Kiwiblog

The Wanganui Chronicle reports:

Parent Stephanie Mills said the new standards were totally untried  and had been developed in  three months without involvement from the community and teachers.

By pure coincidence a Stephanie Mills is the NZEI Communications Director.

Do you suppose they could be the same person?

And why then does the Wanganui Chronicle not mention this rather pertinent fact? Were they not told, or did they just think the public don’t need to know?

Audrey Young writes:

I saw first hand yesterday why teachers are having a difficult job trying to win the argument against Education minister Anne Tolley about national standards. …

It’s not that Tolley was that brilliant. She sometimes sounds like she has had 10 briefings too many from Ministry of Education officials when she falls into jargon like “unpacking” the national standards.

But she has better grip on the subject than the last time Mallard made mince meat of her in the House over moderation of national standards. And once parents join her in the debate, she wins, as was evident yesterday.

And the parents are what this is all about.

Tolley talked about her own kids – two of whom had been “very bright but very lazy” and her five year-old grandson who has started school in Rotorua. He had told her matter of factly that he was now in group 3 reading, not group 4 where he had started – the point being that kids knew exactly where they were in relation to other kids.

That reminds me of my first year at school. I joined the class in September and it was assumed would need to catch up in reading with my classmates so was placed in Group 4 (of 5). By December I had moved into Group 3, Group 2 and then Group 1, and finally because I was such a good reader myself and one other were placed in our own special group where we could read outside unsupervised. I was so proud of that, after having started in Group 4.

That was a rebuttal to one of the Onslow kids who had Tolley on about the brutality of the new reporting system to parents that would show them (and the kids) exactly where they were in relation to others and could be discouraging.

What is brutal, is allowing kids to drop out of school unable to read or write.

The Principals Federation is doing a so called survey of parents on National Standards. Of course it has no scientific merit as it is not a random sample (they are promoting through some schools), but that is not the worst part of it. Get a grip on these so called questions:

Do you think that people should be concerned about bringing in an untried, untested system into our schools, when similar systems have failed overseas?

This is what the NZPF thinks is a balanced question!

Do you think it is wrong to hold schools totally responsible for students’ learning when it is acknowledged that there are many other circumstances beyond the control of the school?

And no one is saying they do hold schools totally responsible. But the NZPF seems to thinks schools have no responsibility at all.

Do you believe that the money being spent on National Standards would be better spent on world-leading programmes, developed in NZ, that we know work with students who are struggling to learn?

This should win some sort of award for the most biased unprofessional questions ever asked in a survey.

That of course has not stopped some principals using taxpayer resources to send it onto parents.  I’ve had half a dozen parents contact me to complain. My advice to any parent who gets the survey is to complain to the School Board Chair. The Dom Post reports on Karori School:

Karori Normal School has apologised to parents after complaints about it sending home a petition protesting against the Government’s national standards.

The school has also been scolded for sending parents a Principals Federation survey about the standards, which was branded “ridiculous, biased rubbish” by a parent. The survey features 10 questions, including whether parents thought it was wrong that children as young as five or six would be branded as failing, and if they were concerned that boards of trustees had been threatened with the sack if they disagreed about implementing the standards.

Karori Normal principal Diane Leggett, a member of the national executive of primary teachers’ union NZEI, which opposes the standards, said she did not mean to offend anyone by sending out the material.

Mrs Leggett told The Dominion Post that she assumed the Principals Federation survey would be unbiased and sent it out without checking it. “It was an error on my part. I would not have sent it out if I knew it was so obviously biased. I should have checked it first.”

Well if even a member of the NZEI national executive says the NZPF survey is obviously biased, I think we can all agree it has no worth as a survey and is in fact disguised propaganda.

I’ve often said in the debate about league tables that the solution is not to ban the media from obtaining school achievement data under the Official Information Act, or even more ridiculously not having the Government even collate the data itself.

The solution is to provide good and useful information, to counter any league tables done in a simplistic fashion by the media. You fight bad information with good information 0- not by banning all information about primary school achievement.

The Herald reported at the weekend:

The education expert who first advised the Government on school standards is about to start work on plans for a national league table system, which he hopes will satisfy parents and teachers.

