Compare and contrast
August 30th, 2010 at 1:00 pm by David FarrarOn Breakfast last week, Paul Henry interviewed two principals – one is a campaigner against national standards (and head of Canterbury Principals Union), and the other is a ordinary principal.
I recommend people go watch the video, to see the contrast in attitudes.
August 30th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Massive contrast. One of them needs to be fired for being a complete muppet who couldn’t even articulate what she hates about
accountabilitybeing measured and the other wants to do the best for the kids and should get a significant pay rise.Just as well the unions tell us they are all equal because they seem completely different to me.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
“Massive contrast. One of them needs to be fired for being a complete muppet who couldn’t even articulate what she hates about accountability being measured and the other wants to do the best for the kids and should get a significant pay rise. ”
That could be because she didnt actually argue against accountability Bert……. did you even listen?
DPF
Vote:what does ‘oridinary prinicipal’ imply? how did you measure this in order to group these prinicipals?
agrees with me = good = ordinary?
August 30th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Burt (and Krazykiwi), after watching the video, my comments on yesterday’s post look a little off the mark. If the two principals interviewed are representative, it’s difficult to identify concerns beyond the standards being used to create league tables. I hope that teachers’ other concerns, if in fact there are any, aren’t being overwhelmed by unions’ fight against league tables.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Short Shriveled and Slightly to the Left
That’s right she didn’t argue against standards… just these ones… status quo is always the thing useless operators want to maintain.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
# Short Shriveled and Slightly to the Left (472) Says:
August 30th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
DPF
what does ‘oridinary prinicipal’ imply? how did you measure this in order to group these prinicipals?
agrees with me = good = ordinary?
Sounds like the correct formula to me.
Well done DPF, more evidence for the superior intelligence of the right(ish) wing.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
MT_Tinman
On face value the Principal supporting the improvement of kids education sounded a lot smarter than the one who wants to maintain her unaccountable easy life. Nothing left vs right about this comparison.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
The unionist labour party member from Christchurch came over to me as utterly confusing in what she was trying to say.
I thought I had some intelligence but could not find out, over the rhetoric, where she was coming from – other than Labour good National (standards) wrong. She will find a shock in due course –
but “of course she is right” (and from Christchurch, too so).
I am not sure she has the intelligence or attitude to be a school principal – a hangover from continual bad teachers colleges -her attitude was bugger the children – she was the only one in the right and was able to continue fomenting dissention among other “lady” teachers at her school.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
@mjwilknz – I think there will be range of concerns covering league tables, need for effective and consistent moderation, inadequate training etc. The issue for me isn’t the concerns, it’s how they are addressed. The more militant objectors seem intent on stonewalling, with the more rational participants seem happy to engage and help refine issues with the standards and their implementation.
As I mentioned earlier, we ask students give things a go, take guidance, try again and keep trying until they have mastered a learning step. If that’s good enough for student learning, then it’s good enough for intelligent adults implementing improved learning programmes.
The problem is, really, that unions feel threatened by what will become an open display of comparative competence vs incompetence.. and suddenly their claims for across-the-board pay increases will look ridiculous. So they prefer to keep the lid on things, even if it denies our next generation of NZers an opportunity to improve their own lot.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
for all the whinging and moaning about National Standards from Trevor and the teacher unions and the teachers I stil have not heard a single clearly articulated reason why National Standards should not be implemented. Trevor – we know you read this blog faithfully – so maybe you can clearly articulate what is actually worng with National Standards?
By the way – they should be trialed first is not a reason – Maybe if you cannot come up with a clear reason maybe you can just admit that you don’t like it because it is a National Party Policy.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I don’t see the contrast in attitudes, I see the contrast in being able to communicate your view. The prjncipal could communicate her view on National Standards much better than the Minister does. And she was pretty god at avoiding the question, but giving an articulate answer that sounded like the question was answered. Well done, actually.
This interview should be compulsory viewing for Anne Tolley.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Monty
Trevor will soon be telling us that AsTTle is the way to go and has proven it’s worth BUT he will forget to mention that it was optional and only one of the assessment devices his party used to ensure the best interests of the unions were first and foremost in education policy.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
The Christchurch principal was a great example of the la la land these people live in – nothing concrete, a lot of clever clever blah and, in the end nothing substantive where the Whangarei principal was focused, cogent and articulate. I bet the unions hate her!
