How are we doing? Are we (primary school principals and teachers) ensuring that national standards are not eroding our internationally recognised excellent education system? Are we defending the legacy left for us by
Beeby,
Ashton-Warner, and
Dame Marie Clay?
Sadly no. All over the country schools are embracing fundamentally flawed and educationally unsound practices. Reporting to parents and on rushed, shonkey and ill-defined standards. Leaving teachers to generate parental angst, stress and worry with their questionable written reports. Or perhaps worse, giving false assurance. Shame on you.
The matter is complex and is VERY high stakes. The current iteration of national standards needs so much more review, research and refinement (and refinement only if found to be educationally valid in the first place). Frankly the system should not yet be out in the open and in use in all schools.
If a such a new drug, airplane, car design, surgery technique, or even a new electric blanket design was proposed to be unleashed on the market there would need to be a lot of design challenge, justification, risk assessment and peer review done on it before it even got to trial stage. Sadly national standards were thrown together and then thrust upon all schools in the country. Currently every school using national standards is flying in Comet 1. It feels OK for now but it is not a safe place to be after a few annual cycles.
Jet powered planes are clearly a good idea but in England in the 1950s rushed design and pompous self-belief lead to death for passengers. Untested application of good ideas. It took crashes and deaths to make them look again at the worthy idea "jet powered flight" and then re-design the details of how it could work safely.
Plain language reporting to parents, identification of children not achieving and continuous improvement of educational outcomes for all children are what we all need. No argument there. The current national standards are intended to do this but are they are the educational version of those first ill-fated jet airliners. The structural cracks don't show up in the first few flights, it all seem a jolly nice idea. But when it blows it blows up big time.
So if you are still following my wide analogy I want to ask where is the professional engineers group, on the inside of the process, asking the big professional questions which will avert disaster?
In my mind the two professional groups who need to be at the design review table are the teachers' & principals' union - the NZEI and the principals' professional group the NZPF. Both have walked away. They are now the guys on the sidelines saying "we are not interested in new plane design unless it is piston engine powered, we have no time for jets".
What a shame. The deep professional knowledge and skills of the key teacher and principal union and professional groups are not being used in the design review process. They have walked away from the table and are not engaging with sorting the problems out. Shame on you.
So... who has the balls to fix this mess?
Perry Rush and the BTAC collation does - well done.
Bruce Hammonds speaks his mind - well done.
Kelvin Smythe keeps us thinking - well done.
The shame is that I don't pay weekly union dues to Perry, Bruce or Kelvin (who I salute) nor does my school pay an annual professional membership fee to BTAC. What are the people that I/we actually pay doing? They are just protesting - not good enough! Staged charter hand-ins, bus tours and balloon tricks hmmm. Don't just protest, get in and use all of your energy to fix it. Take your offered seats on the National Standards Advisory Group.
The
National Standards Sector Advisory Group (NSSAG). Currently seems to be on a mission to promote and implement the standards rather than ask the hard questions. Being part of it would not be a nice experience, but without the teacher and principal voices in there it will roll on unchecked. On their website you can see all of their meeting notes, correspondence and responses from the Minister of Education. Look deeply at all of the notes and documents and imagine what could be even better if the NZEI and NZPF were sitting at the seats offered to them.
As shown by the 16 June NSSAG meeting notes a revelation has occurred (well I have joined the dots in my mind anyway). From their website...
"NATIONAL STANDARDS - what is all the fuss about
Facts:
New Zealand rates highly on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
world rankings for education.
If Maori and Pacifica results are removed from the PISA data, New Zealand’s rank improves
to second in the OECD and sits just narrowly behind Shanghai.
If you use only Maori and Pacifica data however, New Zealand is rated second to last!
The most prolific birth rate in New Zealand is among Maori and Pacifica. "
Which seems to me to mean that.. instead of forcing the 50 best practice literacy and numeracy advisors on schools we actually need 50 or more Ka Hikitia advisors to make us address the cultural non-achievement issues.
J
ust imagine the great NZ education system we could have if Ka Hikitia instead of national standards was the major government focus; resourced' and 'enforced'. I would welcome (and probably need to be honest) a kick up the pants from a Ka Hikitia best practice advisor.
Summary of a this big blog post
1. Value our excellent education system.
2. Stop adopting a half baked risky idea.
3. NZEI and NZPF we pay you lots of money to be at the table - go there. It won't be nice but is better than being on the outside. Membership of an advisory group does not mean endorsing the standards in their current, or any, format.
4. BTAC, Perry, Bruce and Kelvin - you are not being paid but you are doing it anyway. Good on you.
5. For parents of Waimairi School, we will continue to report to you against well proven and researched expectations of children's progress against national expectations. Not rushed standards.
