A message from Australia

I think it is worth sharing the below posting by Australian educator Phil Cullen ( Phil used to be Director Primary Education Queensland ) .Thankfully he hasn't lost his belief in creative education. Australia has moved further along the downhill  accountability track than New Zealand but we are rushing to catch up - a race to the bottom!

To access Phil's site click here.
IS 2012 THE YEAR FOR AN EDUCATIONAL R/EVOLUTION?

On Wednesday, 21 December, the ASIDE blog commented upon the TIME magazine choice of The Protestor as the person of the year. ‘Frustrations felt by millions nationally and internationally reached breaking point ... in 2011...by teachers as well.’

http://theasideblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-2012-year-for-educational-reform.htm

“To top it off, we have a growing number of disgruntled youth, who drop out of an education system that sees them as a number and fails to see the ensuing impact on society as a whole...Conformity and measurement are being used to define students, yet we constantly talk about differentiation, multiple learning styles, and the whole child....This leads us to ask the question, how many teachers will ‘dropout’ from conformity and measurement?”

“Just think how much more we could engage students if we were not so close to the edge of the cliff.”

There were protests everywhere in 2011 about the branding of schools with numbers. This week, also [Monday, 19 December] 1046 New York principals signed a petition opposing the linking of their own evaluation [ A score out of 100] with the results of their students’ testing scores. Such number branding is coming down here.

On July 30, you will remember how the many thousands of teachers marched on the White House chanting “No Testing. No Testing. 1-2-3”. They were supported by famous people – film stars, professors, legislators. Major cities around the country conducted their own protests at the time. No change yet, however. The school-bashing ideology is very strong. Teachers are very compliant.

Protests, however, are growing in size and number. Protestors now Occupy. It’s all coming to a town near you in Australia, for sure, if political parties don’t start caring for kids. There is a limit to the patience of parents and teachers down-under and up-over.

On January 7, 2012 the United Opt-out National in the U.S. is encouraging everybody to send a card or letter to their educational superordinates and legislators [our Minister for Education and Federal Minister for Education in our case] telling them ‘to end standardized testing.’ Check this out on http://unitedoptout.com With determined organisation and parent support, this movement could become world wide. Although schools in the southern hemisphere are closed, we parents and grand-parents can still have our say. Post offices aren’t closed.

Why be an Australia ( or a Kiwi) who has trouble grasping the significance of these movements?

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Creative teaching Educationalists,guest blogger,national standards,national tests,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Mind Control from the Ministry of (Mis) Education

Mind control compliance 'helpers' are on the way!

Guest Blogger Allan Alach

A few days back two staff members from the Ministry of Mind Control, or in Newspeak, MiniMind (aka Ministry of Education) attended a BOT meeting to inform the BOT about all the good reasons for implementing national’s standards. Ostensibly this was supposed to be part of the negotiation process over the non-compliant charter, except that MiniMind preempted this through their ‘use these targets’ or else letter, deemed to take effect on the long scheduled day of the meeting.

One MiniMind employee had been given the ‘salesperson’ role. He ran through a Powerpoint presentation, supposedly developed for the school, except that after a few slides it was obvious that this was THE standard Minimind slideshow prepared to sell national’s standards to BOTs. As I’d resolved to restrain myself, I kept busy typing notes of the presentation and discussion, and have now objectively analysed these.

The presentation starting with listing the reasons given for national standards.

1. Information for parents.
2. Aimed at NCEA level 2.
3. Assisting in classrooms
4. Information to MOE about how NZ school system is working
5. Self review data

Comments

1. Existing tools, from the levels defined in the NZ curriculum, to the exemplars and matrices for all curriculum areas, provide all the information schools need to report to parents. The NZ Curriculum provides for expected levels of achievement in each year group. The difference is that the levels are in age and developmentally appropriate bands, while standards are set at about the 60 to 65% above average range.

2. The standards are targeted at NCEA level 2 and distributed down in equal sized steps from there. Two points have been raised by informed educators about this. The first is that no national debate or research has been carried out to substantiate (or not) the decision to use NCEA level 2 in this way. The second point is that equal distribution of every step down does not take into account that human development, whether physically, intellectually, or in maturation, is not linear nor regular and predictable, varying in every single child,

3. Existing tools provide for all the information needed to assist teachers in their classrooms. The summative (end point) aspect of standards is far less use than the formative (diagnostic) assessment tools used by teachers.

4. It is true that there are no systems to provide numerical data to the MOE on how the school system is working. However it can be argued that the 3 yearly ERO review process is able to identify schools where there are concerns, and the MOE already have intervention and support procedures in place to help these schools.

Extending this, it can be argued that schools who receive positive ERO reports are providing quality education for their pupils.If this is not true, then the role, function and effectiveness of ERO immediately comes into question. Watch this space?

The National Education and Monitoring Project (NEMP) funded by the government, and operated by Otago University, carried out systematic sampling of children's learning at Year and Year 8, in all areas of the curriculum, on a repeating cycle. Their reports, publicly available, were very effective at recording and analysing trends, up or down. NEMP has now been renamed and has a new function, focussing on literacy and numeracy. This will now mean that research based information, previously provided by NEMP, will no longer be available to support the wider curriculum. There are significant implications here for New Zealand education.


5. Existing tools are more than capable of providing all the information schools need to carry out effective self review.

On the basis of the list of points made at the start of the presentation, there is no compelling reason for national standards that would significantly enhance a school's education and assessment programmes.

Following on, the presenter discussed a wide range of issues throughout the presentation, and I shall now comment, again objectively, on some of the statements that he made.

✴ There is a wide range of school assessment capability across the country.

Obviously true, but to what extent? No data was provided to inform the audience as to the level of this, or the proportion of schools at various levels of effectiveness. This statement could be valid if there was one school doing extremely well and the bulk poorly, or vice versa. It was not possible to determine this one way or the other, so the statement has very low value.

The second issue that arises is that we can speculate that there will schools going very well, and schools doing poorly. Through ERO reports, schools with issues should be clearly identified and it would be reasonable to query why all schools are being required to comply with national standards on the basis of the claimed range of assessment capability.

✴ I am a big fan of standardised tests.

The relevance of linking personal views to support national standards can not be justified, in the same way as an opinion against standardised tests could not be used as an argument against national standards.

✴ Targets are used to drive a school's operation.

Under present and past school management philosophies, this is a correct statement. Targets have been required since about 2002 and schools have been required to report on these in a variance report as part of the annual financial reports.

This statement however does not of itself provide a reason why national standards are needed. It is clearly obvious that schools have set, and reported against, targets for many years.

✴ It would be a special kind of stupid to have national testing regimes (in answer to a question from a BOT member about this possibility).

Personal opinion. He is not qualified to comment on the possibility of tests being introduced in the future, as this is not the role of anyone in a Ministry regional office.

Tests may or may not be introduced in coming years. This will be a decision by the Minister of Education of the time, not the Ministry of Education.

✴ Your school is in a good position/doing well (repeated a number of times in different ways.)

This then raises the question of why do schools doing well need standards?What are the benefits to these schools? No information to inform these questions was provided.

✴ Aim to get 'below children' to make more than a year's progress in one year.

The aim is admirable.

This, however, then implies strongly that without national standards, these children would not make progress, and that before national standards, nothing was done for 'below' children.

No data was provided to support this nor to show how national standards would make a difference. There is a strong inference here, criticising schools and teachers for failing to identify and address the needs of these children in the time before national standards were introduced. This is not a situation that can be supported by data.

✴ Standards can be used to assist self review.

