The Government appears set on publishing primary school performance data, criticised by a teacher union as “junk information”.

Education Minister Hekia Parata yesterday said she would consider setting up a website similar to the MySchool resource that operates in Australia.

The Australian example “deals with a number of the concerns that have been rumoured” about the risks of league tables, Ms Parata said.

Comparisons between schools on MySchool were only between “statistically similar schools,” giving a fairer picture of performance.

“I think that parents vest a lot of trust in the principals and teachers of the education sector – and so they should – and that trust should be returned by letting parents know accurate information about what’s happening,” she said.

I think it is far better to have a database which allows parents to do “smart” comparisons, such as between schools with the same decile rankings, rather than just leave it to the media to compile their own tables.

The solution to bad data is good data – not banning the publication of data.

Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson said the standards would reward only those pupils “who arrive at school from extremely advantaged backgrounds such as inherited intelligence, emotional security, financial prospects and pro-active parenting”.

And in today’s Wairarapa News we read:

A Wairarapa school will come under special attention from the Ministry of Education after most of its students failed the National Standards benchmark last year.

But Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson, who voluntarily went public about his school’s results, said the standards were invalid and inappropriate for his school.

Only 11 per cent of Dalefield’s students met the reading standard, 2 per cent the writing standard and 7 per cent the mathematics standard, he said.

One can understand why the principal has been so much against national standards.

Mr Jephson said the primary school sector had known all along the achievement components for National Standards were unrealistic for most primary schoolchildren.

Really? Well later on we read …

But Gail Marshall, principal of Solway Primary School in Masterton, said she had utmost faith in National Standards as a workable system.

The standards were trialled at Solway ahead of being rolled out nationwide.

The 2011 assessment at Solway found 91 per cent of Years 4 to 6 pupils met the reading standard, 87 per cent the writing standard and 82 per cent the mathematics standard.

“What I like about the standards is that it shows very clearly what the kids need, and we can target that. This year we’ll be concentrating on writing and maths and we can target toward that end.”

What an excellent attitude.

Now some of you might be wondering, like me, well Dalefield may be a decile 1 school and Solway a decile 10 school. So I checked.

Dalefield is decile 5 and Solway decile 6. Not a huge difference. Certainly not enough to explain why Solway is a magnitude higher in terms of the national standard.

Having said that, I would not rush to judge Dalefield. Maybe there is some genetic quirk that means all their pupils turned up to their school with inferior skills to those as Solway. Hence I would wait a year or two and see how each school does in lifting achievement over time.

If only 10% of first years at Dalefield can meet the national standard, yet by year six it is say 60%, then that is arguably a better result than a school where say 80% of first years are at the national standard, and they stay at 80% by year six.

The solution to concerns about bad comparisons or league tables, is to have good data easily accessible, such as in Australia. Let parents see how kids at a school do over time, let parents see how schools compare within the same decile etc.

But I think it is a good thing that parents of Dalefield students now know 90% of their kids are not at the national standard. It allows them to have a conversation with the school about how they plan to lift their improvement.

UPDATE: This is interesting. In comparing the two schools, Dalefield’s school roll is 16% Maori. Solway’s is 32% Maori. Solway is the one which has an 80% to 90% achievement rate, compared to under 10% for Dalefield. So that’s one excuse Dalefield can’t use.

Schools might withhold student achievement statistics if the government does not prevent national standards information being used to create league tables, the New Zealand Education Institute says.

All schools must submit their student achievement data based on national standards to the Education Ministry by May 31.

But the NZEI said yesterday some schools might refuse to do so if the government did not prevent the information being used for league tables comparing each schools’ academic achievement.

The Government can not prevent media from seeking school assessment data and reporting it. It’s called living in a free society. The only way this could be prevented was to amend the Official Information Act to exclude school assessment data.

Anyway I have a solution for any school that refuses to submit their student achievement data. No parent should be forced to attend a school which won’t tell parents how well the school is doing, so I’d remove all zoning protection for any school that with-holds assessment data.