Vote:High schools have had ‘league tables’ (this actually has no meaning in NZ where we don’t have football leagues) for years and the sky hasn’t fallen in. If you are doing the best job you can for your kids why should you fear being ranked? After all, it’s a tiny minority of parents who drag their kids across town to a farther away primary school. And decile rankings tell us most of what we want to know about the intake so principals and teachers should be eager to show us how they are raising the bar for their kids. Or perhaps they are not in which case the taxpayer should know why.
August 30th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
dave
Yes I hope Tolley watches that clip, she really needs to hear a badly regurgitated union perspective.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
School wide versus nation wide seems to be the argument. The anti national standards stance seems to be an argument over “moderating” the standards. By moderating she means what exactly?
“when the data is taken out into a league table it becomes invalid” [Eye lid flutter, side head tilt, slight smirk]
“why?”
“because we have norm based tests that are not aligned with the national standards”
The issue is covered in wikipedia articles here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm-referenced_test
Basically tests which compare a student against all his/her peers but not against a set criterion. The 50% mean pass rate in School Cert Maths in the days when I went through (mid 1990s) was a norm based test. It assumed that each year group is on average performing the same as any other given year. The results were scaled so that if a year group performed poorly compared to other years the mean mark would be adjusted to 50%. It did not compare me against a specific criteria of achievement (whether I could do long division, multiply fractions etc.).
Standards based education reform (principally in the US) is covered here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards-based_education_reform
The components include “Criterion referenced tests” not norm based tests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion-referenced_test
I hope that helps people follow the argument from the Christchurch Principal a bit better (despite the eye lid fluttering, smirks and head tilts that suggest arrogant defensive behaviour). I am still not certain she is correct in saying that this justifies *not* implementing national standards. The wikipedia article notes that tests can be interpreted as both norm and criteria based, and both sets of information can be obtained from the same tests. This suggests the argument that league tables cannot be established from the current standards as bogus. I should say I don’t know the specifics. But this argument could merely be obfuscation to cloud the issue enough so that it comes down to saying “we are the pros and we know whats best”.
NB: In the US, some principals and teachers have been fired for poor performance since standards-based assessments have been implemented. I think this may induce fear into some NZ principals and teachers who know they are not performing well enough.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
So if we introduced standards and introduced performance based pay for teachers, would all teachers in the union get the same pay rise as the poorest performing teachers, just like they do today ?
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
maxvp:
Not sure why that would induce fear. There is no real evidence of any NZ teachers or principals being fired for anything performance related other than gross incompetence.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
PaulL
Gross incompetence might get them fired, just complete incompetence earns them the same pay rise as the most competent.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
… and the same as the truely excellent
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Monty, the NZEI website has exactly what you are looking for. Be aware, you will need to engage your brain.
As usual here, ad hominems are preferred over reasoned debate. Denise Torrey stumbled over the phrase “norms based tests” on live, nationwide TV, and I would suggest many of us would do exactly the same. But, let’s get back to the debate.
There was no actual policy contradiction between the two teachers. Donna Donnelly found teaching to a test gave her and her staff concrete focus. This is consistent with the findings of the Cambridge Report on the English standards experience. My personal view is that I may not want my child to go to her school because that school may not actually be delivering the broad education experts generally recommend these days.
Denise Torrey reflected the view of the NZEI that standards per se is not the problem. It’s that great care has to be taken in designing the standards, and many experts agree that the current version of the standards are flawed. As I said above, visit the NZEI website and read their views in some detail and engage them on the facts, by all means, not the reds-under-the-bed conspiracy theory you lot seem to have never-ending nightmares about and that exist only in your fevered imaginations.
Moderation, for those who ask, is the process by which teachers ensure that consistent standards are applied across the whole spectrum of schools, without which they are, as Torrey points out, schools based, not national, standards.
The US example is indeed instructive, as the schools closed are almost exclusively in the lower socio-economic areas (Chicago has been doing this for years, now it’s going national) and the pupils transferred to private schools and non-unionised teachers) with all sorts of possible detriments to those kids. This link is a starter: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/2/mass_closures_of_detroit_schools_promotion.
And before you start, I have no ideological objection to private schools. I do have an ideological objection to marginalising even more the already marginalised of our society.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
I stil have not heard a single clearly articulated reason why National Standards should not be implemented. Trevor – we know you read this blog faithfully – so maybe you can clearly articulate what is actually worng with National Standards?
These issues were identified by Professor Warwick Elley, who has been a highly regarded expert in the field of educational assessment for the last 30-years.