True. However, quality and informed school reviews has been successfully carried out by BOTs ever since their formation in 1989, without the need for standards.

✴ The regional manager wrote a letter instructing the BOT to insert defined targets.

The regional manager signed the letter. However the letter was virtually identical in format with those received by other BOTs. The deemed date that charters were to take effect has varied between schools and there is a pattern where this date has fallen before scheduled meetings with regional MOE officers.

✴ The MOE have a task force looking at the issue of league tables (in answer to a question from a BOT member about this possibility).

The task force was established by the Minister of Education. There is no representation from teacher and principal organisations. The one middle school principal on the task force has no (recent?) history of involvement with primary school organisations and certainly is not qualified to speak on their behalf. The members of the task force, by and large, have been proponents of national standards from the outset.

The speaker was not in a position to comment with any authority on the league table issue, one way or another.

The issue of concern is the Official Information Act. Unless a government is prepared to change this, then political observers/commentators believe that it will not be possible to stop media using the Act to access data. I understand that the same would apply today if media applied to any school, under the Act, for their national standards data.

On the basis of this presentation, the case to support the implementation of national standards to significantly enhance school operations or children's learning, in ways that were not achievable before standards were introduced, was not well made.

One is then left with the inevitable question:

If this is the best that MiniMind can produce to justify the introduction of national’s standards, what is the point of the whole exercise?

You tell me.

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,guest blogger,national standards,Rants and Raves

How long can principals ignore the dire warnings about the consequences of National Standards?

Are principals turning into sheep?

'Set yourselves free' Peter Simpson President NZPPF

A principal, in a recent blog comment, said he we was tired of ex principals, and 'outsiders;, giving principals advice about how to lead their schools.

Two things come to mind such  'outsider' advice is true advice - readers are free to completely ignore the views of people like myself  unlike the 'advice' they get from the education Review Office,  the Ministry, and worst of all the SAPS  (Student Achievement Practitioners) .

The second thing is that the same warnings are coming from educationalists both within New Zealand and overseas including the Teacher Union ( the NZEI) and the Principal Federation.

The fact is that it is hard to find any educationalists in support of National Standards - the future  asks of schools to  personalise not standardize education.

So why at local levels aren't schools working together to put up a joint front particularly in an election year?

 Two things may provide an answer: One is the  difficulty of admitting  one's schools is becoming stressed ( a sign of weakness) and  the other an unwillingness to work with others. Maybe there is third some principals actually believe in the idea of  imposed National Standards - I know of one principal in  Whakatane who has said as much - at least he is showing leadership! Thankfully there are some principals and schools working together against National Standards but not enough.

The  March and June editions of the New Zealand Principal magazine  surely must convince all New Zealand Schools of the seriousness of the situation?

 An article from a parent Bill Courtney  gets straight to the point. The big question school and parents need to consider, he comments, is 'what is the point of education in the 21stC'? He writes that, 'while literacy and numeracy are important skills they are not all that matters'. He continues, 'education today is much more about ways of thinking which involve creative and critical approaches to problem solving and decision making.'

Bill quotes Albert Einstein saying, 'Not everything that can be counted counts. and not everything that counts can be counted' , and he also notes that Einstein's parents were told by his school that he was borderline retarded.

The editor ,writing  as a feisty journalist, says that, 'National Standards are ' flawed fuzzy and inaccurate measures which will produce at best unreliable data and at worst harm our children' they are 'unwelcome boiled tripe - soft wobbly and gutless at the banquet of educational celebration'. The March issue she writes has, 'contributions  from prominent academics.Terry Crooks, Lester Flockton and Cedric Croft outline succinctly and with blinding clarity the reasons that National Standards will not enhance the educational health of the nation.'

The editor writes 'there is hardly a single principal who thinks National's  standards can assist children's achievement and many consider they will harm them'. They are being introduced for one reason -  'political purposes'.

If this is so where is the concerted action by such principals?

The President of the Principal's Federation Peter Simpson calls for action .What we don't want is to allow uniformed politicians to rule and find ourselves implementing a national standards system which brings high risk of harming children.' And he reminds readers of the failures of such approaches in the UK and the US  and that schools will have to consider the future our children will live in and the skills and capabilities they will need.

Terry Crook, Emeritus Professor of Education Otago University has expressed ongoing concerns about the details of National Standards.and writes, I have sincere and grave doubts that they will make any significant for the stated goals for which they have been introduced.' And he is worried about the side effects and believes teachers should instead be developing 'deep insight into the capabilities, interests and needs of each of these students.He also worries that the 'more teachers focus on trying to get all students in their class to a prescribed standards....the less appropriate their efforts will be for the most capable and least capable studnts'.  He also is concerned tat educational changes to be effective need to be embraced by teacher rather than have them imposed and that the proposed standards  have been developed with minimal input of teachers.

Cedric Croft, another respected New Zealand assessment expert and independent consultant continues the argument writing, 'A point of confusion with "Standards" is that politicians and officials who promote them are not clear what they are talking about.' In most cases the Standards cover too much to ensure that all teachers are assessing their students on the same outcomes.'

This brings up further bureaucratic intervention by some sort of moderation! And of course the 'results for every school to be reported to the Ministry in 2012, the inevitable league tables may come next' All this Croft believes will do 'little more than demonstrate the status quo.They will show that  'schools with  socially and economically advantaged students, and better resources, achieve higher levels' and vice verse.  It all indicates moves toward 'the central control of schools by governmnts' and if implemented will 'show a restricted picture of what schools and students are achieving'....'There is no recognition of the arts, physical skills, education outside the classroom, or special programmes schools may develop for their particular communities.' And, he adds, that 'measures of "added value" have met with limited success in the US, UK, and Australia.'

Croft believes that 'no new assessment policy has been so poorly conceived or introduced in a manner that puts so much responsibility on teachers and principals to make it appear to be working'. The standards are Croft concludes 'no silver bullets..and not worthy of support.'

'Appear to be working' - that is a worrying phrase for apologists for the standards.

The final contributor in the  March issue is Lester Flockton another internationally respected assessment authority.

Lester repeats many of the warnings of earlier contributors saying , 'in England interpretations of the standards in the , USA, Australia, etc. - places that have proven their serious limitations, burdensome impositions, flawed procedures, misplaced faith in data, and corrosive curriculum distortions.'

Lester asks that , 'brighter leadership at the top is requited to shift thinking outside of an outmoded square and away from a discredited model.A paradigm shift is required.' 'The current National Standards policy rings nicely in the ears of a voting public'. He continues that , 'recuing the 20% of children who are "failing every day in our schools" is the robotic and almost daily repeated reason for National Standards given by the Government' and ignores the 'true reasons why some children struggle'...that the 'large percentage of children who struggle with school work are those who are seriously dis-advantaged by their living circumstances'....'It is silly to think that National Standards can get struggling children to succeed without first addressing the underlying causation'.

As for the 50 SAPS Lester writes should first work with struggling students before they are acceptable to work in other schools!

And he warns us of the 'whole new industry of data manufacturing and trafficking' that will come with this 'blind faith in data'.

And Lester has no time for a Minister of Education who ignores reasoned opposition , who dismisses criticism  as 'politics,  'nonsense', rubbish', 'we've heard it all before', 'unions' and the such like. The Minister is unwilling to engage in reasoned debate  and has 'proven incapable of doing so'.

And Lester is worried that , 'we are seeing many schools that are simply doing all the superficial stuff in order to get ticks in the required boxes' , but some school he writes,  have thought out their own systems and that  these schools 'should  be left alone to do and prove their own thing unfettered by the Ministry thing'.

