National’s Standards

Written By: Enzo - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 13th, 2017 - 74 comments
Categories: education, schools - Tags: chris hipkins, class size, education, national standards, teacher pay, teachers

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It’s great to see Chris Hipkins abolishing ‘National Standards’ as a matter of priority. This policy was nothing but an unfortunate bit of populism from the previous government, and a Prime Minister in John Key who specialised in band-aid solutions to problems that required stitches.

While it may have made some people feel better that it looked like action was being taken on literacy and numeracy in Primary Schools, in practice National Standards were more hindrance than help.

The policy stigmatised children with disabilities and learning difficulties, it narrowed the curriculum and worst of all it put too much focus on measuring and labelling instead of things that can make a real difference.

Just because I can measure how bad I am at golf by looking at my handicap, and by feeling the sting of it being the maximum number possible, doesn’t mean I can do much to improve it without some intensive one-on-one coaching from a pretty amazing teacher.

Which brings us to the real problem in education. There are lots of pretty amazing teachers out there but we need to attract more. And I would strongly argue that it’s hard to achieve this when the starting salary for a teacher with a Bachelor’s degree is $48,000 and there are plenty of less stressful jobs out there that pay more.

It would certainly take more than that to convince me to spend my working life trying to impart knowledge onto other people’s children in groups of thirty plus at a time.

It’s by no means a less stressful job, but Police start on $56,000 and have their training fully funded so aren’t starting with a student loan. Having good dedicated motivated and talented teachers should be just as high a priority for us as a country as good dedicated motivated and talented cops.

In fact, more of one could lead to needing less of the other.

You also need to provide the best possible learning environment for children and that means better teacher student ratios to allow more specialised help as well as smaller class sizes.

It’s not rocket science. Those are the problems that need addressing if we are serious about lifting educational achievement. They are more expensive than just giving everyone a test and hoping for the best. But hey, you get what you pay for right?

74 comments on “National’s Standards ”

Comments are now closed

One Anonymous Bloke 1

13 December 2017 at 3:04 pm

band-aid solutions to problems that required stitches.

Nope: in this case the lying lowlife invented a problem that didn’t exist at all.

WHEN SEVEN EQUALS 20

20% – children Anne Tolley says are failing
16% – the actual number who failed NCEA in 2009. Of these:

-6% – students who are capable of passing NCEA but chose not to try
-3% – students with multiple disabilities who can’t pass
7% = students who could pass but don’t…
Stuart Munro 2

13 December 2017 at 3:36 pm

There is probably significant institutional reform overdue in teaching, and it would be good to borrow a bit more from best practice. Which is Scandinavia.

Small chance of my hobby horse getting a run – peer tuition. Lifts results by two orders of magnitude. Not expensive. Never mind.
- Stunned Mullet 2.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 3:57 pm
  
  A number of high schools in Auckland have active peer tutoring programmes – and you are correct they are very effective.
- greywarshark 2.2
  
  13 December 2017 at 4:03 pm
  
  A hobby horse of mine would give effective outcomes. We have a rich resource in we older people, some of whom will have been ‘kept’ by the government and not expected to do anything for a third of their lives if they live to about 99.
  
  If each one that was suitable could mentor a child through school for half to an hour a day, the country would boost its rate of initiative by 200% plus, it being rather low at present.
  
  There isn’t much demand for cow-like stares in the world, which is what comes from the broad mass of the populace especially the older ones. So more clever cows with less of them on the fields, and less bovine humans in the suburbs and rural areas, and we could be world winners.
  
  Nutty eh!
  - Stuart Munro 2.2.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 6:37 pm
    
    It could work well, I notice U3A is very popular down here. Maybe we could even aim for something along the lines of Japan’s lifelong learning program – knowledge circulating in communities gets expressed in surprising ways.
    - greywarshark 2.2.1.1
      
      14 December 2017 at 11:07 am
      
      Thanks Stuart I like your ideas.
      And I apologise to all older people who resent the cow-like stares bit. I was just venting at the so often complacent retired generation that I know and which possibly form a great part of the National Party’s conservative, self-centred base who don’t want their boat (cruise ship) rocked.
Draco T Bastard 3

13 December 2017 at 3:37 pm

It’s by no means a less stressful job, but Police start on $56,000 and have their training fully funded so aren’t starting with a student loan. Having good dedicated motivated and talented teachers should be just as high a priority for us as a country as good dedicated motivated and talented cops.

It’s a function of demand.