Professor John Hattie, who was called to Wellington last month by Prime Minister John Key to explain his concerns about national standards in primary schools, said the Government’s “wait and see” approach to league tables wasn’t good enough.

He did not support league tables, but the introduction of national standards in reading, writing and maths made them inevitable, so it was important to work out a fair solution.

He planned to work with other researchers to produce an independent paper on school league tables this year, suggesting what information parents could reasonably expect.

Professor Hattie, of Auckland University, said results could be shown in context, such as how a school compared with others in its decile. For instance, he helped Metro magazine devise fairer comparisons between NCEA results in its annual survey of Auckland secondary schools.

Superb. This is exactly the right answer. What I would do is plug all the data into a database that will allow people to get decile comparisons and the like.

Last year, the top school on test results alone was the $16,000-a-year private girls’ college St Cuthbert’s, but the best school on improved student achievement was decile 4 Mt Roskill Grammar.

And that is the data which would be really interesting. We’ll see what level pupils are at when they first enter primary school. What I want to know is which schools start with a majority of kids below the national standards for their age, but by the time they leave that school they are above the national standards. Because they are the schools who make the biggest difference.

Principals Federation president Ernie Buutveld said Professor Hattie’s idea was worth exploring and he believed many teachers and principals would like to be involved.

Much better attitude than trying to ban publication or refuse to even let the Government have data on how schools are doing.

The Herald reports:

Like it: 73 per cent
Hate it: 14 per cent

This is a Nielsen online poll of Herald readers. Not as reliable as a phone poll, but I doubt the results would change a lot if it was.

The key findings:

Those in favour of national standards:

YES – 73.2%
NO – 13.8%
DON’T KNOW – 13%

Do you understand how the new system works?

FULLY – 11.9%
PARTIALLY – 61.8%
NOT AT ALL – 26.2%

The effect of national standards on your child:

GOOD – 53.9%
BAD – 36.5%
NONE – 9.5%

Will standards create school ‘league tables’ for parents to plan their child’s schooling?

YES – 56.3%
NO – 17.1%
DON’T KNOW – 26.6%

Would that be a bad thing?

YES – 38.8%
NO – 47.9%
DON’T KNOW – 13.4%

John Roughan also writes:

This week the New Zealand Educational Institute, the union that protects these people’s jobs, has put a bus on the road to oppose new national standards of reading, writing and maths that would be tested and the results reported in a way everyone could understand.

It is the last bit the NZEI really hates. Schools already test kids constantly for their own purposes but they are not supposed to share the results with parents. They’ll provide your child’s test scores if you know to ask but they’d rather you didn’t.

Roughan correctly ascertains that this is a battle about reporting, not about testing. Should parents get told how well their kids are doing in clear language? Labour and the unions say no.

All of this is anathema to educational theorists and the teachers’ unions that want us to believe no school is better than any other, no teacher weaker than any other, and no child fails in the system they control.

And they do control it. State education is a law unto itself. Industries are normally answerable either to voluntary paying customers or to elected governments depending on how they are financed.

The NZEI seems to think the only role for the Government is to shut up and pay the salaries of their members.

I blogged yesterday on Maria English’s world beating achievement of topping the world two years in a row in the Cambridge International English exams. She was marked higher than 90,000 students from 100 countries.

What was really nice in the comments is that almost everyone put politics aside, and was genuinely pleased and admiring of such a wonderful achievement for a New Zealand student.

Now you would think the PPTA would also be pleased that a New Zealand secondary school student has done so well. But, instead this is what they twittered:

Government ministers show support for private businesses involved in education

with a link to the TV3 story on Maria and another story.

Isn’t that just such an appalling and small minded sneer. They don’t care at all about a student being top of the world. They just hate the fact she is at a private school, or took part in a private exam.

I think it is useful that the PPTA reminds us of what matters to teacher unions, because Colin Espiner has written a blog where he basically calls for the NZEI to have a veto over education policy on NZ.

But you can’t bulldoze your way through a sector as highly unionised as teaching without taking the unions with you. …

I’d be happy for the Government to explore the idea further, but only in conjunction with the actual practitioners in the classrooms. Ramming policy through in spite of their strenuous objections makes me uneasy. After all, this isn’t a fight over wages and conditions. Teachers’ objections are based on educational reasons, and while there may be some vested self-interest involved, I’m prepared to accept the NZEI has some valid concerns.