In the June issue the debate continues.

The President writes about the difference between professionalism and prescription  and reflects that Finland, the top performing country, succeeds because teachers are professionals trusted to deliver a curriculum  similar to New Zealand,in a manner and style they think best to suit their students with very little measuring and testing.'Finlands  sweeping success is largely due to one big weapon; the teachers.' The punitive aspects implicit in National Standards is a worry along with the idea that the standards will only measure what they set out to measure!

The report on the keynote speakers echo New Zealand educators concerns and provided , ' compelling arguments to unshackle the claustrophobia of a currently imposed assessment culture and rebuild confidence in teaching to a broad and innovative curriculum'


Andy Hargreaves  has a special interest in turning around failing kids and said that research has shown 'that a culture of assessment and comparing kids and schools with each other in competitive way is counter productive and that we have become 'obssessed with the assessment culture, and this has negative effects on children's achievemnt'.  He talked about how 'we need to understand are the gaps in achievement levels between groups...We need to examine gaps in society such as income gaps' He reminded the audience  , 'that one in five children languish in poverty and that income gaps between the rich and the poor have reached intolerable levels'.. and that the blame for failure has been blamed on schools not social inequities. Standardisation shifts that arguments away from poverty to say there is no excuses for failure.

'Schools', Hargreaves said, ' are not just about achievement in literacy and numeracy.They are also about identity,culture, and language.We cannot have standardisation in a multicultural environment.' 'In New Zealand'  , he said, 'the time was right for educators to ask "what are your dreams". Do you want a globalised dream, an imported rented dream narrowly focused on testing, data gathering and monitoring? Are you colonial renters or self manged innovators?

Another speaker, Professor James Spillane from Chicago told the audience that we had to 'get beyond a mindset that is caught up in standardizing and homogenising'. He warned of a culture of surveillance and  distrust and asked principals to understand their teacher's beliefs and knowledge and to develop a 'living culture' based on 'what teachers and others experience every day'. Spillane believes it is important  to take advantage of the abilities of others and to create an environment that supports teachers by sharing leadership which 'enables solutions to  real problems to found without seeking out "off the shelf"  remedies like standardisation.'

It seems that the hit of the conference was the address by Professor Yong Zhao from China. 'While  the USA was focusing on centralisation, standardisation and accountability, China was was reducing instructional hours for maths and increasing hours for electives and PE. 'Singapore, a world high flyer', Professor  Zhao said,'  has developed a deliberate strategy to teach critical and creative thinking skills, reduce subject content and emphasize process over outcomes when appraising schools'. Singapore's Ministry is 'calling for a more varied curriculum, a focus on learning rather than teaching and more autonomy for schools and teachers'. And similar developments are occurring in Korea.


'So what  then is the point  in pursuing a culture of testing and data colecting' According to Zhao  none. 'Chidren are like popcorn.Some pop early and some pop late.We need to respect individual differences, have faith in every child and provide second, third and fourth chances.' 'Issues children will have to face up to', Zhao said, will to  'recognise individual differences, understanding multiple intelligences and cultural diversity and having curiosity, passion,  and creativity'. These are what he describes as 'employable skills for the future'. 'What children in the future will be doing is inventing a job, not finding one and to do that they will have to be global entrepreneurs.They will need to have something that others want and be great at it.They will  need to have confidence and passion to innovate'.

Professor Zhao was taking about a world away   from the narrow focus on National Standards. and the narrow focus on reading, writing and maths that dominate the educational debate in New Zealand!

The president Peter Simpson reminded the audience of the conference's theme : 'Set yourself free' telling attendees  to free themselves from any doubt that the New Zealand education is in crisis, that we do not need National Standards to identify our underachieving  children..that principals  need not fear fear the consequences of doing the right and ethical thing by the children in our schools.  The assumptions underpinning the National Standards that all children progress at the same pace and labeling children as failures is unethical and could cause life-long harm.

Principals must not sit back and quietly and watch all that is good about our education system fall into decline because of flawed government policy.

He called on the audience to utterly reject the National Standards  policy in which the teaching profession has no confidence.

He was given a standing ovation.

This will  not be enough.

It is now time for principals in their local area to begin the fight back.

The time for talking is finished.

It is now time for action

Are school principals up to it? 

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Leadership,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves

Authentic Assessment.

Students in school I loved to visit have found a wasps nest in the school grounds. After local expertise was used to destroy the nest, and with the teachers help, the students set about to study wasps and how they organise themselves. They sorted out their questions , worked out what they already knew and involved themselves in , as the revised curriculum says, 'seeking, using and creating their own knowledge'. They took the nest a part , drew what they saw, completed drawing of the various stages in the wasps life cycle and read all about wasp 'culture' to answer their questions in their own words. All their research work was presented using charts each one representing individual children's thoughts and drawings. They also painted what they felt interesting,and wrote their creative thoughts.

The quality of their presentations were really impressive having been taught how to layout their work artistically.

This is what learning is all about. Shame it is not so common these days. These students easily applied what skills they had gained to undertake individually chosen studies which the teacher used to assess progress and to determine what extra help was required.


It seems strange to use the term authentic assessment. It implies that much of the assessment used in schools is inauthentic. Which, of course, I believe it is.

If I wanted to see how well students can apply what they have been taught is to ask them to undertake an independent study with no help from the teachers -except for the normal bit of advice as required.

This form of assessment would tell me all about the children's attitudes, independence, research reading skills, writing skills, design and presentation skills and their ability to present their ideas making use of their own 'voice' or individuality. To me this would be more valuable that all the current 'evidence based' data collecting teaching that consumes teachers today.

It would also tell me how good the teaching had been prior to the task - this is why the best time for such a challenge is in Term Four, after all the skills had been 'scaffolded' into place. Students need to be able to transfer what they have learnt , by exhibiting, demonstrating, or applying. Any other sort of assessment may result in paper achievement only.

Most of such an authentic assessment task would demonstrate if students had learnt the lesson of doing something well rather than the more common, and faster, 'cutting and pasting' approach.

By term four students should have internalised the criteria for completing such a study but teachers could clarify, or renegotiate, them before the task.

Suitability of the study chosen.
Quality of the key questions.
Indication of their prior knowledge.
Quality of observation and written descriptions as required.
Depth of understanding seen through written research
Use of diagrams and focused illustrations
Quality of s design and presentation.

Teachers who enter their students into science or maths fairs will be aware of such criteria. Students need to have understood that assessment will focus on depth of their understanding - quality of thought not quantity.

Be interesting to see how students would handle such a task. I have my doubts many students could achieve what some of us used to use as our main form of assessing our teaching?

I certainly see little evidence of real student authentic research.

Such a task could begin as early as year three -even earlier.

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Posted in: Action Plans and Lessons,Assessment,Creative teaching,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Personalized Learning,project based learning,teaching and learning

Kelvin Smythe John Hatties nemesis!

Education is at turning point. National Standards takes us back to the past. The revised curriculum the future. Schools however can't have it both ways. Compromise is almost as bad as compliance. Kelvin Smythe has a steady eye on the future. John Hattie seems confused - busy hedging his bets.

The following, is an abridged e-mail sent out by Kelvin and sums up a long posting of his .Read the full posting for yourself.


'This posting', Kelvin writes, 'addresses the question of how an academic of such intelligence and status can be so superficial, can be, just when it matters, so unimaginative, have such fantastic blind spots, promote opposing ideas with such credibility.


'I have been very gratified at the exceptional number of people who clicked on to this posting. I know it was long, in many ways inappropriately long for busy teachers and principals. In that respect, I apologise.

