National Standards Fail to Fire

Media Release 29 November 2013
Attention: Education & Political Reporters

National Standards Fail to Fire

Two reports released this week have revealed that the National Standards education policy has failed to fire,’ said Philip Harding, President of The New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF).

The New Zealand Council for Education Research (NZCER) study shows that less than 2% of school principals say that national standards data provide a reliable picture of student performance and only 16% of Boards of Trustees say that national standards in school reports has resulted in positive parent engagement in children’s learning. Less than one percent of teachers say that national standards help inclusion of students with special needs. The vast majority say national standards have made no big difference to student achievement and have created a lot more work for very little gain.

‘National Standards were motivated by a government wanting to get a reliable nationwide picture of student achievement to share with the public, to report better information to parents and to address priority learners including special needs children ,’ said Harding.

‘These results show that national standards have failed on all three counts,’ he said.

The second study conducted independently by Waikato University’s researcher Professor Martin Thrupp show even more negative effects. Thrupp concludes that national standards have resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum and recommends that there should be a return to assessing learning progress through the curriculum levels. He further suggests that reporting of primary achievement to the Ministry and the public should be abandoned and that system wide information be obtained through a national sampling approach.

‘The evidence is quite clear,’ said Harding. ‘National standards in their present form are an abject failure. An urgent review is called for before any more harm is done to our world class education system.’

ENDS

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