Principals are caught between the legal obligation to implement the National Standards and a moral obligation to do what is best for the education of the children. The morally courageous are saying no to a policy that is politically motivated and educationally unsound. High stakes national testing is occurring in other westen countries as a blunt accountability device. Learning is more complex than this. Lets have plain language reporting and lets have greater accountability, but lets not pretend that National Standards policy is the means to achieve this.
Ian says, "'TWE' you are talking rubbish. This is just union driven opposition for the sake of opposition."What Ian doesn't know is that the tension between the liberal aspirations of state education (teachers), pressure on government funding, and government moves (by left and right of centre governments in all OECD countries) to better align educational outcomes to the needs of the economy have been ratching up since the post war boom. This is merely the continuing saga between social liberals and neo-liberals in that struggle.
I have played a role in arguing against the introduction of National Standards and was proud to present the petition to Parliament last Tuesday. Over 37,000 New Zelanders have signed the call for the implementation to be slowed right down. I do not agree with the views expressed by some commentators in this discussion that this is just union driven. Nonsense. Please re-read the open letter to the Minister from the leading academics, including Prof John Hattie: "Minister, in our view the flaws in the new system are so serious that full implementation of the intended national standards system over the next three years is unlikely to be successful. It will not achieve intended goals and is likely to lead to dangerous side effects." The principals and teachers attending the early training courses are now discovering just how flawed this system really is. What the public must realise is that the statement of objectives by the government must be separated from the reality of how flawed this system is proving to be. Even if you want to see Standards-based reform of the education system introduced, the overwhelming message being delivered to government is that THIS SYSTEM is flawed. Will they listen??