In the case of Hattie, I really wanted to work out for myself how he advanced his pedagogical case. He is an immensely powerful academic, not only for what he is, but also for what he represents; understand him and his pedagogy and you understand the future of New Zealand education.

After a quick reading Hattie’s article I knew that he started off with saying we had a glorious past (but not explained), and that while he started off with apparent scepticism about National Standards, he quickly moved into full support (but not explained), on the grounds that he had the answers to avoiding the significant problems that had occurred in other implementations.

I also knew that by the end of the article he was a million miles from coming up with the answers. I was also aware that there were areas of education activity and education research he avoided the best he could (for instance, the influence of socio-economic factors on learning, also the parts of learning that are difficult to measure, the purposes of NS).

In the course of the writing I came up with a lot of gems. The best in my opinion was when he was discussing Alexander’s UK research (which recommended doing away with NS) – very adroitly Hattie shifts from discussing NS to discussing the apple pie of high standards. (He was trying, it seems, to appropriate Alexander’s recommendations against NS to his NS.) Also, he seemingly agreed with Alexander’s criticism of national tests – SATS – but two paragraphs later, in his conclusion, he praised their architect and recommended we follow SATS’ implementation as a model.

Probably the most concerning gem was the way Hattie started off a paragraph extolling the importance of teacher voice in policy matters, but ended by suggesting that teacher organisations were unfit for the purpose and other arrangements were needed. I have great fears for the future of our teacher organisations.

Hatties ‘Horizons and Whirlpools’ article is replete with sudden, complete, and blithe shifts like these.

I see a not too distant future when teacher organisations are sidelined, principals are government servants, and the curriculum narrowed to a pinpoint'.


At least Kelvin can envision a future horizon but the choice still lies with schools. Will they be sucked into Hattie' whirlpool? Or will they have the courage to value their own professionalism?

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,change,Ministry NZCurric,national standards

Weighing the Pig -an exercise in national Standards testing

Another fable from my guest presenter Mac. It is obvious that the idea of each school working out each kid's standard will be become a nightmare of data collecting and inter school moderation and that, sooner or later, a national test system will be imposed. And then on to league tables...


It was Wednesday 9.30 a.m. the 5th week of Term 3 and in all classrooms, in all schools throughout Aotearoa, children were preparing to commence their National Standard test in Writing. Teachers were now able to open the sealed instructions and start their children on the test taking care of course not to give any instruction.

Janice read through the instructions and rolled her eyes skyward as she realized what her class would be writing about “What I Did Last Night.” “How absolutely pathetic”, thought Janice, “after all the interesting writing we have completed this year to ask my kids to write about this. Well Johnny will be OK he will just write -‘keeping out of Dad’s way’. Wonder what level that gives him when it’s marked? Nathan will be fine too he will make up a wonderful story about last night, most of it untrue yet very readable. He has the makings of a politician or a real estate salesman!! and the majority of the girls will be fine. Oh well let’s get this over with.”

George was thrilled when he started his class on the writing task. “Great, we’ve been practicing this all year”, he thought to himself,“the class should do well and their results should help the school’s overall scores. I’m sure my class will remember the stuff I’ve shown them for completing a test like this and the boss will be thrilled with the outcomes.”

“You poor kids,” thought Leanne. “All year we have worked on your creative writing, using your wonderful ideas and expressing yourselves in a lively and colorful style and now you are asked to write this boring stuff. Oh well I’m sure you have remembered enough of the work we did on adjectives and such like to be able to handle this task. If only those who implemented this sort of time wasting had come and asked me I could have provided them all the information they needed on the achievements of my class including those for a range of competencies in addition to just Writing.”

Meanwhile in an office far removed from the classrooms of Aotearoa, both physically and philosophically, the Minister with Responsibility for Eliminating Creative Teaching was discussing with her colleague the Minister with Responsibility for Lowering Unemployment the outcomes of the surveys both their departments had just completed. “Its easy for you,” stated the MRECT. “If your results come in worse you just issue a statement that says it’s because there are less jobs and the public accept this. The results of the testing we have done so far show that the achievement tail is still sitting at 5% with another 20% somewhat below expectations and it doesn’t matter how I spin it the outcome has remained the same over the last two terms. I wonder if we introduce two tests a term if this would help? I will go back to the experts in my Ministry and ask them.”

Janice headed off to morning tea sombre, but not distraught, about what she viewed as a farcical waste of a morning in terms of kids’ learning yet by the time she had finished her coffee was thinking about the Maths lesson after play and how she would make it interesting for the class and cheer up herself, and them, by making it a fun time.

George was careful to sit next to the principal at morning tea time and told her how well his class had handled the Writing test. In his usual “eager beaver” manner he was looking forward to getting on to Maths after play and giving the kids the necessary skills to handle the Maths test later in the term. It was no surprise that after play when the principal visited his room the class were all working quietly from the same page in the Math's text book practicing algorithms that could possibly appear in the next National Standard test.

Leanne whistled as she quickly planned the rest of her day. Natalie bringing the baby rabbit to school gave her the ideal motivation to fill the rest of the day with some child-centred activity. Onto the whiteboard she wrote the outline of activities for the class so that they could work at their own pace on research, observational drawing, creative writing, music, dance and other forms of presentation. I’ll catch up with the Maths tomorrow she thought this is too good an opportunity to miss and will give me the chance to work with those who need some additional help- the help my own assessment indicated. She sipped her tea and added her planning notes into her planning folder just in case someone wanted to see why she had not followed her original day’s plan.

Meanwhile in an office far removed.…

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Posted in: Assessment,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

National's Standards - 'to be or not to be'?

'Good golly' says Mrs Tolley, '150000 failing children are asking us to save them by testing them to oblivion and branding them as below average'. Sir John Charmalot believes that, 'with big business and Auntie Herald on our side we can replace the nanny state with big brother know best. Working together we can destroy creative education once and for all'.


The truth of what is happening in schools to help all children achieve is being lost in by a cynical publicity campaign led by the government and assisted by the Auckland Herald and editors throughout the country. Read Kelvin Smythe's latest for more detail. Teachers are being told to do as they are told or else and are being unfairly scapegoated for school failure of students who enter school with little 'social capital' to take advantage of what is being offered. Teachers do their best. The system is the problem and standards are not the answer.

For an excellent crit of Auckland Herald see this blog by Russell Brown
The argument is really about if schools should be personalised to help all students achieve their talents and gifts, in the process of self realisation developing the competencies that they will require to thrive no matter what life throws at them, or should our system become more standardised so the products can be measured and blame apportioned for any failure.

The sad thing is that for two decades the powers that be have imposed formulaic 'best practices' on schools and required more and more testing. Creativity is already at risk. Managerialism has all but crushed teachers initiative and independence. National standards are the last straw.

Even testing guru John Hattie ( is for or against standards?) writes that 'applied uniformity across every school is a hopelessly crude way of raising student achievement and will result in teaching to the standards and narrowing of the curriculum'. What he says is the important thing 'is for children to be able to self assess their own progress and for teachers to give focused feedback. Most of all, he writes, 'students need a level of trust in classroom to admit out loud that they don't misunderstand something.'

It is respect and trust that is missing in the Minister's hard lined attitude as she happily discounts any contrary advice as 'mischievous' or 'taken into account'. Education is about working together and results in the building of 'social capital' of all involved - students, teachers and parents. Creative education builds on and extends the interests of the students and cannot be limited to success in literacy and numeracy as important as they are.

You get the impression it is either impose national standards or put up with no decent teaching of literacy and numeracy. Anyone who has visited a primary school would see the falseness of this position. Creative education is already being squeezed out by the current emphasis on literacy and numeracy.

