NZEI backs call for closing National Standards website

3 October 2012
Immediate Release

NZEI Te Riu Roa backs call for closing National Standards website

NZEI Te Riu Roa says it strongly supports the call for the National Standards website to be closed following revelations that nearly half of National Standards assessments are wrong.

National President Ian Leckie says the Ministry of Education is being reckless in allowing this dangerous and ropey information to remain on its website.

“The Ministry has admitted that 49 percent of writing assessments have been marked incorrectly and that there is a huge range of incorrect maths assessments.”

Mr Leckie says he’s not surprised by the inaccuracy of the data.

“It was an impossible task given the fact that the standards are so vague and the implementation of them so rushed.”

“This is what we’ve been trying to tell the Government for a long time – that National Standards are a complete farce. They are neither national, nor standard.”

“We need to drop National Standards and go back to proper assessment tools. And then we need to use those tools for their intended purpose, which is to help teachers improve children’s learning, not to set up league tables within schools and across schools.”

“Our advice to parents remains the same. Do not place any importance on National Standards. Parents can get the best information about their child’s progress and the school’s effectiveness by visiting the school and talking to teachers.”

“If the Government continues to allow this misleading and dangerous information to remain on the website then it is clearly more interested in using children as guinea pigs in an ideological experiment than in genuinely trying to raise student achievement.”

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