This would allow parents to vote with their feet. Any child at that school would automatically be guaranteed entrance into any neighbouring school, if the parents wish to have their children at a school that doesn’t suppress achievement data.

Among those most depressed on election night were probably many teachers, their trade unions, and school principals.

I’m not so sure about “many” teachers. Most teachers don’t give a stuff about politics and just want to get on with teaching. It is the teacher politicians who devote most of their energy to educational politics that would have been depressed, but they are a minority of teachers.

The first John Key-led government made a priority of ensuring children can read and write – the foundation for all later learning – and parents getting school reports in plain English.

Known by its shorthand name, national standards, the policy was steadfastly adhered to by Mr Key, who consulted educational experts before the 2008 election on what would make the most difference to the one in five children who leave school illiterate and innumerate.

The policy was equally steadfastly opposed by the primary teachers’ union and the Principals’ Federation, chiefly on ideological grounds.

Their biggest fear is that once data on how schools are doing under national standards is reported to the Education Ministry, it will be available to the whole community, which will learn which of the schools they fund from their taxes perform best.

Outraegous. I’m waiting for Labour to announce a policy that they will ban league tables not only for schools, but also for hospitals. It is appalling that Tony Ryall publishes which DHBs have the quickest times for A&E waiting times and cancer radiation treatment. Not all DHBs have the same sort of patients, and Ryall’s hospital league tables should be banned as they are unfair to the hospitals not at the top.

But it is criminal that up to 20 per cent of students leave school unable to read, write and do arithmetic.

Former Labour Party president and new Howard League for Penal Reform chief executive Mike Williams gets it: he is desperate to find literacy teachers willing to help prison inmates. Why would that be necessary if current education policy works as well as teachers claim? After all, those jailbirds went to school somewhere.

The NZ educational system works very well for the average student. However it works very badly for the bottom 20% and not that great for the top 10%.

If children who are failing can be helped to succeed by a different prescription – think kura kaupapa or Rudolf Steiner, for example – the trial is worth conducting to see what can be learned from it.

Absolutely. A great win for ACT and for New Zealand.

Are they worried the trial might be a raging success?

The Los Angeles Times has produced a detailed set of estimates about how much value each teacher in Los Angeles adds to their classroom. That is hugely valuable information. New Zealand’s education establishment should be doing something similar.

I blogged last year on the remarkable data published by the LA Times. It basically measures the effectiveness of individual teachers.

Why should we follow the Times’ lead? Because it helps us to reward great teachers and provide remedial support for teachers in difficulty. And because it allows us to diagnose, early, easily, and with reasonable precision, what is going wrong when a school is performing badly. Is it one or two bad teachers? A bad english department? Poor school-wide leadership? Or is the issue in the community itself, a problem at home rather than in the classroom? The data can answer that crucial question better than a big round of finger-pointing in front of an inspector from ERO.

We can do all kinds of helpful things with this information. If one school has a dysfunctional maths department and there is a great maths teacher at another school, the government can fund the Board of Trustees to pay generous incentives to convince the great teacher to take on the troubled department as HoD. Same thing for giving great teachers powerful incentives to teach at generally underperforming schools.

Absolutely agree.

It is true that there are already multiple ways to assess teachers in New Zealand. There is teacher registration. There are periodic assessments against professional standards. In some situations, there are Teacher’s Council investigations. There is ERO. Those are all good things to have, and this data-driven assessment should be used to extend those assessment regimes, not to replace them. The data based assessment does add real value, however, both as a nationwide diagnostic tool for educators and administrators and as an individual assessment tool for rewarding great teachers and helping others improve.

True. But with teacher unions so against even allowing data on schools to be collated and analysed, I can only imagine how far they would go to stop what Rob proposes.

Who should find out the results? Well, the teachers for a start. They need to know how they are doing. And their local Board of Trustees. And the government folk should know, too. They are collectively charged with improving the educational outcomes for New Zealand’s tragically long “education tail.” Once they know how their teaching resources are distributed, they can better shuffle them around to make the system more effective.

Which is of course what the Government is trying to do with national standards, as well as give parents better information.