The question we ought to ask about 'failing students' ( we know who they are) is why they can't read write and do maths at 15? Simply put they can't see the point of what is being offered. Why is this? How can we engage them? How can we make schooling more relevant? Why do so many children start so far behind at 5? When do students disengage? How important is the distressing home circumstances of the failing students? National's standards are a distraction to solving such issues and are more about a return to 'market forces' ideology.

Solving such problems requires a whole system approach not simplistic standards and blaming and shaming ideas that have already failed in other countries. Although New Zealand does have a a long 'achievement tail' it is important to appreciate that this is also the case in socially unequal countries particularly those that went down the market forces approach to politics and schooling.

It seems John Key see education as putting things into kids heads and then measuring what sticks - this is a 'banking' metaphor and appropriate for person who sees capital as something that can be accounted for. As for Ms Tolley she only has two or three programmed standardised answers which she repeats predictably. The complexity of teaching and learning is beyond her. Teaching is to be reduced to simplistic standardised ‘plunket’ graphs but with no farex available to fatten up kids only measuring them twice year. Maybe she should get management advice from McDonald's to assist her in developing this uniformity?

It does seem strange that the government happily overlooks the connections between the 20% of children living in poverty, the 20% failing in schools and the 20% ending up in prison?

This unfairness is where we ought to be paying attention?

If we follow the imported failed standards agenda we will see our school disintegrating under the triviality of measuring what we already know - akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And, like the Titanic the rich and poor alike will pay the price if we don't place some real innovative thinking into the debate.

We need some real future thinking not a return to past failed ideas.

National's standards are well below average if judged educationally and not by populist politics!.

Who will want to a teacher in such a standardized future?


And an excellent contribution by Alfie Kohn debunking standards

Read this story about the damage of national testing.

And a short story about national standards from NZ

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Leadership,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Developing all students' talents or imposing conformist standards

Our education system, with its genesis in industrial age thinking, was never designed to educate all students. At best it was a way of sorting out students who might progress. That they have succeeded with so many students is to their credit but today they are well past their use by date. New thinking is required. The age of standardisation is over but the government seems to be unaware of this.

We have a problem in our schools - it is one of disengagement which is at a worrying level at years 7 to 10.

The government with its popular mandate believes the answer is to do with poor teaching of literacy and numeracy in primary schools and intends to introduce the failed concept of standards against the wisdom of highly respected educationalists, the Primary Principal's Federation and the primary teacher union.

I had hoped that common sense would prevail and that at least a trial would be set up but it seems not. Yesterday the Prime Minister made it clear the standards are to be imposed this year and that school Boards that did not comply would be sacked.

And this from a political party that believes in initiative, freedom and individual responsibility. As I see it it is the the worst case of political interference ( social engineering) or a government imposing a centralized agenda on schools. State socialism of the worst kind - free market Stalinism.

Students are failing, there is no doubt about this; we do not need national standards to find out who that are and we know that the worrying problem of student disengagement increases between the ages of 12 and 15 or so. Imposing literacy and numeracy standards in primary schools will not solve this problem - it will make it even worse by distorting the learning experiences of students and distracting the time and energy of teachers.

What is really required is some rethinking of the school system which is just not possible to educate all the students in its present arrangement. The joy of learning, which all students are born with, is lost as students 'progress' through the system.

Standardisation might have worked in an industrial age but the world has changed dramatically and what is now required is the develop the creativity and initiative and individuality of all students. We need a school system that centres on helping each student develop their unique talents - naturally this has to include literacy and numeracy.

What is required is a personalised approach to learning from an earl;y age.Even primary schools the past decades have lost the creativity and have fallen into the trap of standardized or formulaic 'best practice' learning. The problem comes to a head in early secondary school when non academic students begin to lose interest.

Retaining all students interest in and joy of learning is the real challenge.

A recent survey in the UK slams schools.

'Many British adults say they did not realise their true potential until years after they had left school. A survey of 2000 people found on that, on average, they cited 22 as the age they found their niche in life.Nearly half of those surveyed felt they were regarded as average or poor students while they were at school. Of those, 15 percent they never really got the chance to discover their talent in the classroom because their teacher had written them off as failures.'

How will imposing national standards fix this?

Standards will mean that all students will be assessed twice a year and recorded as below, average or above average. As is is not possible for everyone to be above average students will continue to disengage from their own learning. This will be made worse by the ignoring of their special talents in the process. This is what has happened in the two countries that have developed such an approach - the UK and the US - both performing far worse that NZ!

If schools accept the imposition of the conformist standards then I am out of helping such schools but will remain as an advocate for teacher creativity.

For educators there is a choice to be made that will require leadership and courage.

Already those in the Ministry have learnt to dance to the tune of the new masters selling their integrity in the process as have those who deliver contracts for the Ministry.

Are schools next to cave in in this brave new 'big brother knows best' standardized world?

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Creative Schools,Leadership,national standards,Rants and Raves,Talent Development,teaching and learning

Debunking National Standards -Alfie Kohn

This slightly edited article by Alfie Kohn has permission to be reprinted as long as it is acknowledged and not sold for profit.Published in Education Week January 14th 2010. It could have been written about the situation in NZ. Visit Alfie Kohn's site.


Debunking the Case for National Standards
One-Size-Fits-All Mandates and Their Dangers
By Alfie Kohn


I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does. Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability”– driven more by political than educational considerations – began to squeeze the life out of classrooms, doing the most damage in the poorest areas.


By the time the century ended, many of us thought we had hit bottom – until the floor gave way and we found ourselves in a basement we didn’t know existed. I’m referring, of course, to what should have been called the Many Children Left Behind Act, which requires every state to test every student every year, judging students and schools almost exclusively by their scores on those tests, and hurting the schools that need the most help. Ludicrously unrealistic proficiency targets suggest that the law was actually intended to sabotage rather than improve public education.

Today we survey the wreckage. Talented teachers have abandoned the profession after having been turned into glorified test-prep technicians. Low-income teenagers have been forced out of school by do-or-die graduation exams. Countless inventive learning activities have been eliminated in favor of prefabricated lessons pegged to numbingly specific state standards.And now we’re informed that what we really need . . . is to standardize this whole operation from coast to coast.

Have we lost our minds? Because we’re certainly in the process of losing our children’s minds.

To politicians, corporate CEOs, or companies that produce standardized tests, this prescription may seem to make sense. (Notice that this is exactly the cast of characters leading the initiative for national standards.) But if you spend your days with real kids in real classrooms, you’re more likely to find yourself wondering how much longer those kids -- and the institution of public education -- can survive this accountability fad.

Let’s be clear about the latest development. First, what they’re trying to sell us are national standards. It may be politically expedient to insist that the effort isn’t driven by the federal government, but if all, or nearly all, states end up adopting the same mandates, that distinction doesn’t amount to much.

Second, these core standards will inevitably be accompanied by a national standardized test. When asked, during an on-line chat last September, whether that was true, Dane Linn of the National Governors’ Association (a key player in this initiative) didn’t deny it. “Standards alone,” he replied, “will not drive teaching and learning” – meaning, of course, the specific type of teaching and learning that the authorities require. Even if we took the advice of the late Harold Howe II, former U.S. Commissioner of Education, and made the standards “as vague as possible,” a national test creates a de facto national curriculum, particularly if high stakes are attached.

