Government Clutches at National Standards Straws

24th March 2011
For Immediate Release

Government Clutches at National Standards Straws

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says the Education Minister is once again clutching at straws by claiming National Standards are responsible for the success of a pilot programme to improve student achievement in maths.

The pilot programme conducted in 2010 by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research aimed to improve the maths performance of low performing students. It found they gained significant ground through a targeted programme.

Nowhere in the 26-page report on the pilot does it make any reference to National Standards playing a part in the success of the pilot or suggest that the children involved were identified through the use of National Standards.

“For the Minister to claim these students learning was improved through National Standards is a complete misrepresentation. Out of a list of nine major reasons for the students’ improvement, National Standards are conspicuously absent,” says NZEI President Ian Leckie.

“The report proves that it is teachers who identify students who are struggling and it is their effective teaching as well as targeted and additional resourcing that make the difference.”

The pilot programme was carried out last year when National Standards were only just being introduced.

Ian Leckie says “the timing of the pilot shows that the government is being misleading to claim that National Standards would have played any part in this project.”

“It is encouraging to see evidence that intensive, targeted and additional resourcing, along with effective teaching is what really works for students. That is what provides meaningful support, not a narrow set of National Standards which will do nothing to lift achievement,” he says.

ENDS

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