Educational Relativity
The Boards of 225 schools have said they will refuse to implement the achievement targets of the New National Standards next year. This is hardly a great shock. It has been quite obvious that the problem with the new standards from the teacher’s union perspective is not the standards themselves, but the achievement targets that will allow you to compare one school‘s performance against another. Note that this is not an overall figure of achievement – because some schools will always do better than others, due to many factors other than the quality of the teachers. This is a measure of improvement in achievement and is directly relatable to teacher’s performance. Clearly, this is not something that the unions would like, as it could set the stage for performance based pay for teachers.
If National Standards label children as failures, it will be their teachers, their principles and their school boards that are pinning it on them.
”That the left have managed to take control of the boards of so many schools is a tribute to the persuasive powers of left-wing principals. They have managed to package it as “standards will be a disaster for children“. The truth is much nearer “standards will be a disaster for teachers – particularly bad ones”. While I do not know enough about education to discuss the various merits and demerits of the standards, I can well believe that they will be full of serious faults when they are implemented. We are, after all, talking about government standards and no government can wheel out such a project unflawed. One only has to recall the implementation of NCEA, to see the chaos likely to ensue over the next few years.
Funny, isn’t it, how we didn’t see boards refusing to implement NCEA? It is really unlikely that the standards will be anywhere near as disruptive as NCEA, yet some boards are acting as if their children are going to be scarred for life! They need a bit of perspective, apparently.
Could it be that the main difference is that National Standards will reverse the main effect of NCEA, which was to render it all but impossible to compare schools and extremely difficult to compare individual achievements of children. It is this very socialist idea, that we must never compare one child with another, that underpins all of the teachers protests and produces typical statements such as this:
“Board chairman Simon Mitchell said the issue was not about having standards, as most schools already did, but that national standards would not help underachievers and would instead result in children who did not meet the required level being labelled failures.”
Mr. Mitchell conveniently overlooks the fact that it is supposed to be his teachers that are there to help the underachievers. All National Standards will do is help them to see how many of their kids are underachieving on a national level, rather than just at the relative level of the school. That an intelligent person fails to see how important this is, is beyond me.
Readers of this blog will know that Mrs MacDoctor and I home-schooled our children through their secondary education. Our primary motivation was to prevent our very small daughters from being bullied by other children (you know, the kind of bullying that doesn’t happen in schools). However, shortly after starting homeschool, I discovered that youngest MacDaughter knew absolutely beans about maths. This was despite years of New Zealand school reports telling me that she was coping admirably. Fortunately, I am good at Maths and am also a reasonably good teacher, so I was able to provide her with extra tuition, until she was able to cope with the home-school work by herself.
It is exactly this kind of situation that we need standards for. It is hard to image exactly how angry I would be with the school principal when my daughter suddenly became a “not achieved” at NCEA Math, after years of placatory reports. Multiply this effect by thousands of parents and you will start to appreciate why National is sticking to its guns on this one. The teachers unions and some left-wing dominated boards might not like the new standards, but I have yet to meet a parent who doesn’t (I don’t socialise with many left-wing parents, obviously).
The simple fact is that, when a child leaves school, the very first thing that will happen is that he will be in immediate competition with all of his peers, for jobs and university places. Only a complete idiot can fail to appreciate that this competition is immediately a nationwide affair. My child is going to be directly compared to your child, no matter where we live. This is the way of the world.
Underachieving children need all the help they can get. Help they will not get while teachers are allowed to be lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that all of their children are underachieving equally. If National Standards label children as failures, it will be their teachers, their principles and their school boards that are pinning it on them.
Note to parents of such children: these people are NOT your friends.
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Nov 4 10 6:45 am
This is a measure of improvement in achievement and is directly relatable to teacher’s performance. Clearly, this is not something that the unions would like…
Possibly. But I can’t imagine that many professions genuinely would like performance measures that are ill-thought-out, hastily implemented without consultation and easily gamed by the dishonest. I’d certainly oppose such foolishness for my own profession.
Funny, isn’t it, how we didn’t see boards refusing to implement NCEA?
Perhaps because, unlike these standards, NCEA was carefully developed in consultation with the profession, debated thoroughly and phased in over time, rather than hastily thrown together and rammed through Parliament under urgency because it was an election promise.
All National Standards will do is help them to see how many of their kids are underachieving on a national level, rather than just at the relative level of the school. That an intelligent person fails to see how important this is, is beyond me.