Third, a relatively small group of experts will be designing standards, test questions, and curricula for the rest of us based on their personal assumptions about what it means to be well educated. The official Core Standards website tries to deny this, insisting that the items all teachers are going to have to teach will be “based on evidence” rather than reflecting “individual beliefs about what is important.” It would be charitable to describe this claim as disingenuous. Evidence can tell us whether a certain method is effective for reaching a certain objective – for example, how instruction aligned to this standard will affect a score on that test. But the selection of the goal itself – what our children will be taught and tested on – unavoidably reflects values and beliefs. Should those of a single group of individuals determine what happens in every public school in the country?

Advocates of national standards tell us they want all students (by which they mean only American students) to attain excellence, no matter where (in our country) they happen to live. The problem is that excellence is being confused with entirely different attributes, such as uniformity, rigor, specificity, and victory. Let’s consider each in turn.

Are all kids entitled to a great education? Of course. But that doesn’t mean all kids should get the same education. High standards don’t require common standards. Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence – or equity. (In fact, one-size-fits-all demands may offer the illusion of fairness, setting back the cause of genuine equity.) To acknowledge these simple truths is to watch the rationale for national standards – or uniform state standards -- collapse into a heap of intellectual rubble.

To be sure, excellence and uniformity might turn out to be empirically correlated even if they’re theoretically distinct. But I know of no evidence that students in countries as diverse as ours with national standards or curricula engage in unusually deep thinking or are particularly excited about learning. Even standardized test results, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), provide no support for the nationalizers. On eighth-grade math and science tests, eight of the 10 top-scoring countries had centralized education systems, but so did nine of the 10 lowest-scoring countries in math and eight of the 10 lowest-scoring countries in science.

So if students don’t benefit from uniformity, who does? Presumably corporations that sell curriculum materials and tests can reduce their costs if one text fits all. And then there are the policy makers who confuse doing well with beating others. If you’re determined to evaluate students or schools in relative terms, it helps if they’re all doing the same thing. But why would we want to turn learning into a competitive sport?

Apart from the fact that they’re unnecessary, a key premise of national standards, as the University of Chicago’s Zalman Usiskin observed, is that “our teachers cannot be trusted to make decisions about which curriculum is best for their schools.” Moreover, uniformity doesn’t just happen – and continue – on its own. To get everyone to apply the same standards, you need top-down control. What happens, then, to educators who disagree with some of the mandates, or with the premise that teaching should be broken into separate disciplines, or with the whole idea of national standards? What are the implications of accepting a system characterized by what Deborah Meier called “centralized power over ideas”?

The reasonable-sounding adjectives used to defend an agenda of specificity -- “focused,” “coherent,” “precise,” “clear” – ought to make us nervous. If standards comprise narrowly defined facts and skills, then we have accepted a controversial model of education, one that consists of transmitting vast quantities of material to students, material that even the most successful may not remember, care about, or be able to use.

Finally, what’s the purpose of demanding that every kid in every school in every state must be able to do the same thing in the same year, with teachers pressured to “align” their instruction to a master curriculum and a standardized test?
I once imagined a drinking game in which a few of those education reform papers from corporate groups and politicians were read aloud: You take a shot every time you hear “rigorous,” “measurable,” “accountable,” “competitive,” “world-class,” “high(er) expectations,” or “raising the bar.” Within a few minutes, everyone would be so inebriated that they’d no longer be able to recall a time when discussions about schooling weren’t studded with these macho managerial buzzwords.

But it took me awhile to figure out that not all jargon is meaningless. Those words actually have very real implications for what classrooms should look like and what education is (and isn’t) all about. The goal clearly isn’t to nourish children’s curiosity, to help them fall in love with reading and thinking, to promote both the ability and the disposition to think critically, or to support a democratic society. Rather, a prescription for uniform, specific, rigorous standards is made to order for those whose chief concern is to pump up the American economy and make sure that we triumph over people who live in other countries.

If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”

If these bright new digitally enhanced national standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century façade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should be doing everything possible to resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it.

Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all -- although our emphasis should be less on student achievement (read: test scores) than on students’ achievements. Offered a list of standards, we should scrutinize each one but also ask who came up with them and for what purpose. Is there room for discussion and disagreement -- and not just by experts -- regarding what, and how, we’re teaching and how authentic our criteria are for judging success? Or is this a matter of “obey or else,” with tests to enforce compliance?

The standards movement, sad to say, morphed long ago into a push for standardization. The last thing we need is more of the same.

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Posted in: Assessment,Big Picture,Creative teaching Educationalists,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

From a true friend of creative schools

Time for schools and teachers to put faith in their own ideas! This blog was sent to me as an e-mail but I thought it worth sharing. Written by a highly respected ex principal who still works with schools.


Hi Bruce


Yes I have read your last two blogs and I like the way you are continuing to show opposition to the ridiculous implementation of National Standards. I also like the way you are putting it on teachers and principals to hold firm to their beliefs and provide creative programmes.

My concerns around this are many and one of the first is that I don't believe a large number of teachers today have a philosophical belief about teaching as it has been assessed and appraised out of them. That's if they had a belief about creative teaching in the first place. There are so many teachers I see who are quite happy to have programmes that are determined by a timetable that is Literacy and Numeracy until lunch time and a little bit of topic after lunch. This is generally not linked to the morning programme. This is then called integration.


For what it's worth I believe the overriding problems in education came about through the introduction of Tomorrows Schools. This change created a climate where anyone who felt they would like to be on a board of trustees did so and then were led to believe they could direct what happened in schools. Just like taking the car to the garage and then telling the mechanic what to do. Or having an operation and telling the surgeon how to do the job. I truly believe STA and the present nonsense with boards has led to the achievement tail!!!! Where were we as a country prior to 1989? Right up at the top in International studies and since then we have failed. I continually hear of the benefits that have come about since the introduction of Tomorrows Schools and are then shown the new gymnasium, auditorium or assembly hall. Rarely does a principal say the ability to manage our own funding has allowed us to implement creative and innovative programmes. It's all bricks and mortar.

A couple of other things that bug me currently are- firstly the latest editorial in the STA magazine where their President is saying how good for schools National Standards will be. This is a nonsense as it flies in the face of research and the views of our highly regarded and leading academics. So how dare STA make such claims when they know little about the reality. Another reason why I believe Tomorrow Schools is a crock. STA and its obvious bias against principals and teachers.

The other ludicrous thing that has happened over the last year is the ERO review process of how ready schools are to implement the NZ Curriculum. This has been an Area of National Importance and each of those schools I supported last year as a Friend of the School had put in hours of meetings etc to ensure they were ready to implement these requirements in 2010. So where will they be now with the requirement to implement National Standards? Up shitters creek because the National Standards thing is completely contradictory to the intent of the NZ Curriculum which in effect was poised to improve the lot of so many of our kids. Not now. Those poor little guys who are good at Art and Dance and PE and Music and are not ready to start Reading or Writing at 5 or even 6 are going to have a truly miserable time. Extra lessons on those things they enjoy least so that the school results look good - but that's another post.


So have I become a grumpy old educator or was I always one? Don't know the answer so will continue to visit a few schools and try to encourage principals and teachers to be brave, give the kids a chance and perhaps the results will speak for themselves.


Regards

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Posted in: Assessment,national standards,teaching and learning

Testing times?

Mrs Tolley will go down as one of the disasters in education if her uninformed and simplistic views are imposed on teachers. The question is how strong will teachers be in resisting her reactionary ideas? We will find out next year.

‘May you live in interesting times’, the Chinese saying goes; or as Charles Dickens’s wrote about the Victorian Era, it is the ‘best of and the worst of times’.