Police total employees (p7): 13,787
Teaching total staff: 55,020 (excel link but I don’t know if it will work)

The more people required for a job the less they will be paid. This, apparently, applies across the board and is the complete opposite of what economics tells us.
- greywarshark 3.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 3:56 pm
  
  I wonder what economics says about the fact that teachers have separate individuals with different variables to which a standardised set of details has to be extended with a variable outcome according to a number of factors, weather, food and energy output, controlled use of brain, parental urgings or not, etc. and for politicians as well as parents there is a lot of delayed gratification.
  
  Then police look for certain characteristics and are more likely to result in having suitable candidates to send to courtroom or jail. In economic terms that is I suppose a success rate, and each one ‘spoken to’ and discharged is a failure.
- Enzo 3.2
  
  13 December 2017 at 3:58 pm
  
  It’s also worth noting that the police are male dominated while teachers are female dominated.
  - greywarshark 3.2.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 4:55 pm
    
    Yes the research has tended to indicate that male and female dominated sectors are viewed differently so that could well be a factor.
Chris 4

13 December 2017 at 3:57 pm

I will wait to see what they are replacing it with before getting to excited.

NS was by no means perfect and needed a massive overhaul but some sort of gauge of where your child is out comparative to the average is IMO quite useful

IN TANDEM WITH THE TEACHER’S EVALUATION AND OPINION.
- Draco T Bastard 4.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 4:07 pm
  
  …but some sort of gauge of where your child is out comparative to the average is IMO quite useful
  
  Only if you want to destroy some children’s belief in themselves. If you need to divide the community into haves and have-nots.
  - Ed 4.1.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 4:14 pm
    
    ‘Only if you want to destroy some children’s belief in themselves’
    
    That was the intended result.
  - Chris 4.1.2
    
    13 December 2017 at 4:39 pm
    
    How exactly does it destroy their belief in themselves?
    
    Are you saying their teachers will give them crap or announce it to the class?
    
    Because the vast vast majority of parents wouldnt and will just have an idea of what they need to help them with at home in conjunction with the teachers ideas
    - The Fairy Godmother 4.1.2.1
      
      13 December 2017 at 4:50 pm
      
      Except National Standards were very broad and only told you if your child was working below at or above the standard. They didn’t tell you what specific thing they were working on.
      - Chris 4.1.2.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 5:06 pm
        
        Agreed
        
        Which is why I said it needed overhauling
        
        But I have yet to hear a reason why having a form of it suddenly means you can’t have the teachers evaluation
        
        Forgive me if people think it is stupid, but in my opinion having a gauge AND a teachers evaluation of your child is ideal to know both how the teacher is going to progress with your child and things you can also help with, that you can actually trust and understand the end goals.
        
        And no. I am not saying teachers are shit with the trust comment
        
        The Fairy Godmother 4.1.2.1.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 5:13 pm
        
        Which is what we had before National Standards. Pre National Standards had far more useful information that ns ones. My child was simply reported as well above standards. I felt she was disadvantaged over her brother and sister who weren’t in the ns era because I felt ns encouraged teachers to teach to the middle and get the ones just below the standard above it leaving less time for children at the other ends of the scale.
        
        mpledger …
        
        14 December 2017 at 8:00 am
        
        “Well above standard” wasn’t an official NS term – there was only well below, below, at and above. That was part of the problem – the gifted kids got ignored,
        
        It would be interesting to see if our drop in international tests was because the whole group moved down, the tail-end dropped or the high end dropped. I’m betting on the latter.
        
        cathy 4.1.2.1.1.2
        
        14 December 2017 at 6:42 am
        
        the thing is, children mature at different rates, same as they grow at different rates.
        
        children that young should not be measured against an arbitrary average but against their own potential, which the teacher who knows the kid can do but national standards cannot.
        
        like “could do better” means something different in each case depending on what the kid is capable of
        
        and national standards were meaningless because there was not enough funding to staff our schools adequately, let alone all the other reasons
    - One Anonymous Bloke 4.1.2.2
      
      13 December 2017 at 5:28 pm
      
      How exactly does it destroy their belief in themselves?
      
      By measuring them to such a narrow “standard”.
      
      The fact is, National’s changes to education policy are designed with one goal in mind: the wholesale privatisation of the education system and the destruction of teachers’ unions.
      
      That’s why they copy right wing US “policies” rather than apolitical Finnish ones.
      
