Death Rattles For National Standards

Death Rattles For National Standards

"It's a day to celebrate," declared Whetu Cormick, President of the New Zealand Principals' Federation (NZPF), as he listened to Minister Hipkins consign national standards to their death bed.

Today the Minister of Education, Hon Chris Hipkins, announced that the Government has stopped the controversial National Standards system of assessment and declared them an arbitrary measure which did not raise children's achievement as the previous Government intended.

"This is such a win for all the principals who never believed in national standards and who, for the past decade, have argued for what is morally right for our nation's young people and their learning," said Cormick.

"We repeatedly said that national standards were not a valid measure of a school's performance, would not raise achievement and would narrow the curriculum to reading, writing and mathematics," he said. "Today we were vindicated," said Cormick.

"At last we have a Minister prepared to engage us, listen to our arguments and act on them," said Cormick.

Although disappointed that all schools will have to comply with the existing legislation and submit one more report against national standards targets by March 2018, charter targets for the 2018 year will not include national standards.

"We so look forward to working with the Minister to develop new ways of understanding young peoples' learning progress and reporting progress to parents in a clear and meaningful way," said Cormick. "

ENDS

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