Standards proposal ignores teaching and learning

Media release, 7 April 2009

Flawed National Standards proposal ignores teaching and learning

Proposed league tables have nothing to do with learning and teaching outcomes, and could have dire consequences for New Zealand's education system, the Canterbury Primary Principals Association says.

Education Minister Anne Tolley has this week announced a fast-tracked plan for National Standards that will see the performance of primary and intermediate schools ranked in league tables from next year.

Canterbury Primary Principals Association President Denise Torrey says while they are completely supportive of the need to provide the community with clear information on a pupil's and school's performance, the proposed National Standards will not result in better reporting.

"Schools are not commodities - each has its own individual strengths and areas that need to be worked on. While, of course, there needs to be standards that all schools aspire to and are held accountable to, league tables do not paint a true picture about an individual school's performance. When people look at how schools are stacked in a table, they don't see what is happening in each school around raising the educational achievement levels of children."

"This regime also has high stakes for children - we don't want children to see themselves as 'failures' because their school is deemed by these league tables to be a failing school."

Ms Torrey, who sits on the Standards Reference Group to discuss the draft National Standards, says league tables don't take into account the individual skills and capabilities a child enters a school with, so they can't show the value a school has added.

"Schools would be under a lot of pressure to concentrate on areas key to raising their ranking on a table, to the detriment of the curriculum. This takes away from fundamental best practice learning and teaching and will narrow the curriculum.

"In implementing this programme, the Education Minister is ignoring advice from educational experts from the UK and the US, who told her of the failure of similar systems in their home countries at the recent International Symposium on Assessment, in Queenstown."

The proposed school ranking and comparison tables present the dangerous situation of winning and losing schools, she said.

"A school's failure in what would be a flawed measurement system carries a huge cost, with staffing and student recruitment and retention becoming a major issue."

ENDS

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