I don’t even know where to start. How about with an analogy. Would Colin advocate that the Government should not make any changes to economic policy unless Treasury agrees?

Should there be no change to telecommunications policy unless Telecom agrees?

As the PPTA shows, they are not concerned about educational outcomes. They are concerned about their members. Their objections are not based on education reasons. The NZEI President has said that if the Government removed school achievement data from the Official Information Act, their opposition to national standards would disappear. This is a battle about league tables, or in other words freedom of information.

I would have thought if the Government was really serious about improving the quality of primary schools, it might be pumping money into cutting class sizes. Curiously, however, it’s done the opposite, and teacher/pupil ratios are increasing.

Colin must have missed the Hattle report which concluded that class size is not a major factor – it is the quality of the teacher.

Even putting the educational arguments aside, however, buying a fight with the teacher unions is bad politics. Key seems to think he can turn public opinion against the NZEI on this one but I think this is unlikely. Far better to take the union with him than try to bash it into submission.

Colin makes the mistake of thinking there is a choice. Unless the Government amends the OIA to restrict access to school achievement data, then the union will never ever back national standards. The call for trials is a red herring designed to delay.  I would bet several billion dollars that at the end of any trials the NZEI would declare that the standards can not be implemented.

It’s almost as if Key is tired of playing Mr Nice Guy and wants to show the steel behind the “relaxed” Prime Minister.

That’s his call, but I think he’s picked the wrong issue and the wrong target. The NZEI is a formidable foe.

Colin has it the wrong way around. It is not the Government picking a fight. A group of taxpayer funded staff are refusing to implement the legal requirements of the Government. They are the ones picking the fight.

Colin thinks the standards are abotu assessment, but for most schools there will be no change in assessment. They are about plain English reporting. Colin said:

Are national standards a good idea? I admit I’m not sure. As a parent, I would like more information about how my child’s doing. But I don’t need to see primary schools ranked in league tables. I accept that a school in Khandallah or Fendalton or Parnell is going to do better in such rankings than those in Naenae, or Aranui, or Penrose.

That says more about simple demography and socioeconomic status than it does about the quality of its teachers.

But I’ve yet to be convinced that introducing more assessment is going to somehow magically improve the quality of our school system, or make us better at maths.

Colin confuses league tables (that the Government has no intention of publishing – it is Colin’s fellow journalists who produce league tables) with national standards and reporting. And it is not about more assessment, it is about clear data.

There are two major benefits from the national standards – individual data and group data. Let me explain.

Parents will benefit from individual data. They will have a clear report card that informs them if their child is achieving at the minimum level necessary to be on track to leave school able to read and write and do maths. If their child is not performing to that level, it means they and the school can discuss what steps can be taken to try and lift the performance.

The Government’s election policy also made it clear that there will be additional resources dedicated to students not making the standards, so that they chances of improving are enhanced.

From 2012, the Government will also start collecting group data – by that I mean data on each school, and maybe even teacher. Not to publish league tables with, but to analyse. Now you may wonder what is the use of this data.

Well the Dim Post had a link to this article in The Atlantic about research into what makes a great teacher. They have collected masses of data on teachers and achievement to try and isolate the major factors. I highly recommend people read the entire article.

At present, there is no useful comparable data at primary school level. National standards will provide information which will allow comparisons to be done. I don’t mean comparisons between schools, but dozens or hundreds of variables can be analysed.

That is how you then raise educational standards. Not by giving a policy veto to unions that see it as a bad thing that a New Zealand student tops the world!

Today’s Dom Post editorial:

International research shows that New Zealand pupils at year 5 level – the old standard three – read better on average than their international peers.

Education Ministry figures show that more than a quarter of teenagers leave school without the minimum qualifications necessary to undertake an apprenticeship.

One statistic is a credit to teachers, the other a blight on their reputations.

NZ compares, on average, well internationally. Our top students are a match for the top anywhere in the world. But our bottom 20% do far far worse, than the bottom 20% of other countries. The left go on a lot about income inequality – well it would be nice to hear the same concern for education inequality – the gap between our best and worst is one of the biggest in the OECD.

