Q+A: Interview with Hekia Parata, Education Minister
Q+A: Shane Taurima Interview with Hekia Parata,
Education Minster
Points of
Interest:
Government to create a
“robust and reliable appraisal system” for teachers, but
won’t rule in or out performance pay.
Minister
wants to “collaborate” with teachers on designing
appraisal system, but says class size is not relevant.
Government to “look at” changing teacher
career path so that they can earn more without leaving the
classroom.
“The mix of rewards that we might
want to have available are second-order to having an
appraisal system that we can all rely on.”
Minister says her target to lift the number of
18-year-olds with level 2 NCEA from 68% to 85% over five
years is a ‘must achieve’ and ‘aspiration.’
Departmental advice on the risks of charter schools
includes, “poor teachers, ill-defined standards, unclear
curriculum”, but those are risks in all schools.
Minister won’t say if she will look at cutting front
line teaching jobs if it would raise money to improve
teaching quality, saying it’s the principals determine
class size.
Parata says, “The single biggest
challenge we have is to raise achievement.”
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats of Q&A
will screen on TVNZ7 at 9pm Sundays and 9am and 1pm on
Mondays.
Q+A is on
Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/NZQandA#!/NZQandA
and on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/NZQandA
HEKIA PARATA
Interviewed by SHANE TAURIMA
SHANE
Thank you, minister for joining us. Tena koe.
HEKIA PARATA – Education Minister
Kia ora.
SHANE
The head of Treasury, Gabriel Makhlouf, says teaching
quality is the most important issue on education, and I
quote, “It’s the single biggest issue the country needs
to tackle to raise living standards,” end of quote Do you
agree with that?
MS
PARATA I think the single
biggest challenge we have is to raise achievement, and
improving teacher quality is going to directly contribute to
that. We need to have more of our young people leaving
school with the basic qualification of NCEA 2. We’ve seen
progress over the last three years, since 2008. We have
raised NCEA 2 achievement levels across the board, and for
Maori and Pasifika. But we really need to treble that over
the next five years if we are to get more young people
equipped with skills, able to leave school and get into a
career and make meaningful choices about the quality of life
they have.
SHANE
Let’s go back to teaching quality, because you’ve been
quoted this weekend saying that pay performance is back on
the table. Is that correct?
MS
PARATA Look, I think the first
thing that has to be on the table is having a robust and
reliable appraisal system that allows us to make those kinds
of differentiations. If we want to raise teacher quality, we
have to identify who is delivering successful practice and
make that common practice. We have to identify where we need
to improve the professional learning and development so that
teachers can engage with students successfully and our
students’ achievement is raised.
SHANE So
is that back on the table, pay performance? Is that part of
your thinking, I suppose?
MS
PARATA Look, I think it’s
really important that we don’t think there’s one kind of
silver bullet, and I think that the mix of rewards that we
might want to have available are second-order to having an
appraisal system that we can all rely on. And the point of
an appraisal system is not to punish or blame but to
identify where the best practice is occurring, how we get
that happening across all schools and where improvement
needs to occur and how we get support in.
SHANE
Former education minister Anne Tolley, she told the NZEI
annual meeting last year, and I quote, “I’ve made it
very clear that this government has no intention of pursuing
performance pay.” Has that changed?
MS
PARATA Again, I think we need
to focus on what our purpose is, which is raising
achievement of all New Zealand students.
SHANE So
you’re not absolutely ruling it out?
MS
PARATA No, I’m not ruling it
out or ruling it in. I’m saying that the purpose of the
education system is to send kids out into the world with a
qualification that’s meaningful. In order to do that, we
need to have quality teaching in the classrooms, all the way
from year one through to year 13.
SHANE So
you talk about an appraisal system. How would that work? How
do you see that working?
MS
PARATA Well, first of all I
think it’s something that has to be a function of
collaboration across the sector. There are over 52,000
teachers in the New Zealand education system. There are over
2500 schools in the education system. The only people that
are going to be able to raise achievement are the teachers
and the learning connection with the learners.
SHANE
But the appraisal, though. The appraisal system...
MS PARATA So we need to be
hearing from the teaching profession as to what are the key
things that make the difference in achieving quality, in
getting the outcome of raised achievement...
SHANE
Because the big question, I dare say, is how do you actually
measure teacher performance?
MS
PARATA And that is why we need
to have a discussion. We need to co-construct that or
collaborate on that, because teachers in the profession, and
many of them are teaching extremely well, because four out
of five of our students are achieving...
SHANE
With the absolute greatest respect, you pose a lot of
questions. Do you have any answers?
MS
PARATA I do have a lot of
answers, and...
SHANE So
let me...
