"Its all about raising student achievement" - yeah right!

It is all about money.

I've tried very hard to keep these posts apolitical and focus on educational issues.

It's getting harder.

It is now becoming increasingly obvious that National Standards was really a rouse designed to destabilize the teaching profession in order to privatize schools so that corporates can make more money.

The global financial outlook is bleak. Education is big business. Keep an eye on the new business strategies of Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and others....all keen educationalists!

It is all about money (and Hekia should feature on the next Tui bill board.)

Charter Schools

The Finnish line?

Some facts about Finland’s education system, widely regarded as the best in the world. They decided to tackle social inequality before rubbishing their schools and their teachers....

Facts About The Finnish Education System

• All education is 100% publicly funded in Finland.
• All school materials (books, pencils, etc) are provided and are free.
• Dental and health care is free.
• Travel to and from school is free.
• Compulsory schooling starts the year the child turns 7 years old.
• Students have the same teacher from year 1 to year 6, then specialist teachers for the final 3 years.
• There is no testing until children are 15 years old.
• Only the core curricula are designed for nationwide application. They leave freedom for local education authorities to arrange teaching in the best way suited to local circumstances.
• There are no national standards.
• Every child is fed a hot 3 course meal every day at school.
• Every school has a doctor, a nurse, and a counsellor on site.
• Teachers have less student contact time and more teacher-teacher contact time.
• The schools day is shorter.
• School is 150 days per year.
• All teachers have a masters degree and a further teaching qualification.
• There are no school inspections in Finland.

Roger Moses - great article from www.stuff.co.nz

OPINION: From time immemorial, the world of education has been a crucible for polarised opinion and acrimonious debate.

More often than not, such debate has produced more heat than light, cleaving protagonists and antagonists into irreconcilable and bitterly warring factions. 

Most recently in New Zealand, there has been a vitriolic public outcry over class sizes, national standards and the prospect of so-called ''league tables'', a cliche that has its origins in the historic four divisions of the English Football League.

Fine if your team is Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool, but not quite so affirming for the ego if you happen to be a supporter of Accrington Stanley, Port Vale, Rotherham or Plymouth Argyle.

Advocates of league tables contend that parents and the community should be informed where one school rates in comparison to another. Such competition, the argument goes, will encourage schools, like football clubs, to improve their performance and lift the standard of New Zealand's educational offering. 

I may be wrong, but I sense such reasoning is linked to an assumption that the quality of teaching is pretty ordinary, and that this new-fangled approach will engender a long-overdue improvement in teacher performance.

"Could do better", of course, is an emotive phrase often applied liberally by armchair critics to the teaching profession in New Zealand as a whole.

For it to assume any real meaning, there needs to be an explicit comparison of New Zealand's educational outcomes with other countries, particularly those in the OECD.

The PISA (Programme for International Student Achievement) rankings, therefore, which compare national performance in reading, science and mathematics, provide a credible and widely accepted ''league table'' to which we should pay close attention. Conducted by the OECD, they represent an objective measure of our educational success in comparison with that of other so-called developed and developing countries and, by implication,  are indicative of the effectiveness of our teaching profession in New Zealand. A close perusal of the 2009 results provides some interesting food for thought.

In reading, New Zealand students rate seventh  out of 74. Above us are five Asian countries or regions: Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong Kong-China, Japan and South Korea. The only Western-Hemisphere country to rank above us is Finland.  Below us are such countries as Canada, Australia, Britain, the United States, France, Germany and Sweden.  By any reckoning, the performance of New Zealand is in the top echelon.

In mathematics our performance is a little lower at 13th.  Here, we are headed by the similar group of Asian countries including Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong Kong-China, Chinese-Taipei, Macau-China and Japan.  From the Western Bloc, we are shaded by Finland,  Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada.  Notwithstanding this slightly lower ranking in mathematics, we still perform above Australia, Germany, France, Britain, the United States and Sweden.Our performance in science is equally outstanding. Once again, our students rank seventh behind four of the top performing Asian countries or regions (Shanghai-China, South Korea, Hong Kong-China, Singapore) and narrowly behind Finland and Canada of the Western Hemisphere.  As with our results in reading, we rank above Australia, Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Sweden.

Can we ''do better'' in New Zealand?  I am sure that we can. But any criticism of our education standards needs to be evaluated in a global context. Several of the ''Asian Tigers'' do feature above us, but at what cost to the overall development of their students?  At the risk of generalising, the pedagogical approach adopted in those countries tends to be highly teacher-centred and pressure-cookered, the very antithesis of the inquiry model promoted rigorously by the Education Ministry.

I suspect that a wholesale return to highly formalised, rote-learning, structured teaching methodology would have very limited appeal to students, parents and teachers in New Zealand.  Of the Western countries, Finland is often lauded as the zenith of educational achievement, a country where teaching as a profession is regarded highly and a model to which all should aspire.  It is unarguable  that Finland does produce stellar academic results, but a closer scrutiny of its demographic components is revealing. 