Those conclusions are backed up by an Education Review Office survey of 212 schools last year which found that 70 per cent of teachers teaching first-year and second-year pupils were doing a good job, but 30 per cent had little or no idea of the importance of getting their pupils off to a good start with reading and writing. What’s more, the review office said, those teachers had only a rudimentary grasp of how to teach reading and writing, set “inappropriately low expectations” and passed up opportunities to motivate, engage and extend children.

And the purpose of national standards is not to demonise teachers who are not performing as well as they should. It is to help identify both students and teachers who need assistance.

The new standards should not be regarded as the goal of the education system, but the minimum set of skills with which children should be equipped.

Exactly. The standards are a minimum. They are not a substitute for a comprehensive education.

The existing system is failing a significant number of pupils. It needs an overhaul.

The Government is to be congratulated for acting to provide parents, teachers, schools and education authorities with more useful information. The teachers’ union should stop standing in the way of progress.

Sadly that will not happen so long as the leadership treats itself as the provisional wing of the Labour Party.

TV One News kept referring to the National Standards as being about whether a kid is beow or above the national average.

This is totally wrong. The standards are about saying this is the level we think an x year old should be able to read and write to this level.

In an ideal world 100% of kids will be meeting the national standards. This is very different to comparing people to an average, where by default around half the people will be below average.

It is not about comparing one kid to another. It is about saying whether kids are on track to leaving primary school able to read, write and do maths.

The NZ Herald editorial:

That is particularly true of written reports to parents. National has promised to make those more specific and useful. The Government should not compromise that policy for the sake of pacifying a sector of state servants who can make its life difficult. Mr Key and his minister are not confrontational politicians. They are likely to accommodate teachers’ preferences where possible.

John Key is not by nature a confrontational politician, indeed. He does like to get people to agree on what they can, and agree to disagree on other stuff.  But he may find that there is no middle ground with some of the teacher unions.

But a trial is not needed. Those typically take years to bear fruit. Voters have endorsed the idea of rigorous national standards at all levels and clear reporting to parents. Is that really so hard? Primary schools are testing pupils for their own purpose all the time. Now they will have to share the results with parents.

A trial would be a disaster. It would be worse than the bulk funding trials of the 1990s. The teacher unions would use the trials to bully and threaten schools to not take part and/or to declare they are a failure. There is absolutely no chance at all that at the end of any trial, the position of the teacher unions will have changed at all. It is a delaying tactic.

The battle with educational failure has just begun. The Government must not give it up now.

Such a fuss over what is a pretty minor requirement – simply to tell a parent in plain English if their child is above, at, below or significantly below the level of numeracy and literacy expected for someone of their age.

This is not some abstract battle. A huge number of kids reach secondary school unable to read, write or do maths. They invariably are the ones who drop out, who feature in the crime stats, who go onto welfare rather than into work. And by the time they are in secondary school it is too late.

Michael Laws writes:

And so into this surreal realm has been injected the future discipline of national standards. An idea so sensible and overdue that one wonders what took so long. The logic is self evident. Except, it appears, to the teaching profession.

In steeling themselves against such external discipline, teacher unions – and their membership – have made themselves utterly risible. They are opposed to defining standards of age-group achievement, opposed to parents knowing their children’s level of competence against those standards, and opposed to schools providing such information to the Ministry of Education.

Basically sums it up. Worth reminding people that Labour is also opposed to parents knowing how their kids are doing against standards.

Why? Because they are scared witless by the concept of accountability. That a national tool might soon exist that identifies under-performing schools, under-performing teachers and under-performing kids.

The Government does want to know which kids are not meeting the standards. Not to punish the kids, or the schools, but quite the opposite. They want to then deliver extra funding to those kids and schools to maximise the chances of bringing the kids up to the desired standard before it is too late, and they become one of the many who leave school unable to read, write or count.

There is another subterranean theme running through the union dissent. That not all their membership is opposed. Many teachers see national standards as their chance to shine. They perceive them as an opportunity to test their imprint upon their charges. To establish a baseline for the norm of achievement for their age and socio-economic charges, and then beat it.

Better still, to be able to communicate the truth to the individual parent without having to find distracting commentary. And confirm bad teachers in their midst.

Little wonder that the School Trustees Association has thrown its public support behind Education Minister Anne Tolley, and dismissed the objections of teacher unions as illogical. The opportunity to be open, honest and transparent around what a child knows and what they do not, has the capacity to revolutionise teaching standards.