Parents should probably get some information about how their kid’s school does compared to other schools with similar student demographics. That is a valuable accountability mechanism for Principals, who get paid good money to be accountable to their local communities. But unfiltered league tables of area schools do more harm than good, presenting an apples to oranges comparison as if it were apples to apples.

The answer to bad league tables is good league tables. Not banning league tables.

Parents should also not get access to individual teacher rankings. Here I disagree with the Times. Why? Because it is little more than a recipe for school administrators to be drowned in a tide of the pushiest, over-caffeinated parents demanding that Little Johnny should move over to that excellent Mrs Paki’s home room. Now! We don’t get to see the latest performance review of the cop that pulled us over, or the nurse in the hospital ward, or the customs agent at the border. And rightly so. Teachers are no different.

I’m okay with parents not seeing results of individual teachers, so long as School Boards and the Government does.

Rob also says in his comments:

Secondary teachers with a BA and a teaching diploma start at $47k and can earn up to $71k at current scales, even without any of the additional salary Units under the control of Boards of Trustees. The top of their base salary scale is more pay than 90% of New Zealand adults recieve, according to IRD data. I think **great teachers** should receive substantially more compensation than this, but I do not think **all teachers** should get a big raise.

Again I agree. I’d love School Boards and Principals to have the ability to have performance pay.

Principals say they say they can’t give us objective measurements of how our kids are doing in relation to his or her peers.

I don’t believe them. No one believes them. Principals themselves don’t believe it.

What’s really going on is they believe it’s not desirable. And parents think principals are wrong.

Parents know that by a certain age their kids should be able to do some things.

No parent is saying ‘mark my child as a failure.’ We know every kid is different. But we cannot know if they have talents or if they need help unless we know whether they are making as much progress as other children.

Exactly. I just wish Labour had the same view as John Pagani on this.

I’m glad we’ve moved on from the days of ‘this child didn’t make it so that’s the end of that’. But what we want teachers to tell us now is: ‘it’s ok, this child is doing about the same as all the others’; Or, ‘a bit better than  I would expect for her age’; Or, ‘he needs help to catch up, and this is what we are going to do.’ 
And many parents are frustrated those clear statements are so damn hard to get.

Instead, principals hit us with glibness like this: “You can’t write a novel with 3 letters.” Excuse me. I know you can’t. But I don’t want you to write a novel with 3 letters. I want you to tell me in clear language whether my kid is doing about as well he or she should be doing for his or her age.

One can communicate whether or not a child is achieving at the minimum level expected for that age group, without labelling them a failure.

It drives parents nuts to hear teachers say ‘it’s hard to tell you when kids have grasped something’, or ‘you can’t say a child should have learned a skill by the age of 8.’ If most children have learned something and ours hasn’t – we really want to know that. And when you won’t tell us, we think that’s about your discomfort with accountability.

And it’s even worse to tell us, “Underachievement is so closely related to poverty and unemployment and other issues beyond the school environment.” So what? Even an unemployed or impoverished parent wants to know how their kid is doing. It is arrogant and nasty for principals to make excuses before they even give the kids a chance.

I’m not a teacher basher. If I didn’t think we were lucky to have so many talented and professional staff who do so much, I wouldn’t want to trust my kids’ education to them. This debate is held back by people who sneer at teacher unions and repeat crocked ideas imported from countries behind us in educational achievement.

I sneer at teacher unions, but not teachers. And there is a big difference. I actually want the good teachers and principals paid much more and given the ability to manage their schools more fully.

In the comments, one person said:

I am a former secondary teacher. Kids are measured at Y11 onwards through NCEA. Why wait until then to find out they are struggling. Kids already know where they fit into the class structure so why try fooling them. The sooner weaknesses are identified, sooner they can be corrected.

I have found over recent months that many secondary teachers are very supportive of national standards. The reason is that so many kids and parents never realise they are struggling or not achieving at a high enough level until they get to secondary school, by which time it is almost too late. So this puts huge stress on the secondary teachers and worse parents blame them, because they say that they never got told Johnny wasn’t doing okay at primary school, so if he now isn’t doing okay at secondary school, it must be that school’s fault.