      It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
      - ropata 4.1.2.2.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 8:37 pm
        
        Also a lower educated population is easier to exploit and deceive. Helps keep wages low and corporate profits high.
    - Draco T Bastard 4.1.2.3
      
      13 December 2017 at 6:45 pm
      
      How exactly does it destroy their belief in themselves?
      
      By telling them that they’re failures.
      
      Are you saying their teachers will give them crap or announce it to the class?
      
      It’s going to be on their reports. That’s what anything below and ‘A’ is – a failure according to the limited measurements of National Standards.
      
      Because the vast vast majority of parents wouldnt and will just have an idea of what they need to help them with at home in conjunction with the teachers ideas
      
      The vast majority of parents seem to be a bunch of ignorant schmucks that never talk to the child’s teachers. They just want the same, simple and failed system that they had at school. This is what National Standards provided.
      
      What it didn’t do was provide any information about how best to help the child.
      - Chris 4.1.2.3.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 7:00 pm
        
        So in your world parents walk around saying their kids are failures if they aren’t great at something.
        
        I think I’ll avoid your world
        
        Draco T Bastard 4.1.2.3.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 7:22 pm
        
        No, that’s what grades do. It’s what National Standards do.
        
        The Case Against Grades
        
        The Effects of Grading
        
        Most of the criticisms of grading you’ll hear today were laid out forcefully and eloquently anywhere from four to eight decades ago (Crooks, 1933; De Zouche, 1945; Kirschenbaum, Simon, & Napier, 1971; Linder, 1940; Marshall, 1968), and these early essays make for eye-opening reading. They remind us just how long it’s been clear there’s something wrong with what we’re doing as well as just how little progress we’ve made in acting on that realization.
        
        In the 1980s and ‘90s, educational psychologists systematically studied the effects of grades. As I’ve reported elsewhere (Kohn, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c), when students from elementary school to college who are led to focus on grades are compared with those who aren’t, the results support three robust conclusions:
        
        * Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning. A “grading orientation” and a “learning orientation” have been shown to be inversely related and, as far as I can tell, every study that has ever investigated the impact on intrinsic motivation of receiving grades (or instructions that emphasize the importance of getting good grades) has found a negative effect.
        
        * Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task. Impress upon students that what they’re doing will count toward their grade, and their response will likely be to avoid taking any unnecessary intellectual risks. They’ll choose a shorter book, or a project on a familiar topic, in order to minimize the chance of doing poorly — not because they’re “unmotivated” but because they’re rational. They’re responding to adults who, by telling them the goal is to get a good mark, have sent the message that success matters more than learning.
        
        * Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking. They may skim books for what they’ll “need to know.” They’re less likely to wonder, say, “How can we be sure that’s true?” than to ask “Is this going to be on the test?” In one experiment, students told they’d be graded on how well they learned a social studies lesson had more trouble understanding the main point of the text than did students who were told that no grades would be involved. Even on a measure of rote recall, the graded group remembered fewer facts a week later (Grolnick and Ryan, 1987).
        
        Research on the effects of grading has slowed down in the last couple of decades, but the studies that are still being done reinforce the earlier findings. For example, a grade-oriented environment is associated with increased levels of cheating (Anderman and Murdock, 2007), grades (whether or not accompanied by comments) promote a fear of failure even in high-achieving students (Pulfrey et al., 2011), and the elimination of grades (in favor of a pass/fail system) produces substantial benefits with no apparent disadvantages in medical school (White and Fantone, 2010). More important, no recent research has contradicted the earlier “big three” findings, so those conclusions still stand.
        
        Grades Do More Harm Than Good
        
        For decades, grades have been the primary form of communicating and reflecting student mastery. A myth that has taken hold, but ironically no one thinks grades are able to communicate learning with any sort of accuracy or consistency. Teachers feel compelled to “grade,” (the verb form) any and all student work, believing that a letter or percentage will indicate to students and parents a measure of skill. Students feel conditioned to only pursue summative values and to get “As and Bs” to make mom and dad happy. Parents feel reliant upon teachers to instruct, assess, and communicate learning outcomes through the assignment of grades.
        