It is only the Luddites who are opposed. They, rightly, fear change. Because it will require them to justify their existence and their methods. And that is no bad thing.

Some people welcome accountability, and some fear it.

The Herald reports:

Australian parents yesterday overwhelmed a new federal school rating website, causing it to crash as they ignored teachers’ warnings that they would be misled by data that matched literacy and numeracy with social indicators.

As repairs were made to myschool.edu.au – a site designed to take 2350 hits a second – Education Minister Julia Gillard said My School’s problems had confirmed that parents wanted to be able to compare the performance of schools across the country.

Parents care about the quality of their kids education – this is no surprise.

But opponents continued to criticise the site, warning that it would lead to inaccurate “league tables” that would hit struggling schools in disadvantaged areas.

The Australian Education Union, which represents the nation’s public school teachers, will refuse to do the next round of national testing that provides the raw data for the system unless the Government ensures it does not lead to discriminatory tables.

“Teachers, parents and principals are united in their opposition to damaging league tables which rank schools according to their test results,” New South Wales Teachers Federation president Bob Lipscombe warned before the site went online.

This was introduced by a Labor Government. It is nice to have a labour party that is not captured by the union movement.

The reforms in NZ are more modest. There will be no Government run database of school statistics (even though I think there should be). Any league tables will be because media organisations have gained infromation under the Official Information Act.

NZ Labour wants to amend the OIA so that educational results from schools are more tightly restricted than security and defence information. The public need to be protected from themselves!

In the Press we read:

League tables that rate schools’ performances are inevitable once national standards are introduced, a teachers’ union says.

Three union groups raised fresh fears yesterday that the new national standards will lead to league tables. Education Minister Anne Tolley said she was waiting for answers from a working party set up to look at the matter.

The fear of league tables is what lies at the heart of the unions opposition.

Frankly they need to get over themselves and understand the realities of the Internet age.

First of all there have always been league tables of sorts. For decades newspapers publishes tables of pass marks in School Cert, or number of A bursaries or whatever. Sure, the tables may be misleading, but the answer is not to ban information, but to counter it with more information. We spend billions of dollars on our schools and teachers and parents should be able to access information on said schools.

There are other so called league tables that the media could publish. The number of suspensions. The average experience level of teachers. The proportion of students who stay on to seventh form. The level of “donation” requested. Do the unions want all information on schools made secret?

The NZ School Trustees Assn (effectively the voice for parents) is getting sick of the union tactics:

The continued “shotgun approach” by the primary teachers union (NZEI) and the Principals Federation (NZPF) to the Nationals Standards issue is not helpful to anyone says the New Zealand School Trustees Association.

President Lorraine Kerr says the constant shifting of the ground, and arguments, hoping that one of the approaches will score a response with the school community, Boards of Trustees, and others, does not strengthen the unions’ case at all. Indeed, if they are not careful, there is a risk they may end up shooting themselves in the foot by way of an ever increasing credibility gap.

In other words, stop scaremongering.

The concerns appear to shift constantly, so it’s no surprise that many people find the whole debate somewhat confusing, and, in fact it is rapidly becoming quite tiresome, she says.

“I have every sympathy for those many parents/caregivers, who see nothing wrong with the idea that they should know how their children are doing in key areas, including literacy/numeracy, from wondering what the fuss is actually about,” Lorraine Kerr says.

And that is all it is about. Allowing parents to know how theri kids are doing in terms of meeting or exceeding the national standard for numeracy and literacy.

NZSTA has also struggled at times to identify what the issue actually is, but did get some clarity at a meeting in late 2009 when the president of NZEI stated that NZEI would have no problems at all with National Standards if the threat of league tables was removed.

Lorraine Kerr says that if that is the real driving concern, it needed quickly dealt with.

The unions need to recognise this is the Internet age. You can not prevent parents from sharing info on schools.You can’t prevent any number of people or organisations from doing comparison tables – just as you get in the health sector, the police sector, the finance sector etc etc.