Vote:Twenty Fundamental Flaws in the National Standards policy
https://secure.zeald.com/site/nzeite/files/misc%20documents/TWENTY%20FUNDAMENTAL%20FLAWS%20may%202010.pdf
August 30th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Comedy Gold!
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I am a new member of a BOT for a small North Shore located state integrated Primary School where the Principal and teachers have taken a positive attitude to the National Standards, implemented it and found it to work.
The school held a meeting for all parents some months back to explain what it was all about, how it was being implemented and the what it meant for parents. Face to face meetings lasting 20 minutes were then held for all parents of every child to go through the interim reports.
As a parent I really appreciated this and I now have a good understanding of where my boys sit in the assessments, and where necessary we know what the next steps are to help them achieve even more.
It all comes down to attitude – contrast those schools who say we are going to give this a go with those that refuse to even bother to try.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
@tom hunter 3:41 – Indeed. Nearly choked on my coffee reading that one.
@GAZMAN 3:49 – Good on ya! Every school that is engaging constructively seems to have a similar story. The NZEI and various PA’s are worried that their monopoly on performance information is at risk. Good.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
The Christchurch principal said “National” standards with loathing in her voice. She seemed to have an issue with the word National. I presume she will be seeking the Labour Party nomination for some seat somewhere.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Teachers like to set essays, have regular tests for the pupils, hold internal exams, set up for Mocks and prepare for External Exams.
Yet they, themselves feel that being measured in their own right is somehow not quite right. Go figure.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
tvb – “The Christchurch principal said “National” standards with loathing in her voice. She seemed to have an issue with the word National. I presume she will be seeking the Labour Party nomination for some seat somewhere.”
As well as anti national standards, I would guess she’d oppose cross-city standards as well. It’s when you run one standard across decile 1 to 10 schools.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Tom, my point is proven in almost every post. Just look at those directly above.
I like the way (not) the same single collective judgement is applied to teachers, just all you Islamophobes do to Muslims, and to Palestinians who just want to be accorded the same human rights as the rest of us.
But of course, that would just go over your collective heads, Right? (pun intended)
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
If my child was at Somerfeild School, I’d move him.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Questlove, most of those 20 reasons read like a union activist with dementia.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
slightlyrighty
That’s the double edge sword of education policy, that might mean moving house. Did that just recently to change school zones. The only good thing about the zoning policy is that if you are in zone the school cannot turn your child away.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Had a run in with my mother over this a few months back. She is a very good teacher, but I believe her principal has poisoned the views of the teachers at the school. She didn’t like my point that a principal is effectively a middle level manager of a very large organisation. They can have their own opinions but at the end of the day they are there to implement the wishes fo the senior managers (in this case Board of Trustees and MoED).
It seems to me the easiest way to sort this whole mess out is
- publish in every major paper names of principals and schools who are militant against this. I agree with SlightlyRightly that parents could then choose to move their children
- principals who don’t comply get a verbal, then a written and then are dismissed
Why do people in the education sector seem to believe they are different from all the other workers in the country?
Maybe if Anne was smart she would support the NZEI call for 4% payrise, but treat it as performance pay and link it to those schools that effectively implement National Standards. Looks like one school in Whangarei would do very well.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Burt.
My son is lucky enough to be at a school that is not run by a BOT but by a commissioner. The school has taken the time to inform teachers about the standards issue. The response of parents has been very positive. One was heard to say something along the lines of “That’s so logical! Why is the media making such a song and dance over this?”
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Questlove.
Professor Elley makes a fundamental error in his 20 reasons. He assumes that the National Standard is a goal to be achieved by a student. It is not.
The national standards are a set level against which students are measured. If they are below where they should be, then they can be helped.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Monty: “for all the whinging and moaning about National Standards from Trevor and the teacher unions and the teachers I stil (sic) have not heard a single clearly articulated reason why National Standards should not be implemented. ”
That’s because Monty, you refuse to listen. The sound of self-imposed ignorance is deafening.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
I have been reading the same old stuff from Elley for years. Just like the unions, he trots out the same old arguments against any new policy that he doesn’t like. I wish someone would take him to task but he’s one of the grand old men the unions love.