In principle, yes. And if the govt were to back off, trouble itself to take some time over developing the standards, try actually consulting some experts about them, and put them through a proper Parliamentary process to pass them into law, we’d get to see whether the lefty teachers, principals and BoTs are genuinely interested in the children or not. But that won’t happen, so it’s really just a matter of political opinion – who do you trust least, teachers or politicians?
I discovered that youngest MacDaughter knew absolutely beans about maths. This was despite years of New Zealand school reports telling me that she was coping admirably.
Whereas I discovered that after years of socialist indoctrination by lefty teachers my kids were far better at maths than I was at their age. Everybody with kids has an anecdote, it doesn’t really tell us much.
Nov 4 10 12:04 pm
I can’t imagine that many professions genuinely would like performance measures that are ill-thought-out, hastily implemented without consultation and easily gamed by the dishonest.
Ah. You mean like ALL government standards? Nobody likes them. You simply work with them and try to demonstrate that the stupidest of the really are unworkable…
who do you trust least, teachers or politicians?
Weirdly, in this case, I would have to say teachers. There is far too much self-interest involved in the teacher’s protests.
Everybody with kids has an anecdote
True. But it’s MY blog, so only MY anecdotes count…
Nov 4 10 9:25 am
1. Actually, I think you will find that a number of schools *did* refuse to use NCEA, instead using the Cambridge exams.
2. National Radio ran a program Sunday morning which appeared to be designed to tell us that all schools will deliver the same result. They even had someone telling us that kids don’t “get dumber” if you put them in the wrong school.
3. Interesting comment re: your daughter’s maths. I know of a similar case with reading. That person would have been placed in the “intellectually handicapped” class and spent his time doing field drips. Now, thanks to his mother’s efforts he has now become quite the amateur war historian in his spare time.
scrubone´s last [type] ..Obama Loses House
Nov 4 10 10:25 am
My understanding is that these were private schools. I was not aware that government schools were given that choice. The point still stands anyway – NCEA was far more disruptive than National Standards, but attracted far less opposition.
Nov 4 10 11:06 pm
Have a quick read of PPTA Submission – Implementation of the NCEA from Scoop in 2002.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED0211/S00006/ppta-submission-implementation-of-the-ncea.htm
Its like deja-vu all over again
“NZPPTA was not directly involved in the early consultations ” , “Ministry of Education be required to address the staffing needs created by the NCEA” ,
And my personal favourite “Treat teachers like we would treat students at the start – begin clear and firm, and after a time (2 – 3 years) loosen up” , hahahahahahahahah
Nov 7 10 6:47 am
I find your claim that the teacher unions are opposing national standards in order to ‘protect bad teachers’ to be not credible.
Do you really believe that?
It seems a reactive and ‘incredible’ view to hold and one that suits a ‘teacher bashing’ mentality that is distorting the ‘right wing’s’ understanding of the issue.
robertguyton´s last [type] ..They come and they go
Nov 13 10 2:07 pm
I make no such claim. I merely say that proper uniform standards will be bad for underperforming teachers and underperforming schools. This is an indisputable fact. It is clear that the union is unhappy with the requirement of reporting against achievement targets, rather than the standards themselves. It is therefore an inescapable conclusion that they wish to protect their membership from performance assessment. The side-effect of this desire is that they will be protecting bad teachers, but that is by no means their main focus in opposing standards.
You accuse the right wing (and myself) of teacher bashing. That is disingenuous of you. It is clear that we are teacher union bashing, which is a very different thing.
Nov 13 10 9:36 am
Hi MacDoctor,
You said that most parents (not the left wing types) like the Standards. It is my contention that most parents like the IDEA of the Standards, but haven’t actually read the Standards themselves, and therefore their judgement on them is based on what they think they are. I have read them, I am not left-wing, and I don’t like them (especially the Reading/Writing Standards for 6 year olds). Have you read them?
Nov 13 10 1:54 pm
That’s a good point. I have only briefly flicked through them. Sure there is plenty of vague and woolly stuff which will be hard, if not impossible, to implement, but I don’t think that’s a reason not to have them.
I had some sympathy for the teacher’s call to trial them. It seemed a good idea at face value. However, while a small-scale trial might iron out some of the more unworkable aspects of the standards, it will do nothing towards improving the quality of the main thrust of the standards, which is to have uniform comparison data between schools. Of course, this is the very thing that the teacher’s union hates and the very thing that National want, hence the current stoush between them.