In the last couple of months the education unions have been strident against the proposed national standards. However a copy of the May Education Review shows this was not always the case:

Educational Institute President Frances Nelson said she was “particularly optimistic” that the new standards would be useful, as they were based on and improved on a system already in use. Data collected through the tests would help teachers decide what to teach next, help schools plan ahead, and provide parents with better reports on their children’s progress.

“The ministry and minister have worked on something much more robust than anything I have seen in the world at this time,” she said.

So what has happened since May? Did she get Mallarded?

Principals Federation president Ernie Buutveld said the tests essentially reflected existing practice at about half of primary schools, while the remaining schools were probably moving toward similar systems.

Again, what a change of tune.

The reality is that the standards are a relatively modest initiative. They are not one uniform nationwide test. They are not some grade average where 50% must fail. They are simply a statement of the sort of literacy and numeracy tasks you expect a pupil to be able to perform at a certain age, if they are to be on track to leave primary school able to read, write and do basic maths.

A good line from the ODT editorial:

Schools have nothing to fear from national standards if effective teaching is already taking place – as it clearly is in the majority of schools – and where it is not occurring, national standards will require improved practices, closer monitoring and steps to correct poor teaching.

Parents should demand nothing less.

Hard to disagree.

Karl du Fresne blogs a quote from John Hayes about the teacher unions trying to boycott the proposed national standards:

“I spent 30 years working for a range of Governments. Sometimes I agreed with the policies the Government wanted, sometimes I did not. My views were irrelevant. My job as a public servant was to implement the Governments policies irrespective of my personal views. That is how democracy works in New Zealand. If a state employee does not want to implement a particular policy, like National Standards, that’s fine, they should resign and find employment in an environment that suits them better. It is not however acceptable for them to remain on the Government’s payroll and work against the Government’s policies.”

Hear hear.

Maybe it is clearer why the unions are so against implementing the national standards in literacy and numeracy. I recommend people read the ERO report out today. Some extracts:

In contrast, the remaining 30 percent of teachers had little or no sense of how critical it was for children to develop confidence and independence in early reading and writing. These teachers had minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching, set inappropriately low expectations and did not seek opportunities to extend their own confidence in using a wider range of teaching practices. In these classrooms learning opportunities to motivate, engage or extend children were limited.

30% is a minority, but it is a significant minority of teachers.

Although many classroom teachers used assessment information well, school leaders were less clear about how they should use data to set and monitor appropriate reading and writing achievement expectations for children in Years 1 and 2. It is of concern that only about a quarter of school leaders set expectations that strongly promoted high levels of reading and writing achievement for children in their first two years. Furthermore, in nearly two-thirds of schools, leaders used limited or poor processes to monitor the progress and achievement of these young children.

And now this is a majority, not a minority.

The NZ education system performs well on average. But the 20% it does not serve well, are amongst the worst in the OECD.

Three editorials on this topic today – all agreeing. First the NZ Herald:

Mrs Tolley is surely right to suggest the unions’ arguments are now purely philosophical. This has underpinned their resistance from the start. It has endured despite the Government concessions and despite the public support for national standards. It is the only reasonable explanation for the dragging of feet and the increasingly radical demeanour.

The Schools Trustees Association has made clear its distaste for the letter from the unions trying to influence boards. It is, it says, irresponsible and unprofessional to incite boards to act as principals’ mouthpieces. Any that succumbed would have forgotten their duty to parents.

Similarly, teachers have a responsibility to heed the policy of a democratically elected government. That is a lesson they, and their unions, seem to have yet to learn.

The Herald also reminds us that the date for reporting to Government on performance has been delayed until 2012. There has been loads of compromise already.

The Dom Post says:

A government is entitled – nay, is obliged – to enact policy on which it went to the country and which voters tacitly endorsed when they chose it to take over the Treasury benches.

Yet school teachers and principals seem hellbent on undermining what Education Minister Anne Tolley, strongly backed by Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English, told New Zealanders last year the Government wanted to enact – national standards at primary school. For months, the primary teachers’ union, the NZEI, and the Principals Federation have joined forces to try to derail Mrs Tolley’s plans. She refuses to budge.

Now the NZEI is preparing members to strike over the issue, though they can’t do so without penalty until their employment contracts expire in July. Such action would be outrageous. …

Agree with the Government’s education policy or not – and this newspaper happens to believe that parents should be able to get plain-English reports about their children’s progress, and that the wider community, which funds state schools, should be able to tell which among them are best equipping young citizens for life – Mrs Tolley must be allowed to enact the policy on which National campaigned.