Vote:As a former high school teacher I am disgusted that PPTA would foment a strike of well-paid secure workers in a time of great economic difficulty for the country. The worst teacher in a high school starts in the $40K range and progresses to $60+K with no real performance review. And they are striking over 1.5% and free flu shots! Remember many teachers love a day off so striking is a bit of a lark. Often they didn’t even get docked the day’s pay.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Oh BeaB your ignorance is showing. Usually such comments are best ignored as they speak volumes without any rebuttal needed. But what the hell, last comment before bedtime:
1) Your comment about Elly is just so mean spirited it really says a lot about your character and how you value educated people and education in general. Oh well.
2) No real performance review? Please! I’m guessing you haven’t heard of attestation where you do NOT move to the next pay stage until (wait for it!)…. A performance review. So a big fail on that one BeaB.
3) Flu shots is a win-win for everyone: students, teachers and schools. A healthy teacher means less money spent on relief teachers (good for schools), no interruptions to the teaching programme (good for students) and obviously a well teacher is good for the teacher! The fact that the Ministry reject the proposal without even considering it just shows that they are determined to pick a fight just for the sake of it, even when the idea is a good one. and you mocking it speaks volumes too, but that’s already been established.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Oh and of course teachers will lose a days pay when they strike. What planet are you on?
Vote:Now I bet the thought of all those greedy teachers losing pay gets you all tingly inside!
August 31st, 2010 at 2:57 am
This comment tells you everything you need to know about Professor Warwick Elley:
“Overseas experience also shows that other key subjects in the curriculum will be downgraded, as more time is devoted to literacy and numeracy. There will be less time for science experiments or social studies projects, or oral language, or drama, or art, or music, or developing a lifelong interest in reading, and all the other desirable things that teachers do. Yet this is the time when teachers are expected to introduce an exciting new curriculum.”
No professor, this is the time (as evidenced by the National election win) when parents expect schools to emphasise the literacy and numeracy that our so-called experts have neglected for the last 30-odd years.
These experts include those who thought whole word learning was a better idea than phonics. Observing that blunder, I’ve always thought I’d take my chances with the wisdom of the crowd.
I think Donna Donnelly is a hero – what a positive attitude compared with the raucous incoherent lefty gloom-monger from Christchurch.
This is why we so desperately need school choice.
The lefty gloom-mongers should be free to condemn their kids to a life of mediocrity if they so desire (much as I feel very sorry for those kids), while those with a more optimistic outlook can take their children to aspirational schools like Donna’s.
Good parents are not dumb, and can see the Christchurch principal’s objection for what it is: nothing to do with measuring children and everything to do with a quite justified fear of being exposed as a mediocre principal.
All this fuss about making sure the standard is truly national is rubbish. It’s not as though an inconsistent result is going to be terminal to the child’s prospects.
One of my sons was a first year NCEA guinea pig – now that really was a real disaster, a total lottery. But as I recall most of the same principals seemed to be defending that system. (I may be wrong about that.)
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 3:16 am
bc: Teachers should be paid to teach, just as everyone else is paid for what they do. Like the rest of us, they should not be paid to keep themselves well – that’s our personal responsibility.
Lest this seem mean-spirited, I believe teachers who can teach should be choked with gold and raised to the highest status in society. Aside from medicine, I can’t think of a more worthy profession.
But teachers who clearly can’t teach need to be given the hessian receptacle, just like any other non-performing worker. As teachers of our young, they should not be protected by union blackmail. The future of our children and our country is just too important
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 8:55 am
Oh bc Just go back and look at Elley’s objections to just about any assessment policy of the last 20 years and you will see the same old stuff. Placing a value on education doesn’t mean fawning obedience to every word from an academic’s lips, especially in NZ where it is usually impossible to separate fact from polemic.
Vote:Attestation and performance reviews in most schools are no more than a ritual solemnly enacted to ensure the next automatic step on the salary scale. And I know what I am talking about. If you want to prove me wrong you will need to show how many teachers are kept on the same step for a year or more.
The efficacy of flu shots is not the issue which is whether the taxpayer should foot the bill. Some boards already pay. Others pay half to recognise there is a benefit to the school and a personal benefit. Does it really have to be in an industrial agreement?
Teachers are very well paid members of NZ society. They can afford to lose a day’s pay (though often their pay has not been docked in the past after a strike) and love a day off and even the frisson of waving placards and pretending they are part of a working class solidarity. Such fun to see the middle class at play.