        Thing is, the fact that grading of students is detrimental has been known for decades. Since long before I was born and yet we still use them and National doubled down on the failure.
- The Fairy Godmother 4.2
  
  13 December 2017 at 4:21 pm
  
  National Standards was great for selfish individuals with a bit of money who don’t care about any children other than their own. This way they don’t have to pay anymore in taxes to make our schools good for all children and if their little precious is not at the working above expectations level it alerts them to the need to pay for tutoring.
  - In Vino 4.2.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 7:12 pm
    
    +1 Good analysis.
    Not many people get to actually care about other people’s children the way teachers do.
    This makes the teacher unions very unpopular with the profit-gouging set.
  - ropata 4.2.2
    
    13 December 2017 at 10:58 pm
    
    +1 Also, the school league tables were offensive and wrong on every level.
- greywarshark 4.3
  
  13 December 2017 at 5:05 pm
  
  Yes good Chris, but it should mean that the child has room to excel at what is really interesting to them – as well as – getting the basics. I have heard that the rigid factory results required by NatStand has forced teachers to be economical with the truth with some kids.
  
  Old saying, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Some children are just not able to study, and act out, and help needs to be available to keep those kids on track, and have them enjoying their little successes at school, even if they don’t get much positive from home. I would like to see the simple personal psychological management practice of transactional analysis taught at school, which enables kids to handle their times of upset by recognising their own state and knowing how to remediate it.
  
  Teaching should be able to be more wide reaching, getting the kids primed up to do their favourite things by ensuring they attend to the basics, sort of like having pudding after the veg. Probably some teachers will be able to get double the results that the kids have at present.
- repateet 4.4
  
  14 December 2017 at 8:15 am
  
  And the main thing about it being some sort of gauge of where your child is comparative to the average and that being ‘useful’, is that you can go to your workplace or club and brag about how great your kid is. If they’re classed as well above average.
  Or be smug and walk taller knowing your kid is so capable. If she’s classed as well above average.
  And if you don’t have that satisfaction because your kid is not classed as well above average or at expected levels, you can complain about teachers being hopeless.
roy 5

13 December 2017 at 4:01 pm

And for the video featuring Ill Bill ‘rapping’ about it…
- Ed 5.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 4:12 pm
  
  Great!
Ad 6

13 December 2017 at 4:23 pm

Enzo surely with a Labour-led government and one of the last powerful union near-monopolies around, and a surplus on the government books like we haven’t seen in a bit, teachers should be able to get a major pay rise this term?
- dv 6.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 4:35 pm
  
  If they want teachers in Ak schools that will have to be a given.
- aom 6.2
  
  13 December 2017 at 8:11 pm
  
  Don’t be an prick Ad. Go get yourself qualified as a teacher and bust your arse for a teacher’s wages with long hours and very challenging work days. Bet you won’t then tell the union you don’t want their support, expertise, training assistance and hard won but meagre improvements in pay and conditions. Not likely though eh? Better to support the likes of National Standards and throw stones at the teacher’s unions, even though they predictably said theygoing down that track would compromise the country’s international rankings.
funstigator 7

13 December 2017 at 7:34 pm

I think it’s a bad move. I & other parents from our school found it a useful tool – the class teacher was uninterested/incapable/not supported in maths teaching and NS showed this up, giving us the ability to get remedial in. How many commenters in this thread are parents of primary level children I wonder?
- dv 7.1
  
  14 December 2017 at 8:04 am
  
  the class teacher was uninterested/incapable/not supported in maths teaching and NS showed this up,
  
  I assume the ‘uninterested/incapable/not supported’ teacher did the NS evaluation.
  
  So how can you be sure the grades were accurate?
- One Anonymous Bloke 7.2
  
  14 December 2017 at 8:17 am
  
  It’s a great move: chucking out ignorance based-drivel. Just so long as they replace it with sound pedagogy and ignore the politically-motivated whinging from people who know jack shit about learning.
  
  As a parent, I think people who vandalise our education system for money – yes, that’s what this is about: privatisation – belong in court, defending themselves against charges of attacking children.
  
  Look at the top comment on this post: the policy was based on lies in the first place. When you believe lies the problem is you. Sharpen up.
ianmac 8

13 December 2017 at 8:19 pm

“You also need to provide the best possible learning environment for children and that means better teacher student ratios to allow more specialised help as well as smaller class sizes.”
Good point ENZO. Smaller classes are necessary to facilitate good learning practice. The bigger the class the more necessary it becomes to mass teach rather than individualise according to need. Think about those very bright kids who sink into sleepiness from lack of specific assistance.
(If big class teaching techniques are still being used when given smaller classes, the kids are no better off. Adapt.)
Grantoc 9

13 December 2017 at 8:30 pm

Hipkins blames National Standards for poor educational outcomes in the primary school sector.

However National Standards are not responsible for these poor educational outcomes. Standards are designed to measure outcomes. They are not over arching educational strategies or philosophies or learning methodologies or educational systems designed to educate children. They measure how well these elements are performing.