MS PARATA
...the answer is this – it’s not simple; it’s
extremely complex. What we do know is that achievement is
uneven within schools as well as between schools. That tells
us that the challenge is far more than simply suggesting
that it is a socio-economic problem, because we see that
this texture of performance is across the system. That means
we need to engage with the profession itself to identify...
SHANE
And we take that point.
MS
PARATA ...what the best
standards are.
SHANE We
take the point in terms of engagement.
MS
PARATA OK, so we need
high-quality graduates to be attracted into the profession.
We need to know that they have qualifications and they
understand pedagogical range. We need to know that they
understand...
SHANE
Can I just slow you down?
MS
PARATA ...the learning styles
of the students.
SHANE
Just on those first two points – are you prepared to pay
them well, though?
MS
PARATA Well, at the moment the
starting salary for teachers is, I think, just over $50,000,
and it can range through to over $200,000 for principals, so
there is a broad range, but what I think the workforce
taskforce reported last year was that we needed to look at
the structure of the career pathways so that excellent
teachers aren’t forced to become leaders or managers –
in other words taken out of the classroom situation –
because that would be the only way they could get a pay
increase. So we have to look at that. We have to look at
what the structure of career progression is and how we pay
that.
SHANE
Can I take you back?
MS
PARATA You can.
SHANE
Can I take you back to my original question around how you
propose to measure teacher performance? Because, I put to
you, how do you assess the teacher with a bright, motivated
group of students against another teacher who has a class
with several disruptive students? How do you measure that?
MS PARATA OK, so
there are two broad measures by which you measure. One is
whether the student is achieving the national standard...
SHANE So
student outcome?
MS
PARATA ...for their age at
primary school and whether they are passing external
examinations at the secondary school level. The second and
complementary part of that is what is the rate of progress
or what is the value-add or what is the growth of learning
that a student is achieving with a particular teacher in a
classroom.
SHANE So
student outcome?
MS
PARATA Student outcomes are
most definitely a core part of determining whether or not
learning is occurring successfully. We know also that the
difference made by a good teacher has been tracked. Most
recently I met with Profession Rockoff, who’s one of the
three academics who’s published on of the largest pieces
of research...
SHANE
Can I just move you on, please? Mr Makhlouf, the head of
Treasury, if we can go back to him again, because I dare say
class size would be part of the appraisal system. Would that
be fair?
MS PARATA
No.
SHANE
No? It’s not?
MS
PARATA No,...
SHANE
OK.
MS PARATA
...because what we know from the evidence is that the effect
of class size is minimal in comparison to the effect of the
quality of teaching.
SHANE On
the issue of class size, though, because he suggests that
you should be looking at increasing class sizes by one or
two students per class across the system to be able to free
up funding to be able to improve teaching quality.
MS PARATA To be fair, I
think he’s making the argument from the opposite end from
the way that you’ve just presented it. He has said that in
recessionary times where we have fiscal constraint, where's
the best place to put a dollar? And the choice between class
size or between investing in the quality of the teacher is
really clear.
SHANE Do
you accept his notion, though, or the concept of what he’s
proposing?
MS
PARATA Well, I accept what the
evidence tells us, which is that it is the quality of
teaching, albeit the size of the class, that makes the
difference to the students. The class size itself...
SHANE Is
that something you would be prepared to do?
MS
PARATA Well, class size itself
is not correlative to achievement. I mean, I, for instance,
went through primary school in a class of 42. Other children
may have gone through in a class of 16. If you take the
linear logic of that argument, then everyone who went
through in a small class should be superstars and everyone
who went through in a large class should not be. It’s the
difference of the teacher in the classroom.
SHANE
You’ve made the commitment to lift the number of
18-year-olds with level 2 NCEA from 68% to 85% over five
years. Is that an absolute must-achieve for you or is it an
aspiration?
MS
PARATA Well, look, it’s
both. I mean, I aspire to that, but the fact is our country
needs well-qualified young people.
SHANE I
suppose my point in asking the question...
MS
PARATA I’m committed to
achieving 85%. That means we need to collaborate across the
sector and indeed the country. We need, outside of schools,
for parents to be committed to their children doing well, to
have high expectations of them and to go into schools and
demand those expectations.
SHANE
The point of my question, I suppose, is that if you don’t
meet the target, is this when you put your career on the
line today and you say, “If I don’t meet the target,
this is what happens”?
MS
PARATA Look, of course we must
have ambitious goals as a government, and I am ambitious for
students in the New Zealand education system. We cannot have
more of the same. It means we have to do something
different. So if...
SHANE So
does that mean putting your career on the line and saying,
“I will achieve it”?
MS
PARATA I don’t think we need
to get quite that dramatic.
SHANE
Because?
MS PARATA
Because I personally...
SHANE If
it’s so important to you, though.