Only 3.4 per cent of its population is composed of foreign citizens, one of the lowest figures in the European Union.  Most of these are from Russia, Estonia and Sweden.  Finland's indigenous minority consists of only 7000 Sami, the small group who inhabit the icy wastes to the north of the country.  In short, Finland is perhaps the most homogeneous country in Europe, without many of the educational challenges that arise with either mass migration or the integration of large indigenous minorities.

Where does that leave our education system in New Zealand?  On the surface, our overall performance is quite outstanding.

However, there is widespread criticism that the performance of our "bottom 20 per cent" is very poor and a blight on the system. 

Simple logic, surely, would imply only two possible causes for that.

On the one hand, New Zealand teachers who perform outstandingly well with the top 80 per cent of our students for some inexplicable reason may be abysmally poor in teaching the bottom 20 per cent.  This could be true, but I have my doubts.

On the other hand, the performance of the bottom 20 per cent of our students may reflect a disturbing demographic reality in our country that has been exacerbated in recent decades, and is not reflected in countries such as Finland.  Intergenerational unemployment, a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, the challenges of redress for Maori, and the integration of new immigrants to our country are all major challenges that our country is facing.  Inadequate teaching, I would suggest, is not the cause of these deep-seated issues, any more than inspired teaching can be the sole panacea.

More effective teaching of disengaged students must be part of the long-term solution if positive change is to occur.  In the process, however, let us not ignore the fact that New Zealand teachers are doing a fine job and that they, alone, cannot right the deep-seated inequalities in our society.

Roger Moses is headmaster of Wellington College.

Political agendas...

The following quotes are taken from our two most recent Education Ministers. Draw your own conclusions:

Anne Tolley said, “International studies show that the gap between our highest and lowest performing pupils is getting wider.”

Jim says, “Unlike the UK, USA and many other countries who have adopted national standards, we have not slipped down the listings, but remained in the top 6 countries.   What has changed, in the past two years, however, is the gap between NZ's rich and poor.”

Anne also said, “There have been hysterical claims that we are no longer investing in subjects such as art and the sciences.”

Jim says, “Art and Science advisory roles have been axed along with any other advisory role that is not directly related to National Standards... The attempt to cut a huge number of technology teachers this year was only thwarted by a public outcry.”

Anne said, “Additional funding will be made available to those schools that need support.”

Jim says,  “How much of that funding is made available to Charter Schools with untrained and unqualified staff, no requirement to follow the NZ Curriculum or report National Standards data?”

Anne said,  “Results being used to give performance pay to teachers? Rubbish.”

Hekia said, “Performance pay has been raised. I’m keen to see it located in a context of overall quality management in schools.”  

Anne said, “League tables? Never on the agenda.” 

Jim says, "Yeah. Right!"

Anne said, “Those who have spoken out against the standards will continue to do so. By all means, have your say. But please get your facts straight and stop trying to mislead parents.”

Jim says, “Whatever your political views, ministers need to get their facts straight and stop trying to mislead us."

League Table Issues (lessons from the UK)

1. The ‘system’ is unreliable because all schools interpret national standards differently. At Limehills we have the very highest of expectations. Locally, regionally and nationally, however, the data is not valid. It has not been moderated and interpretations vary.

2. Parents may choose to base decisions about where to school their children based on this flawed data. This makes it very high stakes. Some schools will work hard to improve national standards results at the cost of educating the whole child – key competencies, sport, the Arts, Science may be neglected. This has happened elsewhere. Higher 'pass' rates does not mean a better primary school education! The government may get what it chooses to measure, but at what cost?

3. NZ outperforms every country that has adopted national tests and league tables. Until recently, these countries were looking to develop curriculums like NZ’s because their systems had failed to produce creative, flexible, self managing lifelong learners that 21st century living demands - even though their content based assessments showed improving test scores over time.

4. Standardising education makes it boring. Obsessive literacy and numeracy teaching will turn students off school. At Limehills, we work hard to develop a vibrant, hands on curriculum, based on a strong foundation of literacy and numeracy, but not strangled by them and not at the expense of other areas of the curriculum. 

Limehills and league tables

The success of Limehills School is too complex to be mapped by National Standards data alone.

Most educators fear the inevitable league tables, not because we fear accountability, but because we have no confidence in the reliability of the data or the flawed system.

Limehills School has a diverse and multi cultural roll. We celebrate this. It adds a unique and special flavour to our unique and special school. However, when our National Standards achievement data was reported to the Ministry of Education at the end of 2011, 61% of our students had been at our school for less than two years and another 15% were from non English speaking backgrounds. And yet, we will be 'judged' alongside other very different schools by the % of students achieving at or above the National Standards in Reading, Writing and Mathematics.

Not fair. Not valid. Not helping our students achieve.  (Even if all schools have interpreted the standards consistently....)

Great animation about school / life...

2012 'Olimepics'

Wonderful Olympic celebrations at Limehills. Enjoy!

Another must watch - National Standards

A must watch - Sir Ken Robinson

A thought provoking look at what the future of education should be
(and why schools are the way they are)
(and why National Standards will do more harm than good)