But top marks to you. You illustrate very clearly the snotty sarcasm that most of us hated about teachers.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:33 am
GAZMAN (5) Says:
August 30th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I vote for you to be the Chairman of the performance review committee of all principals and teachers union representatives.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 10:48 am
I agree about Gazman Mike NZ. And I’d have Southern Raider (9.05pm), krazykiwi and BeaB on the committee as well.
What a go-ahead system we’d have if such people were in charge.
I went to a Robert Kiyosaki seminar 20 years ago where he pointed out that the lag time between educational ideas being dreamed up and implemented was 30 years. (The corresponding lag time for a brochure was 3 weeks.)
At that seminar he was talking about accelerated learning techniques for visual, auditory, kinesthetic and other types of learners, which had been developed about 20 years before that.
Now, 20 years later, they’re still not in schools, so I guess he was wrong about the 30 year lag time – seems it’s more like 50 years.
This is a disgrace. Of course, technology has done much to make learning more pleasant, but from what I can gather teaching techniques haven’t progressed much. In Taiwan they teach the times tables in weeks or months where here it takes years (and they do it at a much earlier stage).
If a school has an incentive to get the times tables into kids’ heads as quickly as possible, wouldn’t they give the kids musical tapes to play as they drifted off to sleep?
I suspect a school board made up of the above people would waste no time in implementing such ideas and would dominate the league tables any way you cared to slice it.
Meanwhile the school down the road run by Luc Hansen and Short, Shrivelled and Slightly to the Left would inflict its agrarian age education on families too poor or uninterested to buy their way out of the zone.
To improve education, we simply need to ask primary schools the question: “How quickly can you get these basic facts into children’s brains?” With the right incentives, I don’t think it would take years to teach the times tables.
Once those facts – about language, numbers, the world etc. – are in there, the kids can be encouraged to think. But without the facts, what do they have to think with?
Any move by the government to ready kids for secondary school must be good.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 10:55 am
As a visual/kinesic I empathise.
We need regime change and quickly, we owe it to our kids and grandkids.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 11:18 am
Interesting debate. Amazed how well one presents on TV decides whether people believe you, or actually check to see if you are running the marvellous school you claim etc. Many of us who know what is happening cant for instance understand if her school is such a brilliant school because of Standards, was she not doing these things prior to their imposition? She should have been!
Another interesting thing is why the school next door has had to get two new classrooms to cover for the unexpected enrolments?
There is a lot more to be know about and the Minister has been warned that before trotting our her supporters, she does need to check their validity.
As I said just because someone sounds plausible doesnt mean they are actually correct.
The point of National Standards not being national is simple. They are not and cant be National unless moderated against all schools in New Zealand.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Surprise surprise. The people who think that they have more of an authority than the experts on matters such as global warming and vaccination can now add education assessment to their growing list.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 1:38 pm
@questlove … (hug) .. !
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Do tell us more, Da Boss.
Certainly the last school run by the head of the Principals Federation doesn’t appear to be a stellar success, if you read the ERO Report from when he was there.
It talks about the year 3s and 4s being below the standard expected for that age group, and the rest being at the standard.
Ironically, that was the school (Havelock in the Marlborough Sounds) that produced, 30 years apart, both the man who took the world down into the smallest thing (Rutherford) and the man who took the world out into the biggest thing (Pickering) – so no shortage of role models.
Vote:August 31st, 2010 at 4:30 pm
http://www.ero.govt.nz/Early-Childhood-School-Reports/School-Reports/Havelock-School-20-10-2008
This from the latest ERO Report on the school where Ernie Buutveld was principal until recently:
“Reading data indicate that students in years 5 to 8 are generally achieving at the nationally expected level and years 3 and 4 are achieving below the expected level.”
The report mentions that the pupils are happy and the Board is proud, but nowhere that I can see does it give any evidence of commitment to excellent education.
This would suggest that a belief in and ability to deliver excellence is not a prerequisite for leadership of the New Zealand Principals Federation.
It helps to explain why Mr Buutveld is waging a campaign against national standards.
Vote:September 1st, 2010 at 9:06 am
It was Ernie Buutveld who as president of a major teaching association didn’t attend the launch of a major government education policy but was filmed instead in his beard and walk shorts at his school’s pet day. He said it was more important that his kids had ‘fun’ than met national standards. That clip is priceless as it explains why so many of our children leave primary school ill prepared for secondary school studies and employment.
Vote:We pour millions into our primary schools and demand no results at all. Primary principals just wave the kids goodbye knowing they are incapable of reading a Year 9 textbook but have happy memories of patting a sheep.