers as president of the NZEI,  spoke of the concerns held by many when she said:  “It’s fair to say that there are real fears that the standards will narrow the curriculum, undermine children’s broader learning and achievement and lead to creation of simplistic school league tables.”

Tolley responded to their concerns by accusing them of spreading misinformation and made it clear the policy would go ahead as planned at the beginning of next year.

She said in an opinion piece in the Dominion Post that “there will be no concessions, there will be no trial period” and that “parents want national standards and they are going to get them from next year”.

Union says standards’ focus much too narrow

By Reuben McDougall

THE teachers’ union, the New Zealand Education Institute, wants the new primary National Standards to be either trialled or dropped outright.

Its call came following a meeting of education industry leaders in which the proposed changes were discussed and roundly panned.

The forum took place at the New Zealand Education Institute in Wellington and will present the concerns to Education Minister Anne Tolley.

New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) President Frances Nelson says education professionals have not been involved in the development of the policy and “the impact of a National Standards regime is completely untested”.

Tolley wrote in a Dominion Post article – labelled “inflammatory” by the principals’ association – that “there will be no concessions, there will be no trial period”.

Labour Education spokesperson Trevor Mallard believes the teachers and unions’ claims are justified, saying they have a level of expertise and he does not believe that expertise has been recognised.

The NZEI thinks the short timeframe will put undue pressure on schools and put the revised curriculum, the teaching process and, most of all, student learning at risk.

Members of the forum have ruled out industrial action if their needs are not met, but said they hoped the collective voice was strong enough for the ministry to ask: “Do I really want a battle, or do I want to work with the profession to make something that’s important politically, actually work.”

Frances Nelson says the forum was put together because many different organisations and individuals had contacted the institute with concerns about the changes that had virtually been developed behind a screen.

The NZEI is New Zealand’s largest education union and has more than 48,000 members nationwide, representing about 90% of teachers and principals.

Information packs recently sent out to schools have been met with confusion from many teachers as to how they will be implemented.

The new national standards have been developed to try to improve literacy and numeracy in New Zealand children, but one of the major concerns voiced at the meeting was the standards will narrow children’s focus and put undue pressure on young children to perform in particular areas.

“At primary school level we have a generalist curriculum because children are developing in a whole lot of ways,” says Nelson.

“If they are not doing particularly well in literacy and numeracy, they do well in other curriculum areas. That is the thing that builds their motivation to come to school and while they are there happy and motivated they are more likely to learn the literacy and numeracy things too.”

‘New’ education standards really not so new

By Jess Jones

WHAT’S so new about the “new” national education standards?

Under New Zealand’s new national standards for schools, plain English reports must be sent home twice a year to show parents and caregivers exactly how their child is doing and which parts of schooling they are striving and struggling in.

Doesn’t that happen already? Most, if not all, primary school’s already send home reports twice to four times a year. On top of those reports, there are usually several parent-teacher interviews.

Formal league tables will be another outcome of the change. Not new. Just because there are no official league tables in place, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Most people know which schools are good in the area where they live. And considering New Zealand’s small size, it’s not hard to find out which are the best schools in the country.

Introducing physical league tables opens up opportunities for the media and critics to demoralise the “bad” schools and their students.

Testing is another thing being “introduced” to all primary and intermediate schools. This, too, already exists. Most schools test frequently with internal projects and exams. Lots of schools even go the extra mile and set up end-of-year exams to prepare students for future pressure.

Will the standards be at the cost of other things?

Narrowing the education system at such a young age could stint holistic development, which is vital in creating a well-rounded adult.

According to the current New Zealand curriculum, the five key competencies are:
1.    Thinking.
2.    Using languages, symbols and text.
3.    Participating and contributing.
4.    Relating to others.
5.    Managing self.

These are seen as the five vital abilities, which create well-rounded and educated people who can live, work and contribute to society.

Reading, writing and numbers use languages, symbols, text and, of course, thinking. These, however, are only two of the competencies on which the education system is based. The other three appear more evidently in cultural and sporting activities.

Physical education and the arts can teach children a majority of these competencies without even consulting academics. If the curriculum is narrowed down, we are limiting the development for children to become the people in society we want them to be.

Not all of us are readers, writers or mathematicians.

These three things are just part of the basic foundation on which to build an education and while they need to be a teaching priority, focusing on them may cause the smart kids to thrive and the academically challenged to struggle.

What’s the point of struggling students turning up?

Secondary school students get a buffet of subjects to pick and choose from. The small number of classes that are mandatory (the fill-in classes to make up credits), are usually the ones they flunk.

Primary school “dropouts” is an over-dramatisation, but if some children are forced to spend most of their school hours wrestling with English and maths,  they will end up not wanting to go. And not wanting to go to school at such an vulnerable age is a recipe for disaster.

Primary school can be looked at as a controlled exploration. When you’re young, you love to explore. At school, you get a taste of new and exciting possibilities. Music, sport, art, science, reading, writing and numbers are enlightening in a safe environment with helping hands.

Private schools will cope with the standards. They have the sort of money to provide the resources and staff to meet the standards’ criteria. Public schools however, will be at a disadvantage, as they usually have a larger school roll and far less money.

Lots of students in low decile schools don’t get the support to learn outside of the school ground. School, for these kids, is usually a safe haven where they go to the majority of their learning and growing.

To grow, you need experiences. And to experience things, you need variety in what you learn and play, which takes us back to holistic development, and the curriculum’s current competencies.