MS
PARATA Well, it’s important
to our country, and I am the minister of education, and I am
committed to raising achievement...
SHANE So
you’re not prepared to say that?
MS
PARATA I’m prepared to say
that my goal is 85%. That means we have to triple the rate
of children passing NCEA now. If we did nothing at all over
the next five years, then we would raise by 3500 the number
of kids passing NCEA. We need 10,000 to be passing NCEA by
2016. That means we have to have a different mix in the
education sector.
SHANE
Part of that different mix – because the whole concept of
charter schools... Let’s talk about charter schools
now,...
MS PARATA
Yes.
SHANE
...which the unions vehemently oppose for a host of reasons.
But what I want to ask you, though – has your own ministry
provided you with any risk analysis on charter schools?
MS PARATA Yes, and
can I just take you back, though? I know...
SHANE
No, can you answer that question?
MS
PARATA I can answer that
question, but I don’t know how...
SHANE
Can we go straight there, please?
MS
PARATA ...it’s possible to
oppose something where we haven’t defined what it is that
we’re talking about.
SHANE
But let’s start off with...
MS
PARATA So charter schools...
SHANE
Let’s start off with them.
MS
PARATA I have been provided
with advice by my ministry. I have read widely around the
subject, and I have visited charter schools in the United
States last week, and charter schools, like mainstream
schools in New Zealand – there are very good ones and
there are not. In New Zealand , in the five years from 2003
to 2008, 281 schools were closed in New Zealand . In the
last three years, 49 schools have been closed. Failure or
success is not directly related to the type of school. It is
related to the performance of the school.
SHANE
And I appreciate that context that you provide, but can we
go back to the original question. Has your ministry...?
Well, it sounds as though they have.
MS
PARATA Yes, it has provided me
with...
SHANE
Can you tell us what that risk analysis is?
MS
PARATA Well, basically that we
have to have very good terms of reference. We have to have
clear definition of what we are trying to achieve. We have
to make a good selection of where these schools might
operate. We have to insure...
SHANE
What are the failures, though, that the ministry has pointed
out to you?
MS
PARATA Well, I guess that’s
the point that I’m trying make to you. It is
circumstance-specific. It is not peculiar to a type of
school. We have private schools failing and public schools
failing. We have single-sex and co-ed schools. The point
about a charter school is we have to change the performance
level of the system, in particular for Maori and Pasifika
students.
SHANE
Are you going to tell us, though, what those failures are
that the ministry has pointed out to you this morning?
MS PARATA Well,
they’re the obverse of what I’ve just said would be
successful: if there are poor teachers, ill-defined
standards, unclear curriculum,...
SHANE So
there is risk?
MS
PARATA ...lack of... As there
is with all schools.
SHANE
Would you send your own child to a charter school?
MS PARATA I indeed have
sent my child to... In fact, all schools in New Zealand are
charter schools. All schools are required by law to have a
charter.
SHANE
But not in the sense that we’re about to embark on.
MS PARATA Well, that’s
what we’re...
SHANE
Quite different.
MS
PARATA We’re about to embark
on defining what we mean for the New Zealand circumstance.
That’s what we’re about to embark on.
SHANE So
the two schools...
MS
PARATA And in answer to your
original question, if I thought my daughters would get a
better education there, then, yes. And as it happens, my
daughters have been in kura, they’ve been in a private
school, and they’ve been in co-ed and single-sex
educational schools, because those have fitted the
circumstances of our family and my academic aspirations for
my children at the time. And this is one of the point of
charter schools – it adds to the menu of choice for New
Zealand parents.
SHANE
Talking about choice, I want to go back to the size of
classrooms, back to that area. The PPTA say according to
their calculations, if you were to add two or three extra in
each class, it would mean the loss of about 2000 front line
teaching jobs.
MS
PARATA I don’t know where
the PPTA are getting their numbers from, but what I can tell
you is that the ratio of pupil to teachers in New Zealand
ranges from between 17 and 25. That is about the same ratios
as in 2006.
SHANE So
yes or no, because we have to wrap. But yes or no,...
MS PARATA So the point
about...
SHANE
...would you look at cutting those front line teaching jobs
if it was to improve teaching quality?
MS PARATA
But those are two different
questions. The point is about ratios is that...
SHANE
But can you answer that questions, please?
MS
PARATA ...principals determine
what the size of classes are, not the government.
SHANE
But you the minister, the decision lies with you...
MS PARATA Not the
government.
SHANE
...about cutting jobs, though.
MS
PARATA But the principals
decide what size classes they’re going to have in their
schools. That is the point of our system is to put the
trade-offs as close to where they can be... the impacts are
felt.
SHANE We
have to leave it there, unfortunately. We are out of time.
Hekia Parata, thank you for joining us.
MS
PARATA Kia ora.
ENDS