School of Educational Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North
New Zealand is not alone in acknowledging the serious problem of inequality in school achievement. Chris Husbands, the Director of the University of London Institute of Education, has observed that ‘England is notable for its PISA results for having a proportion of pupils whose performance is among the best in the world with a long tail of poorly performing young people’ (Husbands, 2012, p. 8). Where New Zealand seems to differ from other countries with the same problem is with the solutions offered to remedy the inequality. Some of the solutions are similar to those in other countries, but some are unique to New Zealand. This in itself might not matter except for two things. First, given that the causes of the inequality are to be found primarily in factors external to the school then it is a puzzle why all of the solutions on offer in New Zealand have a within-school focus. Second, given the plethora of solutions, as reported in the media, which all appear to be independent of one another rather than having a coherent policy mix we seem to have an incoherent policy mess. Given both of these points, it seems extremely unlikely that the inequality of school achievement will be sorted out until such time as attention turns to external causes and solutions which address these.
j.a.clark@massey.ac.nz
to substantially reduce unequal educational achievement must institute policies which both reduce social and economic inequalities and directly address the cognitive and affective disadvantages these cause long before schooling begins (ibid., p. 15). They are right; any explanation of inequality of educational achievement must accommodate both within-school factors and those external to the school if a full account is to be given. To rely solely on within-school factors is only to tell half the story, and if Snook and O’Neill are correct then this would amount to even less than half. So, an explanatory theory which comes anywhere close to the mark in illuminating the cause(s) must be comprehensive rather than ideologically partial. The difficulty with this way of seeing things is that it casts the matter as a dualism, of a conflict between within-school and external factors, which is not all that helpful in trying to get to the bottom of things. Another way, and a better way, is to reconceptualise the problem by replacing the dualism with a causal continuum. At one end are the proximal factors close to the action while at the other end are the distal factors far removed from the action and distributed between are those factors closer to or further from the action. Things close to the action might include whether a child is hungry or well fed, warmly clothed or feeling cold, is read stories by parents or reads to parents,
Causes of inequality in school achievement One of the biggest problems lies in locating the causes of the inequality in school achievement. The debate as it is currently engaged in pits external factors against within school ones. There is very substantial support amongst some academics, policymakers and Any explanation of inequality politicians for the notion that the causes of the of educational achievement must inequality can be firmly sheeted home to withinschool considerations. The Treasury and the accommodate both within-school Ministry of Education are of this persuasion as are those academics who support such programmes as factors and those external to the school reading recovery and Te Kōtahitanga. On the other if a full account is to be given. hand, there are some academics and many teachers who hold a contrary view that the causes of the inequality are located in factors external to the school and it is has a good or bad relationship with the teacher and so on. Far here that a causal mechanism must be found. Snook and O’Neill removed at the outer edge are things like government policies (2010), for example, remark that ‘It is clear that home background which determine the allocation of resources for, amongst other is the major determinant of educational achievement. . . . When things, education and health and frame the economic direction considered together, social class and home background effects which impacts on employment and the plight of the unemployed are always much more significant than any school or teacher in particular. effects’ (p. 15). They go on to say: While this reconceptualisation is much more complex than the There must also be changes in the wider community as simple dualism it replaces, and requires far more working out of this will require changes in social and economic policy, how it all hangs together as part of a causal mechanism to explain including parental support, pre-school and out-of-school the inequality in school achievement, it does have one great virtue education programmes, and efforts to enhance family over its impoverished rival – it is holistic in its approach and if and community well-being. Governments which want adopted would lead to a much greater impact on eliminating