If educational outcomes in primary school are not what they ‘should’ be then that is the fault of the systems that are in place to educate children. Standards are not designed to educate children, they exist to measure the effectiveness of those systems that actually do educate children.

Hipkins is using the standards as a whipping boy for poor educational systems. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
- ropata 9.1
  
  13 December 2017 at 8:41 pm
  
  Funny that the NZEI is completely opposed to everything you just said. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
  
  https://www.nzei.org.nz/NZEI/Media/News_public/2017/Briefing_to_the_Incoming_Minister.aspx
  - Grantoc 9.1.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 9:37 pm
    
    Roparta
    
    Well I must be saying the right things then. I have little regard for the teacher unions – they strike me as only being interested in protecting the apparent ‘rights’ pf their members.
    
    They are in my opinion conservative, rigidly ideological and actually, sadly, largely opposed to new developments in educational thinking and practice.
    - ianmac 9.1.1.1
      
      13 December 2017 at 10:38 pm
      
      That is so wrong. Very few teachers go to Union meetings. There is no direction from the union. The teachers provide feedback to the union who represent those views. What has happened over the last nine years is that restrictive ideology has been imposed on what had been a progressive innovative teaching force. Teachers don’t teach for the pay.
      - Grantoc 9.1.1.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 10:50 pm
        
        Ianmac
        
        However they probably have a record of going on strike for pay more so than any other group of unionised workers. And too bad about the disruption to children’s education and parents expectations.
        
        What was one of their first requests/demands of Hipkens when he took on the mantle of Minister of Education a few weeks ago? Why a pay increase – 5% I think it was.
        
        Pay and conditions are clearly a prominent factor in their thinking.
        
        millsy 9.1.1.1.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 11:32 pm
        
        Last time I looked, I could count the amount of times teacher went on strike over the past 30 years on one hand, and have plenty of fingers left over.
    - ropata 9.1.1.2
      
      13 December 2017 at 10:53 pm
      
      You didn’t read the link did you. You have no idea what teachers do. When were you kicked out of school? 1976?
- Ian 9.2
  
  13 December 2017 at 9:20 pm
  
  This is Hipkins moment and it will be his downfall. He has been totally sucked in by the teachers union that is backing lazy,incompetent teachers.
  - One Anonymous Bloke 9.2.1
    
    13 December 2017 at 9:25 pm
    
    They’re all Marxists too. They’ll be seizing all the private schools any day now. Better get your inbred mokos to Randistan quick!
  - ropata 9.2.2
    
    13 December 2017 at 9:29 pm
    
    Public schools are just education camps for the revolution, giving young Kiwis hope for the future. Those bastard teachers. /sarc
    - In Vino 9.2.2.1
      
      13 December 2017 at 10:57 pm
      
      Ian
      You need an apostrophe after teachers (teachers’ unions – OK?) unless you are happy to be a lazy, incompetent writer. Think about an apostrophe for Hipkins as well – how would you insert it? (It is needed there too.)
      Over 80% of teachers belong to and support their unions. No, they are not protecting the incompetent. Nobody likes picking up the extra work that incompetent teachers cause others to get. In my experience, over 80% of the best teachers and over 80% of those who should not be teaching all belong to the union. I have known a few really good teachers who did not like the union. I have also known a few duds who also refused to join the union.
      Your view is that of someone who knows very little about it all, as I see it.
      - Ian 9.2.2.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 11:22 pm
        
        Your rambling nonsence is hard to decipher. I have had a lot to do with teachers over many years and have a great respect for
        good teachers. I have no respect for unioinised ,brainwashed fuckwits that put their personal aspirations ahead of their students.
        
        ropata 9.2.2.1.1.1
        
        13 December 2017 at 11:25 pm
        
        Yes everybody went to school Ian.
        
        In Vino 9.2.2.1.1.2
        
        13 December 2017 at 11:39 pm
        
        Ian – you have revealed that you are not a good reader. The word is nonsense, not the silly way you spelt it. I just told you that 80+% of good teachers support their union, but you claim to know otherwise.
        Should anyone have any respect for the crap that you are writing?
        
        repateet 9.2.2.1.1.3
        
        14 December 2017 at 8:20 am
        
        And of the teachers you have had a lot to do with, how many were unionised, brainwashed fuckwits who put their personal aspirations ahead of their students? How was that exhibited?
        