Just as schools were becoming enthusiastic about implementing the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum the ‘new’ government is imposing its populist national standards in literacy and numeracy on schools; standards which have more than a whiff of the Victorian Era about them.

It all sounds simple enough. From next year all primary schools will have to test children against national standards in literacy and numeracy (reading writing and maths). Schools will have to report the results to parents in clear language, with suggestions on what each child needs to learn.

So what is the problem?

Well, like most simple solutions to complex problems, there is more to education than competency in the ‘three Rs’. And it is not that schools are currently neglecting them. Most primary schools already spend all morning on such skills leaving little time for other important learning areas. Those parents who assist in schools would attest to this but for many the cry of ‘back to basics’ makes equal sense and for populist politicians always a good vote catcher. Primary education suffers more than its fair share of scaremongering. Standards, it seems, are always falling without any real evidence. Many people feel there was a ‘golden era’ when all children learnt to read and write and do their sums but it is a hard era to pinpoint – particularly when you include the words ‘all children’.

It is time to move on from such polarization and name calling.Children deserve better from our nation’s leaders and shapers of opinion but it seems it is hard to shake off the legacy of Victorian thinking. Old habits of thought die hard. What we need are students ‘with the future in their bones’. As the Hebrew saying reminds us, ‘do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.’

The Government claims parents are overwhelmingly in favour of their standards but the Ministry’s empty rituals of consultative meetings were more explanatory than democratic. A recent NZCER report indicted parental support was lacking.

Are New Zealand students failing?

International tests show that New Zealand students do well in the areas the national standards are focusing on. The Minister’s argument is that standards will further improve student achievement and help teachers solve the problem of the worrying ‘achievement tail’. The trouble is that there is little research or evidence to back up such claims and in the two countries that have gone down this testing line (the UK and the US) their students do worse than ‘kiwi kids’.

Creating a crisis to solve?

What this emphasis on the need for national standards is doing is creating a crisis to solve that does not exist and diverting valuable teacher energy and time from implementing our new exciting curriculum. As Francis Nelson, President of the NZEI writes, ”league tables driven by simplistic data and complied for the ‘titillation’ of the ‘blame the teacher’ adherents will see the highly regarded New Zealand Curriculum turned on its head.” Kelvin Squire, a past president of the NZPPF, has written that ‘Tolley’s folly’, the national standards, have ‘sown a political seed that somehow or other we can’t trust the profession.’

Editorials have been one sided in their view on teachers, accusing them of self interest and being frightened of what the tests might show. Even the president of the School Trustees Association writes, “that those who are scaremongering now need to get over it.” Scaremongering obviously has a better ring to it than saying ‘those with viable educational views that run counter to the Government’s intentions’.

Not all is lost – let the teachers teach.

The editor of the Sunday Herald got well beyond the Government’s press releases in its editorial of October 25 headed, ‘Let the teachers teach not count’. “Everybody knows best about education,” the editor writes, “by having been to school … no one claims that their experience of driving a car confers any specialist authority in automotive mechanics.” He says, the announcement of the education standards was calculated to induce warm and fuzzy feelings in parents by capitalizing on the anxiety parents feel about their children’s education, which can be relied on for a rich source of political capital. “For the widely trumpeted fulfillment of an election pledge,” he says, “it is a bad look.” Teachers, he believes, have a right to question things that are not in the best interest of their students. They are right to bring to parents’ attention that there is so much assessment of learning going on that there isn’t any time for teaching.

These are not the only concerns of educators.

New Zealand teachers have a proud reputation for being innovative and creative teachers; a reputation that has been put at risk since the imposition of the 1986 National Curriculum. The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum replaces this previously overcrowded and unmanageable curriculum. The new curriculum has been welcomed by teachers and widely acclaimed internationally.

It is ironic that just when teachers are becoming enthusiastic about the possibilities of the new curriculum the current emphasis on national standards will divert their efforts and the students will be the real losers in this confusion

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Posted in: Assessment,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Are we heading down the same failure track in NZ?

It is time for new thinking in education. If we are to transform our syten then our current minister and all the lackeys at the Ministry must go down with the ship. Who needs national standards that will sort out who fails and which will narrow the curriculum and take us back to a mean Victorian era?

An article,see below, was printed in the Auckland Herald last week and seems to sum up the inherent problem in our education system; a system with its genesis in the wrong century.

We can no longer afford to patch up our creaky system, we need a real transformational change. Too much reform of the past decades has been akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

And worse still our current Minister seems intent in looking back to past for answers.

The article read:

Survey slams schools.

'Many British adults say they did not realise their full potential until years after they had left school.

A survey of 2000 people found that, on average, they cited 22 as the age they found their niche in life.

Nearly half of those surveyed felt they were regarded as average or poor students while at school.Of those, 15% said they never got the chance to discover their talent in the classroom because their teacher had written them off as failures.'

Our Minister, and her paid Ministry technocrats, seem oblivious to such a clear message. I can't believe some of those in the Ministry I know personally really believe in what they are being asked to impose - shades of living in the court of Henry the Eighth. . All about keening their jobs; busy learning to sing the tunes of their new master and trying not to lose their integrity in the process. Time will judge them. And for those that do believe in such a narrow ideology God help us.


Andy Hargreaves , who sees the world heading towards an age of inspiration and sustainability,is calling schools to be more innovative and creative. For this to succeed , he writes, will require the articulation of an inspiring moral and sustainable purpose for learning rather than a narrow literacy and numeracy one.

To do this Hargreaves believes it will be necessary to have a 'Great Public Debate' about the future of education. To achieve such a transformation will require like minded schools to work together and to develop partnerships with parents and students; so as to share ideas and to tap into the expertise that lies within school communities.

We have the curriculum to do this even if those who control education seems determined to sideline it to suit their own narrow purposes.

Our students deserve better than out current minister and her lackeys.

Einstein wrote, 'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'

It seems we have a choice, to control our own destiny or someone else will. It is our integrity that is now at stake.

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Posted in: Assessment,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves

National Standards or political dogma

School principals need to have a vision, no matter how undefined, and a set of shared beliefs to propel their imagined waka into an unknown future. Imposed distractions must be ignored.

I am off to the far north this week to share my ideas of the dangers implicit in politically imposed national standards which will take schools attention away from the New Zealand Curriculum.

This blog is an attempt to clarify what I want to say.


I used to be totally opposed to the previous New Zealand Curriculum (NZCF) and all those who 'delivered' it to schools through predefined Ministry contracts. It was an incoherent curriculum; a futile attempt to impose an impossible confusion of strands, levels and countless learning objectives. It was all about accountability, measurement and and efficiency. This all changed for me with the introduction of the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum (NZC).

Since the introduction of the earlier NZCF the creativity of teachers has been at risk as formulaic 'best practices' have been imposed on schools; practices devised by distant 'experts' seeing clearly what is need in their Ivory towers.

Sharing the ideas of creative teachers has aways been the driving force in the work I do in schools. Interestingly the far North was the home of our most important pioneer creative teacher - Elwyn Richardson. It is to such teachers we should be looking to for inspiration. If we are not alert national standards could well be the last straw for such creativity.

We must do everything we can to ensure the implementation of such standards do not distort, distract, or divert us from belief in the creativity of teachers and students.

Let's be clear national standards are pure political dogma. A political interference that has not worked in countries that it has been introduced notably the UK where , combined with demeaning 'league tables' it has all but destroyed their education system to the point that a recent report( the Cambridge Review) is asking their government to introduce a curriculum which looks very much like our own new NZC.

Ironically the Cambridge Review was announced in the same week our government presented its reactionary standards policy.