hool licy mess? the inequality. There is only one problem. For policymakers and politicians it is intellectually less demanding and politically more expedient to retain the dualism and favour the within-school side of the debate where they can pour resources in and hold teachers to account even though the causes, being external to the school, are not of the teacher’s making and are largely beyond the teacher’s control. Solutions to inequality in school achievement A considerable number of solutions have been advanced as plausible means of reducing or eliminating the inequality of school achievement. Some of these are well known while others are not. What they all have in common is that they are within-school remedies. Given that the causes of the inequality are external to the school then it seems very unlikely that they will have much causal impact on the problem at all. This is not to deny that some of them might have some effect but this is likely to be minimal compared to the gains in achievement by the poorest performers if their out-of-school circumstances were significantly improved. What are these various proposed solutions? Some of them are ‘biggies’ with the full support of the state. Perhaps the best known example is national standards. The National coalition government continues to pin its hopes on the dream that national standards will in some mysterious and miraculous way solve the problem of the inequality of school achievement. However, it seems very unlikely that National Standards will ever come anywhere close to doing so. Backing National Standards as a solution is a bit like boarding the wrong train at the wrong station. The other major government initiative, more in the making than actual, at least at the moment, is the proposal to introduce charter schools. From the information about charter schools contained in the Annex to the National-ACT Confidence and Supply Agreement, the characteristics give no indication of how charter schools could possibly contribute to reducing the inequality but they do give very clear pointers to the role of charter schools in leading the way of competitive private providers in a free market of education provision. If anything, the pursuit of this proposed solution will in all likelihood increase rather than reduce the very inequality it seeks to address. But this contradiction somehow escapes the blinkered view of proponents. Another option, perhaps slightly less well known but nonetheless well resourced through government funding, is Te Kōtahitanga, the research-based professional development programme. Not only does this eschew external factors, especially family-related differences which it labels as deficit
theorising, but it makes a virtue out of doing so. The Annex to the report on phase two of the project states the position quite explicitly and unambiguously: Effective teachers of Māori students create a culturally appropriate and responsive context for learning in the classroom. In doing so they demonstrate the following understandings: (a) They positively and vehemently reject deficit theorising as a means of explaining Māori achievement levels (and professional development models need to ensure that this happens) (Bishop et al. 2005, p. 139) It requires very little imagination to picture teachers, in their Te Kōtahitanga professional development sessions, being instructed to chant with conviction and passion, with appropriate measures to ensure that they do, ‘I positively and vehemently reject deficit theorising as a means of explaining Māori students’ achievement levels’. How strange to deny that poor nutrition, ill health, inadequate clothing, illiterate parents, lack of new family experiences, parental supported truancy, absence of children’s books, consumption of alcohol and drugs, along with teenage pregnancy, road accidents and criminal activity could possibly have any causal link to school achievement. With this ideological stance, Te Kōtahitanga, too, seems doomed to fall well short of bringing about the equality its backers seek. There are a number of other so-called solutions touted as worth considering for their power to ameliorate the inequality of school achievement. These include: quality teachers (Mr Makhlouf, the Treasury Secretary), performance pay (Mrs Parata, the Minister of Education), reading recovery (David Shearer, Leader of the Opposition), six-week teacher training programmes (Shaun Sutton, CEO of Teach First NZ / Graeme Aitken of the University of Auckland), computers in schools (Pat Sneddon, chair of the Manaiakalani Education Trust) and kōhanga reo (Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust Board). However, as within-school solutions, they are poorly placed to have any significant effect on the inequality of school achievement. Policy mix or policy mess? Given the various solutions advanced to date, with the likelihood of more to come in the future, it has to be asked whether these, taken together, provide a coherent policy mix or are no more than a very unfortunate policy mess? Taken at face value, the parts do not add up to much of a whole at all. Starting with national standards, the National party’s flagship, there does not appear to be any policy alignment with charter schools, the ACT
party’s misplaced initiative. Add to the mix the other solutions and instead of baking a wonderful cake what we have ended up with is a very unappetising goo. None of the pieces fit together in any coherent or rational sort of way. Rather, new solutions emerge which their proponents champion as either the or a way forward with no regard to how any particular proposal contributes to the formation of a more coherent policy mix. So, instead, what we are left with is a policy mess which is deficient in one fundamental respect – the partial scope of within-school coverage and the incompatibility of the various bits renders the whole and its parts completely ineffective. Only when a coherent approach is adopted to identifying the causal set upon which plausible solutions can be based will we as a nation begin to address our greatest education problem, the inequality in school achievement. References Bishop, R, M Berryman, A Powell and L Teddy (2005). Te Kotahitanga Phase Two – Towards a whole school approach. Wellington: Ministry of Education. Husbands, C (2012). Teaching and Learning in the Twenty-first Century. London: University of London Institute of Education. Snook, I and J O’Neill (2010). ‘Social class and educational achievement: Beyond ideology’, New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 45(2): 3–18.