“Labour will give schools a choice. We believe that lifting education achievements is best left to the experts in partnership with parents, and our plan allows that to happen.

“But for any school community that genuinely supports „national standards. and believes it provides the best way to get results for their students we will not bully them into submission.

So some schools will use national standards and some will use the standards against the national curriculum. This should ensure it is impossible to get any meaningful data to compare schools with. The union will be happy.

A reader has made a useful observation:

Mallard’s big attack has been on moderation. How do you know that school A is judging a child against say the Year 1 Nat Std in the same way as school B is judging a child against the Year 1 Nat Std.

If you accept that is a valid criticism (and Moroney has continued to run it) then Labour does nothing about it.

Labour has said they will “Determine the New Zealand Curriculum level a child is achieving.” But how do they know that two schools will make the same call without moderation. You’ll have to train and trust teachers – as National has suggested we do.

The Union’s support of Labour’s policy only shows that they don’t actually care about the issue of moderation – they just care who is fronting the policy.

So this confirms the moderation argument was always a red herring.

There is a National Standard in reading, writing and maths for each year – Years 1-8.

There are 8 curriculum levels covering children from ages 5 through to the end of high school.

That means there are approximately 4 curriculum levels covering children from Years 1-8.

It means the information is going to be meaningless. If you have a 5 year old child they will be judged against the curriculum level 1. They’ll continue to be judged against that when they’re ages 6 and 7 basically. That means for 2-3 years you’ll get bugger all meaningful information because you are being assessed against the same standard for 2-3 years.

So its national standards lite, with less meaningful standards. What a great triumph for parents and pupils.

Labour seem to almost be embarrassed by the policy. Only two Labour MPs have tweeted about it.  Their website has just a single page on it, there is no post on Red Alert about it and no questions in the House on national standards.

Labour will require schools to use recognised assessment tools and teacher judgement to:

1. Determine the New Zealand Curriculum level a child is achieving.

Sounds like saying will determine how a child is doing against a national standard.

2. Show a child’s rate of progress between reports over the course of a year.

Sounds like the current requirement to report to parents against a national standard

3. Identify children not achieving within the curriculum level appropriate to their year at school.

Oh my God, that’s labelling them failures.

4. Decide and report the next learning steps.

5. Report this information in plain language to parents at least twice a year.

Wow almost identical to the current requirement to report progress against a national standard for their year twice a year to parents.

So what is the major difference between Labour and National’s policies?

Basically it is just that Labour will not have schools send their assessment data into the Government, hence preventing the media from being able to report on the number of students at a school who are meeting the national standard. That way those evil league tables are prevented.

And that is what this whole fuss has always been about. Opponents of national standards have been intellectually dishonest because the unions have always made clear that if the Government changed the law to remove school assessment data from the Official Information Act, then opposition to national standards would cease.

So Labour’s policy is effectively to keep national standards but to not have the Government have any idea of how well a school is doing, in case that information got made public. God forbid prospective parents know how well a school is doing.

Protests by hundreds of schools against national standards in reading, writing and maths have been called off.

Schools are required to report on students’ learning in relation to national standards, however, many schools have refused to include the standards in their charters this year.

They faced statutory intervention if they did not.

Yesterday, the Boards Taking Action Coalition (BTAC) recommended schools who had opposed including national standards in their charter alter it to include them, but make it clear the school was forced into it, BTAC spokesman Perry Rush said.

I suspect the reason they have done this, is they realise Trevor Mallard is not going to become Minister of Education in 11 weeks time. They were hoping they could outlast Anne Tolley, but they failed.

It has been such a fuss about nothing. The national standards are a minor but useful additional reporting requirement. Schools keep all their current assessment tools. All that is required of them is to moderate those against the national standard framework and include that extra data in school reports, and provide it to the Government so the government has some comparable data.