It seems the Ministry can find few 'experts' to back up 'their' standards implementation. My impression is that the technocrats who work for the Ministry are too busy learning to dance to the tunes of their new masters - and in the process putting their personal integrity at risk. Even John Hattie, once a Ministry favourite, has come out against the standards. Who are their tame experts?

Lester Flockton writes that, make no mistake, the standards are not neutral; they reflect the ideology of those who wish to implement them. Kelvin Smythe has said that 'the standards will become the de facto curriculum enforced by the Education Review Office'.

And what is the rationale for the standards? If it is to find out which children are currently failing (our 'achievement tail')well we know that already through the National Monitoring Programme (NEMP).And we know this 'tail' represents wider issues of poverty beyond the scope of the school to solve by themselves. And we know that it is the quality of teachers that make the biggest difference. This is where we ought to be putting our emphasis. Terry Crooks (of NEMP) has said that the issue is not one of testing it is one of motivation - and motivation depends on the insight creative teachers.

The government is determined to place dogma ahead of creativity and imagination, qualities that are already at risk by a decade or so of Ministry imposed formulaic conforming 'best practices. Elwyn Richardson would be appalled if he were to see what currently passes for creative art, language or student research.

Andy Hargreaves has written about Four Worlds of Change since the Second World War. The first the 60s/70s an age of creativity but all too often determined by the 'lottery' of getting a creative teacher. The Second World was the result of the Market Forces Efficiency model - all those measurable strands levels and objectives. Rationality gone mad - led by the same Ministry technocrats we now are being led by! As this proved impossible this morphed into the Third World with its narrowing focus on literacy and numeracy targets. With targets it is not what you hit that counts it is what you miss because you weren't looking! As a result literacy and numeracy have, according to one commentator, have 'all but gobbled up the rest of the curriculum'. Creativity was now at at real risk.

And then the Fourth World represented well by our 'new' New Zealand Curriculum.
Elwyn, and his creative antecedents would see this curriculum as 'back to the future!'. Creativity and imagination seemed poised to return to centre stage.It was to be the 60s again but this time to be done better through schools networking with each other.

And along comes the National Standards and New Zealand seems set to lose its leadership role in developing a 21st Century education system. National standards have more than a 'whiff of the Victorian Era about them' no matter what the ministry apologists say. At best it is a 'big brother' imposition - 'free market Stalinism'.

All the art advisers, and the like, that add valuable dimensions to student learning and teacher education, are to be replaced by literacy and numeracy advisers - referred to as 'literacy Nazis' in the USA. All so sad and misguided.

This narrow minded approach neglects the power of transformational experiences, the essence of creative teaching, that can turn failing students into learners - the motivation of Terry Crooks. Teaching, Jerome Bruner writes,' is the canny art of intellectual temptation'. The Te Kotahitanga research of Russell Bishop has shown it is about valuing students' voice, identity and culture; about respectful relationships

Guy Claxton in his book, aptly named 'Whats the Point of School', believes that the desire to learn ( he calls this 'learnacy') is as important as literacy and numeracy. Creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, writes that 'creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy' and that schools need to focus on finding what every learner is good at and then amplifying their gifts and talents.

Simple stuff and yet the government, without real evidence , is set on imposed their failed national standards. They, of course, say they have developed a better model! it is simplicity disguised as truth - one dimension thinking lacking any real debate. What it will mean is that every student will be tested twice year ( 16 times at primary school). Many will be found below average and will stay there - that is unless our Minister thinks that we can make them all above average with good teaching! Failure will stick and society will pay the price for such idiocy.

I am for standing up against such simplistic educational nonsense. It panders to the public anxiety stirred by the current government for their own ends. It will prove to be giant error no matter the Ministry's justifications. It will not solve the growing disengagement of our students who simply can't see the point of our antiquated school system with its genesis in a past century. The standards are a reversion to the failed market forces model. Standardisation is over - we now live in an age of ideas and imagination, some are calling it a 'second Renaissance; our schools need to reflect such exciting future thinking.

I am for creative teaching - it was once the New Zealand way. We need an updated vision building on the ideas of Dr Beeby ( who developed such ideas in the 1940s) - a creative personalised learning pathway is required for every student.

I am for the intent of the 'new' NZC.

Our students are entering a new millennium - they will need 'new minds', new dispositions, to thrive, to face up future uncertainty and ambiguity, and to solve problems we currently seem unable to face up to. Literacy and numeracy are important but they will not be enough and an over emphasis on them will distort our teaching and sacrifice our very students survival. They deserve better. We deserve better.

With apologies to Martin Luther King, I have a dream of a creative education that releases the gifts and talents of all our students. And, like folk singer Pete Seeger's hymn of the 60s civil rights movement, if we stick together 'we shall overcome some day'.

We will need real leadership. Creative teaching - developing the gifts and talents of all our students is 'worth fighting for'.

Our kids deserve our best efforts.

Kia kaha

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Posted in: Assessment,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves

More information please: National Standards

It all seems so simple but does it give a true picture of a learners progress and what will be neglected while the focus goes on improving the graphs? With the 'real' plunket graphs parent could at least feed their child to improve height and weight.

Newspaper editors and opinion writer have had a field day with the national standards 'debate'. Actually 'debate' there hasn't been. Opinion has held sway fed by Ministry of Education spin.

Where are the investigative journalists these days are are papers just worried about pandering to the prejudices of their readers?

Anyway I was motivated to write to our local paper after a poorly written editorial featuring the full range of shallow writing that seems to have taken the place for editorials these days.

Maybe others should write to their local papers?

Dear Sir

I guess it is in the nature of editorials to be full of generalizations and to be provocative. I refer to your editorial of the Friday 6th of November about the misinformation about the proposed national standards. Most of it, you state, coming from educators with vested interests.

If parents are not to be left, as you say, ‘languishing and wondering’ who is right in this ‘fiery nasty debate’ about national standards then this surely is an opportunity for some real in depth investigative journalism?

There is no doubt on the surface national standards do seem a sensible idea but what do they really mean beyond the simplistic ‘plunket style’ graphs showing student progress in a few defined areas?

If your paper is interested in enlightening parents and readers I suggest your education reporter researches:

1. What evidence can the Minister, or the Ministry of Education, provide to support the introduction of such standards? Can they point to other countries using them successfully without any distorting side effects?

2. What countries do best in international testing and do they use national testing in the areas to be covered by national standards? And where do New Zealand students stand in these tests?

3. What does the three year Cambridge Study of Primary Education say about the effects of national testing (and ‘league tables’) in the UK? What does it say about the levels of anxiety and stress for students, teachers and parents?

4. What do internationally recognized New Zealand assessment experts say about national testing? Or international experts for that matter?

5. What current testing going on in primary schools around literacy and numeracy and the time spend each week on such important areas of learning?

6. What did the recently released NZCER research say about the feeling of parents re national standards?

I am also curious to know what you mean about by the ‘softer focus and broader learning’ that you mentioned in your editorial. How does it relate to the exciting demands of the recently published and internationally acclaimed New Zealand Curriculum?

Is education to be a debate between the Right’s narrow accountability culture and the Left’s soft focus (whatever that means) as you seem to think it is all about?

As you say in your editorial there is a great deal of misinformation about but I do not agree that it is coming from the educators. In my experience teachers work hard on behalf of their students and not, as you infer, for their own vested interests.

Maybe your paper can help sort all this misinformation out for your readers?

Yours faithfully

Bruce Hammonds

If we are to enter the debate we ought to know the answers to most of the above questions?

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Posted in: Assessment,Ministry NZCurric,national standards,Rants and Raves