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School Lines The new pandemic: growing numbers of schools and teachers with disabilities Lester Flockton
Feedback, feedforward, feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz
ERO has reported that a little over a quarter of primary schools have effective science programmes in place and that they are letting down their students when it comes to science. In commenting on the report, Mr Stoop (chief review officer) said there has been a focus on reading, writing and mathematics (National Standards) in schools, meaning science does not receive the attention it could. I suspect that he could have extended that sentence to include speaking and listening (oracy), social sciences, music, art, dance, drama, health, physical education, etc. The ERO finding is hardly surprising. We now have a system that puts virtually all of its eggs into the literacy and numeracy basket; a system that has reverted to 19th century thinking on the direction and purpose of education. This is the direct result of the backward flip (which in time will prove to be a flop) championed by the erstwhile Mrs Anne Tolley and hammered in by a Ministry of Education besotted with its new-found and spiralling power and control over boards, principals, their charters, targets, data, reporting (and there’s more of their way on the way). The consequence has been predictable: the growth of unwanted bureaucratic intrusiveness, an insidious erosion of self-management, formulaic teaching, and growing curriculum poverty. So, let’s do an epidemiological analysis of the viral contagion that is disabling the ability of many schools and teachers to advance the intent of the vision and direction of the New Zealand Curriculum. It started in 2009 with Mrs Anne Tolley. I asked for her position on a good, well-rounded education for New Zealand children living in the 21st century. Her answer was quick, insistent and to the point: ‘It’s literacy and numeracy.’ And therein lies a key causal symptom underlying the current malaise. Regrettably, New Zealand does not have people in senior governmental positions of authority capable of or committed to enthusiastically embracing and leading a strong, progressive vision for the kind of education that would help enrich the lives of our young people living in times distant from Tolley’s 19th century. The Ministry of Education’s Statement of Intent 2011/12–2016/17 (2011) says (as it keeps on saying): New Zealand has a world-class, high-performing education system. International studies show that our highestachieving students are among the best in the world. The system performs well for the majority of students, particularly those in higher decile schools, and tends to perform better for European/Pākehā students and Asian students. . . . yet a proportion of our population continues to be under-served by the system . . . Across the sectors the education system continues to persistently under-perform for some of our students. These students are proportionally more likely to be Māori or Pasifika, be
from low socio-economic communities or have special education needs. Disparities in education appear early and persist throughout learning. We know ad nauseam about this performance profile based largely on international pencil and paper, multiple choice, timed tests that have been proven questionable for judging the achievement of children from different cultures. Moreover, since the large majority of our children are performing very well indeed, we need to keep asking why on Earth we have a National Standards system indiscriminately imposed on every school and every child? You don’t need to be too smart to work out where targeted support is needed. But it is the sort of MOE instrumentalist vision lurking behind National Standards that should raise serious questions and concerns: What we will do to effect change We will bring about change by supporting the teaching profession to improve the effectiveness of its teaching of foundation literacy and numeracy skills to all students. . . . By helping more students to gain these critical skills when first taught, the pressure on and demand for corrective targeted interventions will reduce. It is anticipated that this in turn will free up resource currently being spent on these targeted interventions, and improve overall cost-effectiveness of expenditure in the schooling sector. (Ministry of Education 2011, emphasis added) The vision is clearly about saving money (a dream, yet music to the ears of the Minister of Finance). There is nothing wrong with being cost-effective, provided we are careful about what we mean by effectiveness, especially in relation to the potential scope of outcomes in education, and how any ‘freed up’ resources would be used. The disproportionate concentration of time, energy and resources on one basket of outcomes (reading, writing, mathematics) is ill-conceived and misdirected (the majority of children are already succeeding) and at the expense of a rich, balanced, modern curriculum (something that may not be within the radar of the Secretaries of Treasury and Education). As Phil Harding, NZPF Vice-President has correctly stated, millions of dollars are being poured into implementing national standards that had to be drawn from somewhere: reduction in resources for professional development in all curriculum areas. Support services for professional development and learning across the curriculum have been all but decimated by the Ministry with the exception of literacy and numeracy. Years of expertise, resourcefulness and wisdom have been summarily and shamefully wiped out – a move that fails to understand and recognise that primary teachers are general practitioners – not