3News has the head­line: NZEI begins inde­pen­dent assess­ment of National Stan­dards [empha­sis mine]

And the release says:

A teacher union is fund­ing inde­pen­dent research into the impact of the new National Stan­dards in schools. …

“Given the absence of a trial of National Stan­dards and the deep con­cerns the pro­fes­sion and school com­mu­ni­ties have, NZEI has decided to fund this research in a bid to get robust evi­dence about the impact of National Stan­dards on teach­ing and learn­ing,” he said.

The project is being run through the Wilf Mal­colm Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tional Research at the Uni­ver­sity of Waikato and is headed by Prof Mar­tin Thrupp.

Both Whale and I have been blessed with the psychic ability of Deb Webber and Ken Ring and we can predict that this research will conclude that national standards are a disaster and have a hugely detrimental impact on teaching and learning.

Well actually we can’t predict the future. Instead Whale just used Google:

Hmmm… I won­der if this is the same “inde­pen­dent Mar­tin Thrupp that has railed against national stan­dards in March 2010, and is it the same Mar­tin Thrupp who is very active on the national Stan­dards protest site, includ­ing this blog post about how to get trac­tion in the media against National Stan­dards and the same mar­tin Thrupp who sent an email of sup­port to the NZPF for their action against National Stan­dards?

I’m now awaiting the Government of Libya to announce they have appointed independent human rights expert Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi to lead independent research into whether the Government of Libya has breached any human rights.

This site is absolutely brilliant.  As parents of four children, this is exactly the kind of information that my wife and I want so that we can make informed choices about where to send our children.  It allows you to compare your school (or any school) to statistically similar schools or to other local schools.

Why can’t we have something like this here?  And apart from protecting their collective backside, what could NZ teachers possibly have against this information?

http://www.myschool.edu.au/

It is a great site. National should pledge to create such a site in its second term.

The principal of a Kapiti Coast primary school is under investigation over teachers’ complaints of sexual harassment and bullying.

But other teachers and parents at Paekakariki School have come out in support of Allan Marsden and say the board of trustees’ four-month investigation has torn the school apart.

Mr Marsden, who elected to take leave from last October, has denied the substance of all six complaints. …

The complaints include touching a teacher’s thigh in the staff room, making sexually inappropriate comments, and bullying people till they felt ill. …

There was no indication staff were unhappy with his management till the six formal complaints came in, he said.

Six complaints is a lot, as they appear to be from six different people – not just one disaffected teacher.

Marsden was in the news last year, as one of the ring-leaders in the campaign against national standards. Last September he announced that they would refuse to implement national standards (not just refuse to supply targets to the Ministry). The DP story reports:

More than 20 pupils from his year 7 and 8 class last year still have not had school reports. Board of trustees chairwoman Nicki Wrighton said the board was “following that up with some urgency … Parents are concerned and we completely understand that.”

So refusing to implement national standards, and not even producing school reports for all the senior students.

A Paekakariki teacher, who did not want to be named, said Mr Marsden was an educational leader, despite not being politically correct.

“Allan’s from Upper Hutt, likes rugby and drinks Lion Red, but last I heard that wasn’t grounds for dismissal.”

Arguably drinking Lion Red should be grounds for dismissal.

There is a pro-Marsden website here, which blames the Board for being too zealous. There are comments from people on both sides. Who knows what the truth really is – the only thing one can conclude is the school is deeply divided.

National Standards: The Inconvenient Truth

The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an alternative view on the National Standards policy, its supporting system and the implementation process to balance some of the strongly anti-schools and anti-teachers comments made in various other postings.

As a disclosure of my “political” interests, I voted for Peter Dunne / electorate MP and National / Party Vote at the 2008 election.  Since then, I have been closely involved in the NS debate in many ways.  In particular, I attended the first NS Forum, in November 2009, at which I met the four leading academics, John Hattie, Terry Crooks, Martin Thrupp and Lester Flockton.  (These four then wrote their open letter to the Minister of Education, immediately following the Forum.)  This year, I was the named petitioner on the large 37,000 signature petition, organised by NZEI, and calling for NS to be trialled before full implementation across the whole system.  I also had an opinion piece published by the Dominion Post, in which I called for a David Lange, “cup of tea” so we can get this mess sorted out and I made the same call on the TV7 show Backbenches last week.

