Can ‘Investing in Educational Succ Challenge Set For It? A/Prof John Clark Massey University
The Investing in Educational Success (IES) initiative was announced by the Prime Minister with great fanfare in 2014. $359 million was to be allocated over the first four years of the project with a further $155 million a year after that. This is a lot of money to be investing in a new programme. Is it an investment which will pay off? To answer this question we need to go back to the Cabinet document which set the initiative in motion. In early 2014, the Minister of Education, Ms Parata, took a document to Cabinet seeking approval for the IES initiative. The Cabinet document, as approved, made it very clear what was driving the Minister’s proposal: New Zealand has an achievement challenge. Our top students are doing as well as students anywhere in the world, but there is a big gap between our top performing students and those who are not doing so well. International studies also tell us that we are not keeping pace with other high performing countries and jurisdictions and are falling short of our own previous results. We must do better and raise the quality of learning and achievement across the board. Doing this requires whole of system improvement (Parata, 2014, s4). The document continues: Evidence demonstrates that investing in the profession by raising the quality of teaching and leadership provides the best opportunity to deliver the improved educational outcomes we seek (Parata, 2014, s5). The End Few are likely to deny that the inequality of school achievement is one of the biggest educational problems confronting New Zealand today. The ‘achievement challenge’, as the Minister of Education calls it, is so well documented that, at least as far as international measures such as PISA are concerned, as a country we have one of the widest ranges of scores between our highest and lowest achieving students and we are continuing to fall behind others who are now out-performing us in the OECD league table of international rankings. To be sure, PISA and those international instruments like it, such as PIRLS and TIMSS, are flawed and are to be participated in with caution and a degree of scepticism. But they, along with national measures such as national standards and NCEA, are not entirely without value as indicators of school achievement.
In the light of how we, as a country, are doing compared to those other countries whose average performance is similar to ours, and how we are performing domestically, who could possibly object to the Minister’s assertion that ‘We must do better and raise the quality of learning and achievement across the board’? The Means It is the means of achieving the end which presents us with the problem, perhaps an insurmountable one. Is it really true that ‘raising the quality of teaching and leadership provides the best opportunity to deliver the improved educational outcomes we seek’? The proposal, in both its original and revised versions, holds this to be so. The original formulation created two new teaching roles (expert and lead teachers) and two new leadership roles (executive and change principals). These have since been abandoned and replaced with the following corresponding creations: teacher (across community) role, teacher (within school) role, community of schools leadership role and principal recruitment allowance. Communities of schools have been created to implement the initiative. On April 22 2015, the Minister of Education announced that a further 129 schools had signed up to IES, bringing to a total of 222 schools participating in the initiative (Jones, 2015). Here is one example: Kelston Community of Schools Kelston Boys’ High School Kelston Girls’ College ■■ Kelston School ■■ Kelston Intermediate School ■■ St Leonards Road School ■■ Glen Eden School ■■ ■■
To be sure, the schools are located within a particular geographical boundary of a local community, but what, apart from the name, makes the schools themselves a distinct community rather than just a collection of schools. It might be claimed that the three primary schools feed into the one intermediate school which in turn feeds into the two secondary schools, and this may well be true but it is also likely that other primary and intermediate schools feature in the mix as well. So what is it about this particular grouping that makes it a community in the usual meaning of the word as a group of people who have particular attitudes, interests and characteristics in common? Who knows? But interestingly, another Auckland community of schools has taken a hit with the withdrawal of Auckland Grammar on the
ess’ Meet the Achievement
grounds that ‘the model does not align with its strategic direction’ (Johnston, 2015). One may well ask how long these communities will survive after the initial enthusiasm wears off and the realities of life in schools takes over once more. Within and Beyond School Factors The message is finally getting through that both within school and beyond school factors contribute to the causes of and the solutions to the inequality of school achievement. Ms Pararta was reported by Jones (2015) as saying: ‘We know that the biggest factors in-school for lifting achievement are the quality of teaching and leadership.’ ‘The biggest out-of-school factors are family involvement and community expectations. IES promotes all of these.’ But the Minister has a bit further to go before she gets it right.
The two factors, quality of teaching and leadership, may be the biggest factors in-school for lifting LEARNING but they do not figure highly in lifting ACHIEVEMENT. Certainly, teachers may have a significant causal impact on student learning in the classroom. What teachers write and say is immediately seen and heard by students and may or may not be learned as it is processed in the brain. If what is taught by a teacher is captured by the brain and stored there for later use and can be retrieved on the day then so much the better for student achievement but the influence of the teacher is causally far removed. Far too many causal factors in a lengthy causal chain impact on later achievement to attribute success and failure in national and international measures to the quality of teaching as the most significant factor. A focus on the quality of teaching and leadership as the
SIZZLING SUMMER HEAT HOT CLASSROOMS IN YOUR SCHOOL?
