Alliance Backs Teachers On National Standards

The Alliance Party says teachers are right to be concerned about the national standards about to be introduced into primary schools this year. Parents should be concerned as well. Alliance Party co-leader Kay Murray says national standards will introduce a competitive element to all levels of education and our children will be the losers.

Schools, teachers and, most importantly, young children themselves do not need the pressure of a national testing scheme, she says. "No child needs the stigma of being officially labelled as 'below average' in the first few years of their schooling. Pity the poor seven or eight year old performing at an average level whose overambitious parents expect nothing less than top of the scale." The Alliance reiterates what all the experts have said and what most parents and teachers believe: National standards are a ridiculous waste of money.

Ms Murray says teachers already know what children need extra help. "Parents who bother to spend time with their children supervising their homework and reading with them should have a fairly good idea of how well they are doing too. If all else fails parents who have concerns can ask their child's teacher."

The challenge is to provide schools and teachers with the resources to help children who have genuine learning difficulties, she says. "This goal will be made more difficult with the funding sucked into national standards and the time and effort wasted on them at classroom level."

But then national standards have never been about improving education in New Zealand or helping children with genuine problems.

National standards are simply pay back to teacher unions and schools in general for their stubborn insistence on a free and equitable education system for all New Zealand children and tendency to support Centre Left rather than Centre Right political parties.

ENDS

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