Calls for boycott of new National Standards

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Fri, 25 Jun 2010 6:08p.m.

Education Minister Anne Tolley

Education Minister Anne Tolley

By Melissa Davies

Education Minister Anne Tolley is accusing a group of Auckland principals of scaremongering and grandstanding for political purposes.

The Principals Association is urging its members to boycott training courses for the new National Standards.

The aim of the training is to make sure all teachers grade children in exactly the same way for reading, writing and maths.

But many principals say the system itself is a failure.

The new school reports, that parents will soon be seeing, explain whether a child is above, below or well below the National Standard.

The problem is teachers are finding it hard to agree on the standards themselves. 

“For example you might look at some writing and consider it's at this level, I might look at another piece of writing and consider it's at a different level,” says Iain Taylor, of the Auckland Primary Principals Association.

“I say the child's above, you say the child's below, yet it might be vice versa. So it's incredibly difficult to get that reliable data from the moderation.”

Margaret Gwilliam, principal for Papatoetoe Central School, says the new system has made things much worst.

“The Minister was really looking for consistency in all of this and there is less consistency now than there probably ever has been,” she says.

The Auckland Primary Principals Association says it's for that reason that the 400 schools in their membership have been told to boycott the teachers training courses for National Standards.

The Government invested $26 million dollars in the training. Ms Tolley says participation is optional but the principals are unprofessional to pull out.

Bill Courtney is campaigning on behalf of parents in wellington, he says the process has been too rushed.

“If the standards are not clear enough for the teachers to be confident about them then we as parents will lack the confidence to use the information contained in the report,” he says.

The New Zealand Principals Federation is the umbrella organisation for the country and their spokesman says they support the action taken in Auckland. They say there is widespread discontent and principals in Northland and Southland are also refusing to do the training.

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Comments

06 Jul 2010 10:05p.m.

Stephen wrote:

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.

27 Jun 2010 08:42p.m.

Karl Marx wrote:


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.

26 Jun 2010 12:35p.m.

Bill Courtney wrote:

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??

26 Jun 2010 10:27a.m.

Ian wrote:

'TWE' you are talking rubbish. This is just union driven opposition for the sake of opposition. The great majority of parents want it and the students need it. The priciplals are being union driven. We need to introduce standards. If I refused to introduce quality standards at work I would get the sack. The day childrens education gets held back by politics is a dangerous day. The left and unions get blinded by this fact.

26 Jun 2010 08:05a.m.

Adrian wrote:

One just has to revisit the story about a young ‘16yo student from otaki off to study at Yale’ by the name of Ngaa Rauuira featured on Campbell Live last month to understand the internationally low level assessment programme national standards offers. His receptive nature to pursue a Maaori education pathway from birth i.e. koohanga, kura kaupapa, wharekura, waananga streamed lined him to qualify for higher learning based on his academic record gained from Te Waananga o Raukawa rather than his NZQA merits.
My understanding is that many kura kaupapa students are subjected to the standardized teachings facilitated by a philosophy widely known as Te Aho Matua. Perhaps main stream adopt a similar philosophy so to instill confidence in the national teachers association pool. Fact is young 11, 12, 13, year old waananga diploma students, prodigies of whom stem from a successful Maaori education pathway 3 years ago were no longer entitled to enroll into Waananga, a directive from the government even though it’s a natural progression until they turn 16 years of age. Waananga qualifications are recognize at the highest level of academia internationally, a proven fact. The government needs to consult with actual credible discoverers to whom are forging new pathways to raise the level of education standards here in New Zealand to the bare minimum equivalent to international standards. Wake up government stop holding our mainstream students back and don’t discriminate against this country’s future Maaori leaders of whom are exposed to superior education sytems.
The young student mentioned above isn’t the only Maaori teenager demonstrating exceptional academic ability, rest assured there are many kura kaupapa students of similar ability. The government’s regulation policy doesn’t give justices to our education system in the best interest of our youth, both mainstream and special character, particularly kura kaupapa students who show promise to enroll into Waananga.

26 Jun 2010 06:44a.m.

Brent wrote:

Standing up for themselves alright, knowing the standards there schools produce can be used to grade teachers are what there scared of.

25 Jun 2010 11:07p.m.

TWE wrote:

"...scaremongering and grandstanding for political purposes." Bull***t. The principals know what is best for their schools and they wouldn't be doing this without a good reason. Tolley is just attacking them because they refuse to quietly do as they are told. Good on them for making a noise and standing up for themselves.