The essence of my argument remains very simple: the National Standards system of assessment and reporting is a poor trade-off between risk and return.  There is little real evidence of what “the problem” is and how the system will positively impact on student achievement.  In contrast, there are material risks to any system that creates a “high stakes” environment based around simplistic analysis of assessment data, but especially so, if this data is based on teacher judgment.

The issue with National Standards is not about the lofty, well-intentioned goals, but rather that the method chosen – Standards-based reform – needs careful consideration before full-scale implementation is seriously considered.  But this particular system, as written and developed, is flawed as a base for genuine system-wide reform.

Here’s how the academics saw things:

“The very brief timeframe allowed for the development of the Standards and associated guidelines and requirements has resulted in fundamental flaws.  Minister, in our view the flaws in the new system are so serious that full implementation of the intended National Standards system over the next three years is unlikely to be successful.  It will not achieve intended goals and is likely to lead to dangerous side effects.” (Academics, Nov 2009)

What problem is NS really solving?  Achievement figures are the symptom; but what is the cause?

It is also clear that the system which has now emerged in practice has almost nothing to do with the originally stated objectives outlined by John Key, as far back as his April 2007 speech:

“Most kids will reach the benchmarks easily.  But if you’re missing the benchmarks that will send a loud signal that you’re off-track.”

Sensible, inclusive policy development would have ensured a far sounder approach to developing a system aligned more clearly with the real objectives Mr Key had in mind.  But the system that has now emerged has never been backed by a mandate from the electorate.

“This government is lifting the bar for student achievement, which is why the Standards have been set higher than national averages, and parents should take this into account.”  Anne Tolley press release, 28 June 2010

Given so much talk about how the Standards were “set”, I asked the Ministry under the Official Information Act, for a copy of the briefing papers given to the team who developed the Standards.  After a false start, I was told by Mary Chamberlain that:

“I acknowledge that I may not have made it clear that there are no specific policy documents that were given to the writers of the National Standards.  The co-ordinating writers of the Standards were orally briefed on what was required and worked under standards Ministry of Education contracts…”

So whose National Standards do we really have now?  How well developed and tested were the Standards?  Here is John Hattie’s view:

“The glossy, recently published New Zealand literacy and numeracy standards have no data, no evidence, and no evaluation – they are pronouncements without evidence.  If there is evidence outside committee contemplations, where is it?  Until there is evidence, the standards remain untested and experimental.”

And the writers were only “orally briefed…” and developed these Standards in an incredibly short period of time.  Here is the view of the NZ Council for Educational Research:

“These benchmarks had to be developed very rapidly in 2009, and have not been established through empirical work on actual student trajectories over time.”

There are many criticisms of the Standards in the academic literature which is a better place to discuss these flaws.  On the other hand, there are also academics who promote the positive benefits of Standards-based reform but are staying quiet about how well designed this system is.

But it is becoming clearer that implementation – under duress from the government – is being pushed well ahead of system readiness.  The recent survey released by NZCER made this quite clear:

“Originally, schools were to report where their students were performing in relation to the National Standards in 2011. That has been shifted to 2012. The material reported below, while early in the implementation phase, would suggest that date may also be too soon, if the expectation is that all judgements in respect of the Standards will be sound and consistent, both within and between schools.”

One very important point to make is that the positive support from some schools does not negate the concerns of others.  Depending on their perspective, some are indifferent to system-wide concerns, some may not even be aware of them, or some others may be strong supporters of the policy to begin with!  You also have to factor in the good old Kiwi, “She’ll be Right” attitude, which will see many schools just getting on and trying something, even if they don’t feel it will make much difference, or they just can’t be bothered getting into a fight.

However, this wide variation in interpretation and reporting against the Standards gives rise to one of the main problems: the data gathered from the system will be virtually useless for several years.  Bur how this data is used – or misused – remains the single main concern in the education sector.  It is also the main source of difference in perspective between those who are concerned about the system and those that argue strongly in favour of it.  The vocal supporters – mainly on blog sites – argue that the teacher unions are opposing the policy, in principle, because they allege that the unions are merely seeking to protect the interests of poor or mediocre teachers that may be “shown up” by analysis of achievement data.  In contrast, those with concerns site the experience of many overseas systems where the “high stakes” nature of school achievement data causes real problems.