AGC Sunderland School
Pinehurst School
Tahunanui School Nelson
BEAT THE HEAT – PROTECT YOUR STUDENTS AND STAFF NOW Designed like an aeroplane wing, the Uniport is … · · · · · ·
New Zealand’s most Affordable High Quality Covering Systems Protection while enjoying the natural light, helping learning No connections to your School buildings – means no leaks Less posts – mean less hazards for students and staff Finest engineering, 250 x stronger than glass, cuts out 99% UV rays Nationwide service and respectful installers
“Uniport exceeded our expectations” Sherida Penman Walters Principal Pinehurst School
UNIQUE | AFFORDABLE | SAFE SOLUTION ✓✓✓ CALL TODAY
0800 864 767 www.uniport.co.nz hewett@xtra.co.nz
primary within-school factors and family involvement and community expectations as the leading beyond-school factors runs the very real risk of paying little or no attention to other factors which may be just as important for the ways in which they impact on these favoured ones. Brighouse and Schouten (2011) provide a very useful list of causal factors which are often placed into one side of the within/beyond school dualism or the other: Within School: Factors to educational disadvantage that are internal to schools include variations in spending within and among schools, teacher quality, principal quality, curriculum and instruction, disciplinary regime, peer group within the school, and the physical environment of the school, especially related to health. Beyond School: Factors to educational disadvantage that are external to schools include variations in how well families prepare children to interact with school, in family income and wealth, effectiveness of public health measures, access to health care, and hence health states, levels of parental stress and parental health, types of parental employment, family structure, levels of neighbourhood crime, quality of policing in the neighbourhood, concentrations of disadvantage or advantage in the neighbourhood, quality of the physical environment (especially as it affects health), frequency of moving homes, and peer group within the neighbourhood (Brighouse & Schouten, 2011, p.510). The beyond school factors, as listed by Brighouse and Schouten, seem somewhat narrow and limited in scope, which is all the more surprising given that they also make reference to Rothstein (2004) who draws attention to a wider range of factors which extend out into the political realm of economic and social policies and activities in the business sector: Background Institutions: These include such measures as reducing income inequality by, for example, increasing the minimum wage, using collective bargaining, expanding the earned-income tax credit, and establishing a commitment to full employment as a central part of economic policy; stabilising low-income housing by mechanisms that make it easier for low-income renters to stay in their homes; integrating housing by socioeconomic class through inclusionary zoning ordinances; and improving public health measures affecting disadvantaged neighbourhoods and health-care access for low-income families.
MAGAZINE
Support in Schools: These include such measures as school integration by socioeconomic status; establishing schoolcommunity clinics that would serve both parents and children; improving prenatal and postnatal care through visiting nurse programs and improved health-care access; expanding high-quality early childhood education for lowincome and minority children that emphasise social skills as well as literacy, mirroring middle-class early childhood experiences; establishing stable and high-quality afterschool and summer programmes (Ibid., p.511). If Ms Parata is really serious about IES meeting the achievement challenge then she needs to take all of these factors into consideration rather than being highly selective in deciding which factors are causal and which are not, and then she should talk to Mr Key and Mr English about the political will and financial resources which will be required to address the achievement challenge. In particular, she must spell out what would count as success in meeting the challenge. For example, by a certain date New Zealand will perform at a specified level in, for example, PISA. This will help us to decide whether the money spent on IES has been well spent. Failure to convince her Cabinet colleagues will keep in place the very thing she says she wants to find a lasting solution to. Sadly, her prospects do not look good. Whatever else the IES initiative might achieve, it is no solution to the achievement challenge. References Brighouse, H. and Schouten, G. (2011) Understanding the context for existing reform and research proposal. Duncan, C. & Murnane, G. (Eds.) (2011) Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 507–522. Johnston, K. (2015) Auckland Grammar quits ‘Community of Schools’ project. New Zealand Herald. 3 June, Website. Jones, N. (2015) Thousands of Auckland students affected by education reforms. New Zealand Herald. 22 April, Website. Parata, H. (2014) Investing in Educational Success: The Learning and Achievement Challenge. Wellington: NZ Government, Cabinet document. Rothstein, R. (2004) Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
You can now access the current and past issues of NZ Principal magazine online You can search by magazine issue, article name or author visit www.nzprincipal.co.nz
A growing number of New Zealand state schools are successfully adopting Cambridge programmes and qualifications. Cambridge offers a choice of progressive and flexible programmes including Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge International AS & A Level. As the world’s most popular international qualification, Cambridge IGCSE offers students a choice of over 70 subjects, and the opportunity to acquire knowledge, understanding and skills in creative thinking, enquiry and problem solving. Cambridge International AS & A Level helps students develop a detailed and in-depth understanding of subjects as well as independent learning and constructive thinking skills – abilities that universities and employers value highly. Cambridge programmes and qualifications are compatible with other curricula such as the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). With Cambridge, a school is free to build a curriculum that fits the values of the school and the needs of the learner. New Zealand schools have already shown great success implementing Cambridge through different learning pathways. One Auckland state school says: “At our school we offer both Cambridge and NCEA as two completely separate pathways. Each pathway offers a full complement of subjects. There is no streaming in either pathway; and the decision of which one to study is made by the student and their family.” Other schools have seen impressive results in popular Cambridge International AS & A Levels such as
Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics, where students have undertaken Cambridge study while simultaneously preparing for NCEA Levels 2 and 3. Cambridge is also adopted widely for enrichment and extension. “We can easily integrate a number of Cambridge subjects into our school programme, primarily to enrich and extend our most able academic students,” says a state school principal from South Island. Cambridge programmes offer exceptional learning opportunities, leading to qualifications that are accepted by universities across New Zealand and around the world. Whatever pathway schools may choose, our in-depth, clearly structured education programmes prepare school students for life, helping them develop an informed curiosity and a lasting passion for learning. Learn more. Visit www.cie.org.uk/nz-state-schools
Detailed and in-depth Our in-depth, clearly structured education programmes prepare school students for life, helping them develop an informed curiosity and a lasting passion for learning. Give your students a detailed education. Learn more at: cie.org.uk
Image: detail of plant cells.