Teachers obviously need reminding that it is a government’s prerogative – not a trade union’s – to determine education policy. Mrs Tolley – admirably – wants to stop one in five children who leave school poorly equipped for tomorrow. Teachers are behaving like the worst of their pupils who can’t get their own way. They should grow up.

As I have said, the NZEI could become the equivalent of Mrs Thatcher’s miners union. They will not have a lot of support for their actions.

Finally the ODT:

It is untenable that the democratically-elected Government of the country be held to ransom by elements in the education system intent of sabotaging a well-flagged national standards policy.

As Education Minister Anne Tolley has repeatedly pointed out – indeed it has become something of a mantra – the National Party campaigned conspicuously on addressing the distressing and unacceptably long “tail” of pupils failing to achieve even basic literacy and numeracy standards in our primary schools, and received the mandate to do something about it in the last election.

The Herald reports:

Education Minister Anne Tolley says she will sack the boards of primary schools which allow teachers to boycott national standards, saying they would be refusing to obey the law.

Tensions over the new standards in literacy and numeracy are increasing.

Teachers’ and principals’ unions are lobbying school boards to support them in their call for a trial period before the standards are introduced nationwide.

The unions have also threatened boycotts and industrial action, and last week wrote to principals urging them to ask school boards to voice the same concerns.

Mrs Tolley has ruled out a trial, and said that in “extreme” cases of a boycott she would dissolve the board involved – because the trustees would be refusing to obey the law – and replace it with a commissioner.

“If despite having that pointed out to them, they absolutely refused, I do have the power to dissolve the board and put in a commissioner,” she said.

“In the end, I would have to do that. I don’t think it would come to that, but if it went to the nth degree I would do it.

You just cannot have schools disobeying the law.”

Absolutely. If people do not like the national standards, they should vote for a Labour Government that will scrap them. But National won the 2008 election with a explicit commitment to introduce the standards, and voters not unions should get to decide the law.

Mrs Tolley said the Ministry of Education would give as much support as possible to boards stuck in a standoff with teachers.

But she would not be backing down on her decision to introduce standards nationwide from next year.

The minister said she had already made many changes in response to concerns from the unions but each time, they had returned with more and she believed their arguments were now purely philosophical.

“That’s why I’m putting my foot down … If there are changes needed, we will make them.

“I’m not saying this is it from day one. But we have to get started because this is about kids failing in the system. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work.”

As Anne has said, there has been masses of consultation and even compromise. But some no doubt seek delay just for the sake of delay.

The Dom Post reports:

The School Trustees Association, which supports the standards, is upset about a letter from NZEI and the Principals Federation trying to influence boards.

President Lorraine Kerr has written to the groups, branding the action as irresponsible and unprofessional.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that the motives behind your letter are in the main political,” she wrote.

“We believe your letter is irresponsible and unprofessional in inciting boards to place themselves at risk by acting simply as the principal’s mouthpiece.

“We have made every attempt to respond to the matters regarding national standards in a thoughtful and pragmatic way. However, by taking the action you have in your letter, you have made it abundantly clear that you have no genuine interest in pursuing an informed and professional discussion of the issues.”

That is a damning letter for one professional group to write about another. Totally deserved though.

Stephen Blair, principal of Tokoroa North School, accuses the Principals Federation of turning the issue into an ideological debate.

“They have accused the Government of basing policy on ideology yet their opposition is based on ill-informed scaremongering,” he said.

And the national standards policy is so mild. It is not about one big standard test. It is just about minimum consistent standards and reporting.

I say bring in bulk funding, performance pay for teachers and vouchers and give the unions something to really complain about!

Stuff reports:

The Government has intensified a developing standoff with teacher unions.

After The Dominion Post revealed yesterday early plans by the primary teachers union to strike over the national standards policy, Education Minister Anne Tolley hit back, telling Parliament she was “disappointed” by the unions.

“I find it really disappointing that the unions want to stop parents getting information about how their kids are doing,” Mrs Tolley said.

“This Government is on the side of parents and we’re on the side of kids.”