Here is John Hattie’s view:

“National standards offers the most wonderful opportunities for refreshing and reinvigorating an already top of the world system, but it could be the most disastrous policy formulated if it turns our attention to narrowing, testing, league tables and diverting attention to between-school rather than within-school differences.”

There is substantial evidence overseas that a high stakes focus on data causes many problems in teaching and learning within schools.  It is important to note that this does not necessarily have to be the case, but the track record of such systems avoiding the problems and using data wisely is not good.

The Minister of Education has repeatedly stated that our concerns are not founded because National Standards is not national testing.  But the academics make it quite clear that National Standards could turn out to be even worse than national testing.

In a letter to me, dated 10 March, Mrs Tolley said:

“I am very much aware that aggregated data can potentially be accessed and used in unintended ways and, if used to make simplistic comparisons between schools in the form of league tables, can be misleading and detract from the overarching goal of promoting achievement.  I acknowledge the concerns of the education sector about how data from the standards might be used.  In response, I am working with those groups to determine the most effective ways of protecting the data and ensuring it is used for positive purposes such as school review an system improvement.”

The Prime Minister set out in his Social Issues statement to parliament in February that developing a policy on using the data arising from the National Standards system is a priority item for 2010.  So, where is the policy?

I believe this is the real crux of the problem.  If NZ is implementing something truly unique, how do we know it will work?  If it is truly unique and unproven, why are we rushing the design and implementation?  And, how are we so sure that we can avoid the mistakes of other countries that have tried and failed to implement Standards-based reform?

John Hattie has often said to me, in our correspondence, that two simple questions need to be asked:

“Do you think, for a minute, that any of these overseas countries set out with anything other than the very best of intentions?  If not, then how and where did they go wrong?”

I would gain far more confidence in the Minister of Education of this country if she could reassure me that she is at least aware of these challenges, let alone convince me that she is capable of developing sound policy.

But the shambles of National Standards policy is not an isolated incident for this government.  Recent commentary has included the President of the NZ Law Society expressing concern at the Search and Surveillance Bill.  Jonathan Temm spoke about “…the kneejerk populist reaction because you think it’s worth votes.”

Mark Weldon, CEO of NZX, spoke out at the draft Financial Markets Bill, saying it was: “deeply and fundamentally flawed, poorly designed and dangerous.”  Sound familiar?  I wonder if he will be brushed aside as readily as the education academics were?

And my favourite is the Emissions Trading Scheme.  On the very same day that we presented the NS petition to parliament, we were followed by the march and petition presentation on the ETS!  I see ACT released another press statement this week, urging the government to open its eyes and see that the ETS poses an enormous risk to our standard of living for absolutely no environmental benefit.  Poor risk / return, again?

I may be old fashioned but I was brought up to believe that democracy does not finish on election night.  One of my favourite quotes is from US Supreme Court Justice, Robert H Jackson:

“It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

This government needs serious counselling.  Put the jug on, Mr Key.

• Of the 80 schools reviewed, 93 percent (74 schools) were either well prepared or had preparation under way to work with the National Standards.
• This data shows an increase in the percentage of schools that were well prepared to work with the National Standards, up from 19 percent (as reported in August 2010), to 34 percent. The data also showed a decrease in the percentage of schools not yet prepared to work with the standards, from 20 percent in August 2010 to 7 percent.

So most schools are indeed getting on with it. I found this quote interesting:

Strong, professional leadership in the well prepared schools meant that leaders and teachers were positive about working with the National Standards as part of their schoolo curriculum and assessment practices. …

Many of these schools had developed a school culture that was conducive to working with the National Standards. Teachers were encouraged to engage in discussion about student achievement data, inquire into and reflect on their practice and share effective teaching strategies. Such a culture helped teachers to make overall teacher judgements and moderate their judgements about student achievement.

