Bulldozer Approach To Natl Standards Won't Work

Media Release
September 21st, 2009

From NZEI Te Riu Roa
For immediate use

Bulldozer Approach To National Standards Won’t Work

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says the government must recognise that a “bulldozer approach” to the introduction of National Standards will inevitably fail.

The new National Standards for literacy and numeracy will be released at the end of October, and schools will then be expected to start working with them when they open their doors for the 2010 school year.

That means principals and teachers will have just six weeks, during the busiest time of the year, to look at the Standards, try and understand them, and have them ready to go. The Standards will also be required to be in use before the professional development process for schools kicks in next March. How realistic is this?

NZEI President Frances Nelson says that schools are not against the Standards as such, but the haste with which they are being imposed on an already pressured sector coming to grips with a revised curriculum.

“Schools know that they have to make the Standards work but the government has not recognised that principals and teachers have a responsibility to implement them properly and professionally and ensure they do not compromise nor take the focus off the new curriculum. That will take time,” she says.

NZEI is also concerned that the opposition of teachers and principals to league tables is being used to muddy the debate over National Standards and information sharing with parents.

“Teachers and principals are aware of the need to have consistent and robust reporting on children’s learning and are not against information sharing as some people seem to be suggesting. What they are against is that information being shared publicly by way of league table comparisons which undermine children’s progress and do not promote sound educational practice,” says Ms Nelson.

She says there is a firm belief that league tables would actually defeat the purpose of introducing National Standards.

NZEI continues to seek assurances from the government that there will be “safe warehousing” of the data from National Standards to prevent the production of league tables due to the harm they would do to the education system and therefore student learning.

ENDS

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