National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation
In my last column, I wrote that current reforms in education constitute a threat to the integrity of our rich school curriculum. Our curriculum is special not just to us as professionals, but to the parents who partnered us in developing it. Together we claim ownership for its implementation. It provides the best chance for children to succeed because it is broad with multiple pathways to access learning and is based on values and aspirations that are familiar to the children. They are familiar because they are the values and aspirations of our children’s own families. With self-managed schools, we work alongside our communities. The boards that employ us are our parent representative bodies and we rightly report directly to them. Our relationships with our school communities are strong and the level of trust and confidence our parents have in our profession is high. When government called to increase class sizes saying quality not class size is what makes a difference to learning, we immediately saw that this would have a negative impact on children’s learning. We had a moral obligation to tell parents what the effects would be on children’s learning and we did so. Once parents understood what the proposed teacher:student ratios meant, they stood alongside us to support our position. Since the policy to increase class sizes was scuttled, the government’s agenda has moved on. The new ‘class size’ is ‘league tables’, and has the potential to affect children’s learning every bit as negatively as bigger classes. The problem is this. To construct league tables a journalist or someone else takes an insignificant piece of national standards information and makes it represent all the learning that occurs in a school. This then constitutes the performance of the whole school. Theories of assessment and learning are clear about assessment data. Assessment data are to be treated with caution and if not contextualised alongside a range of other observations and examples of work, are meaningless. National standards data in two subject areas without any sense of context are meaningless. Further, it has been well acknowledged from the Prime Minister down, that the data on national standards for this past year are inconsistent, ‘ropey’ and variable. So, why would you want parents to think that this data gives good information about a school when you know it doesn’t? Why would you put it up on a website making it publicly available? If you think this behaviour is odd, take the latest announcement on charter schools. The model that Mr Banks of the ACT party has chosen and which the government supports is fresh out of America. It does not require the people working in them to be qualified and registered teachers or principals! Remember, only a couple of months ago the government was resolute that teachers had to be more qualified because quality
is what makes the difference! Amidst the mayhem one thing the government consistently says is that it wants struggling learners to do better. On this point we agree. But how can we take them seriously? The contradictions in policy are just too big to accommodate. If we agree that the focus is struggling learners then let’s be guided by what the research tells us. Research on how to help struggling learners is unequivocal. It points to specialist interventions, smaller classes, experienced quality teachers, and individualised learning programmes. Children struggle for a variety of reasons. They are not a homogenous group. They are our most challenging learners. It’s simply illogical that you would put these vulnerable learners in front of untrained people. It’s as illogical as saying that increasing class sizes won’t affect children’s individual learning or league tables made from ‘ropey’ data will give parents useful information about their school and help children succeed. So why is the government putting forward policies that don’t make any sense for children’s learning and contradict their own statements? Why has the government not listened to and acted on the advice of our academic experts, professionals, and our learning support specialists if they really care about learners who are struggling? It cannot be because the government has completely lost the plot. It has to be that the plot is not the plot we thought it was. Perhaps in the end the government’s plot is really about
It’s as illogical as saying that increasing class sizes won’t affect children’s individual learning or league tables made from ‘ropey’ data will give parents useful information about their school and help children succeed. something else like keeping kids/adults in education and training to keep them off the dole and off the streets because there are no jobs. Now, there is some logic to that idea because alongside ‘helping struggling learners’ we also hear the call to have 85 percent of New Zealanders passing NCEA level 2 and just recently we heard Tertiary Minister Steven Joyce say that he wants an increase in 25–34 year olds passing tertiary level 4. We also hear that we are in fiscally difficult times and there
is no more money going into the education system. Where will the money come from to keep Kiwis in education for so long? The private sector? Transferred from the public school system? Alongside these announcements, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has revealed it is introducing a tracking system for all school leavers to ensure that every school leaver who is not in paid employment is in some form of training or education. The MSD will be able to access the academic records of all school leavers to assist in their tracking process. You join the dots.
It cannot be because the government has completely lost the plot. It has to be that the plot is not the plot we thought it was. Every child deserves the right to a quality public education, delivered by fully trained and registered teachers. It is what the parents of New Zealand’s kids rightfully expect and we have a responsibility to ensure that children get the very best education we can offer. It is not a choice for us to speak out when policies run counter to what is in the best interests of children and parents. It is a moral and ethical responsibility we take on as professional educators. Even if our voice is becoming hoarse, we must keep speaking out.
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