Strong professional leadership sounds good to me.

And who is at the heart of the plot? The aspiring Labour candidate for Whangarei and their future education minister.

John Hartevelt in the Dominion Post reports:

A group of rebel principals plotted to “quietly take over” an association representing 90 per cent of school boards in an effort to overwhelm the national standards debate, leaked emails suggest.

An email exchange shows principals involved in a boycott of the standards discussed “dealing with” the New Zealand School Trustees Association.

“The easiest way is for us to quietly take over regional organisations of NZSTA … Just imagine NZSTA run by principals!” an email written by Hora Hora School principal Pat Newman states.

Newman, the aspiring Labour candidate, is also one of those union activists who bullied a principal who dared to go on television and say she thought national standards were good. There is a pattern of behaviour here.

What Newman and others planned to do with NZSTA, is to effectively turn it into their mouthpiece.

His email was sent to, among others, Denise Torrey, president of the Canterbury Primary Principals Association; Frances Nelson, president of the national primary teachers’ union; Iain Taylor, president of the Auckland Primary Principals Association, and Perry Rush, Island Bay School principal.

Marlene Campbell, principal of Invercargill’s Salford School and a member of the Southland Primary Principals Association executive, which this week called Education Minister Anne Tolley “Minister Hitler”, was also a recipient. All have been vocal critics of the national standards.

Readers will know most of these names. It would be interesting to file OIAs asking for all their e-mail correspondence, to see what other schemes they have plotted.

Mr Taylor responded to Mr Newman’s August 20 email with: “Oh that the go!! Great thinking … loved ya email to her too … man she awful!!” Mr Taylor was referring to NZSTA president Lorraine Kerr, who has refused to criticise or fully endorse the standards.

How dare she refuse to join the campaign against national standards. Dissent from the union line can not be tolerated.

Mr Newman said his email was private. “The email in question was an irreverent one sent by me as a result of the frustration and disquiet I was feeling, around the fact that NZSTA had, and still does, refuse to consult with boards of trustees in any meaningful way on the national standards issue.”

A private one? Did he send it from his work computer? Mr Newman seems to have forgotten that he is employed by the taxpayer, and his school is subject to the OIA.

It was a personal comment and the recipients did not automatically agree with what the email said. “To be realistic, instead of trying to read a conspiracy theory around it, any normal reader would realise that what was suggested was done tongue-in- cheek, and is neither a feasible nor practical suggestion.”

The first line of Mr Newman’s email states: “Seriously folks, [Nelson Park principal] Nevan [Bridge] has hit a good point. At some stage we as principals need to deal with NZSTA.”

The email suggests principals could turn out at regional meetings of the NZSTA and outnumber everyone else as a voting bloc.

Doesn’t sound tongue-in-cheek does it?

Campbell has also apologised on her school blog:

I regret and withdraw my ill considered and not thought through reference to Nazi Germany, I feel passionately about National Standards and I am immensely frustrated by the damage they will do to children’s learning. I really regret that my comments have created a diversion from the real issues: the negative impacts of National Standards as a policy.

I care passionately about children and their learning- some might argue too passionately- but it is that passion which drives my opposition to National Standards.

I unreservedly apologise to the parents and students of Salford for casting our school into disrepute.

So she has apologised to her students and parents, but not to Anne Tolley for calling her Hitler. What a wonderful example to the students.

Now talking of the campaign against national standards, it is important to stress again that sadly the taxpayer is being forced to fund most of this campaign. Membership of the various principals’ associations is not paid for by the principal, but by the taxpayer through Vote Education.

Whale Oil has some documents showing the extent of the taxpayer funding – around $100,000 from the regional principal associations.

The taxpayer funding of the unions comes about because it is in the collective contract. My advice to the Government is to refuse any future agreement that results in the unions being funded by the taxpayer. If a principal sees benefits from joining the principals’ union, then they can do so out of their own pocket.

“According to Kiwiblog and Whale Oil, the guy leading the charge is a Labour Party candidate”

It was a group having lunch. I resisted the urge to introduce me, and just kept the quiet satisfaction to myself.