Now that is not a typo. The unions are not going to strike over more pay, or smaller class sizes. They are going to strike to refuse to implement the policy of the Government, despite an explicit election mandate for it.

As far as I can tell, Anne has bent over backwards to work with the unions. She even said she’d work with them to try and stop the media publishing league tables. But they seem implacably opposed to giving parents nationally consistent and relevant information.

I say bring it on. Let this be Mrs Thatcher’s miners. The unions plans to pressure school boards to refuse to implement the standards. My response would be no standards, no funding.

All power to the union when they are trying to get payrises for their members. That is their legitimate role. But the unions seek to determine the education policy of New Zealand. They think the voters and the parents are unqualified. This is a battle over who is in charge of the education system and who does it exist for – is it the unions – or is it pupils and parents.

If you think the national standards is crap policy, then you’ll get a chance at the next election to get them thrown out. Elections should determine policy, not unions.

Stuff reports:

The Labour Party would scrap national primary and intermediate education standards if elected, says education spokesman Trevor Mallard.

Wonderful news.

Now we just need Labour to confirm how much it will increase income tax rates by to cover all its spending pledges.

The Dom Post Editorial:

According to Mr Key, as many as one-in-five pupils are being left behind. The consequences of that are as inevitable as they are disastrous. Without basic literacy and numeracy, there is little chance of succeeding in 21st century New Zealand society. It is no coincidence that research last year showed 90 per cent of prisoners are “functionally illiterate” – their reading and writing skills are inadequate to cope with the demands of daily life.

No coincidence indeed. The degree of hearing loss in prisoners also suggests not just a correlation but a causative effect.

The desire of parents to have clear, honest, specific and regular feedback on their children’s progress, achievement, and strengths and weaknesses in language the parents understand is reasonable. Parents – and, through them, their children – need to know how they are performing, and in a meaningful way. Despite some teachers’ belief that revealing to pupils and their parents that they are performing below the national standard will hurt their motivation, engagement and self-esteem, the alternative is cruelly unfair. Allowing parents and pupils to falsely believe they are performing adequately is a sure step to failure.

And this is not comparing to some standardised median or mean. This is not about ranking kids within a school, within a decile or even nationally. And it is not about ranking schools. It is simply about letting parents know if their child is able to do the basic numeracy and literacy skills that are expected of a child of that age.

British research suggests that putting too much emphasis on literacy and numeracy, and on the achievement of national standards in those areas, can see other parts of the curriculum squeezed into oblivion.

A nation of spellers who can add up but have little grasp of science, small exposure to the arts and only the occasional foray into physical education while at primary school, is not going to enjoy success either.

I agree. But basic literacy and numeracy helps immensely with science, the arts and even physical education.

There is no room for debate in one area, however. The decision by teacher and principal groups to boycott the announcement of the policy cannot be allowed to develop into an undercutting of its implementation. There are still murmurs of inflating assessments so that schools are seen to be performing well.

Teachers are public servants and that means they must follow the policies put in place by those who represent the people, the government of the day, regardless of their own personal views. They cannot simply decide to ignore them.

I hope they do. But at times I get the feeling they want to be the equivalent of the British coalminers union of the 70s.

The Herald reports:

The new national standards will narrow educational opportunities for children, says the country’s largest teaching union.

“It all adds up to teaching to a very narrow focus and ultimately narrowing educational opportunities for children,” said New Zealand Educational Institute president Frances Nelson.

The union has been opposed to standards since National announced their introduction.

The standards were part of National policy before the party was elected to Government. Despite almost a year of talks, the Government has failed to reach an amicable agreement with the teaching unions.

NZEI – which represents about 45,000 people in the education sector – did not attend yesterday’s formal launch.

The union is holding a forum next month to work out how the standards will sit alongside “everything else we do in terms of teaching and learning and getting the best results for students”.

Ms Nelson said the national standards were causing upheaval and the main issue for the forum was to “ensure a focus on improved student achievement across the broader school curriculum not just in literacy and numeracy”.

I am genuinely confused here. If a pupil can not read or write or count, then what are these other areas of achievement they may be doing well in, that don’t need basic literacy or numeracy?

Ms Tolley said it was hard to understand how teaching reading, writing and maths would narrow education opportunities.

“If they cannot do these basics, that is when opportunities are closed off.”

Indeed.