        How welcome do you think “unionised, brainwashed fuckwits who put their personal aspirations ahead of their students” are amongst their colleagues?
        
        tracey 9.2.2.1.1.4
        
        14 December 2017 at 8:30 am
        
        I have no respect for individually contracted, brainwashed fuckwits that put their personal financial and career aspirations ahead of their students.
        
        In Vino …
        
        14 December 2017 at 6:46 pm
        
        Very well-put, Tracey!
        
        greywarshark 9.2.2.1.1.5
        
        14 December 2017 at 3:25 pm
        
        Ian – You missed the ‘some of my best friends are teachers’ line. That’s a popular one to throw into an argument to make some sort of illusory point. Of the type that you specialise in.
        
        Tracey …
        
        14 December 2017 at 7:19 pm
        
        Cbuckling
        
        greywarshark …
        
        14 December 2017 at 9:29 pm
        
        Tracey
        I wish you lols over Christmas and New Year. Thanks for all you do on the blog.
        
        tracey …
        
        15 December 2017 at 4:08 pm
        
        Thanks greywarshark and the same to you and yours. May we all act with a little more kindness to each other in 2018
  - JanM 9.2.3
    
    14 December 2017 at 8:29 am
    
    Spouting that sort of tripe is simply feeding into the devious plot to downgrade the professionalism of teachers to make them the powerless servants of neoliberalism. They were meant to produce, not the creative reflective citizens who were able to make our world a better place, but ‘factory fodder’.
    The unintended consequence of this has been, of course, that teaching is no longer an attractive profession for the people with the intelligence and education to enter, so we have an impending crisis of numbers.
    Well done!!!
- ianmac 9.3
  
  13 December 2017 at 10:43 pm
  
  “However National Standards are not responsible for these poor educational outcomes. Standards are designed to measure outcomes….”
  Fair comment if only the National Standards did that. Well they don’t.
  Like saying which street is best? Rather depends on the criteria, who is judging, and how they are to be compared to others. That street is best but, but, but….
- Stuart Munro 9.4
  
  14 December 2017 at 2:29 am
  
  It’s surprising how much what you measure becomes what you do. Conforming to arbitrarily or worse, interestedly set standards will sabotage any non-standard strategies like tailoring lessons to a class or optimizing for acquisition or deep processing.
  
  I’ve spent a lot of time teaching in Korea, where measurement is required for every little thing. They spend more per capita on ELT than almost any other country, and for worse results. Try to run a little productive practice as an add-on and they demand assessment – which traumatizes the students and eats all your free time ensuring an objective measure.
greywarshark 10

13 December 2017 at 9:18 pm

The systems in education are set up as a way of educating the children. The National Standards set up a narrow pathway which was closely monitored and all children had to follow it.

The authorities decided that concentrating on the NS and the pathways to it was the most important part of education. If the children could not learn the required exercises, or rote learn, then they were not regarded as educated. The NS were very restrictive as all were expected to advance together like a herd.

Children who didn’t enjoy the restrictive NS teaching learned less than they would have normally because so much of the other subjects could not be taught until they had achieved the required NS. The answer is to keep teaching across the curriculum and give extra tutoring to help them understand the concepts for what replaces NS.
Incognito 11

13 December 2017 at 10:21 pm

National Standards was a restrictive straitjacket that prescribed a narrow normative model (one size fits all) that teachers and children had to conform to. It was about power & control; no wonder that National loved it so much, as if it was tailor-made for them …
- tracey 11.1
  
  14 December 2017 at 8:32 am
  
  It was a throwback to 50 years ago and was doomed to failure in the world today which bears no resemblance to that of yester-yore. Of course there are bad and lazy teachers. There are those in all professions. That is a giant red herring.
James 12

14 December 2017 at 2:58 pm

It seems to me, reading through the comments that most of the anti NS feeling is ideological and partisan. I have 4 children, a 20yo, currently a student at MIT and went through the NCEA system. a 7yo girl, 9yo boy and a 3yo girl.
As an involved parent in my children’s education and life, it has been an interesting journey so far. The NCEA system is deeply flawed and promoted mediocrity and an almost “anyone can pass” attitude from the schools, low on credits in one subject make them up somewhere else. Everyone’s a winner and even the most lazy 16 and 17yo’s in the south Auckland school my oldest son attended “achieved”.
The NS was a good way to measure where my younger two were at in relation to the rest of the kids in the country and was easy to see where we needed to do more work with our children at home as well as where the teachers need to direct that child. My 9yo boy is a high functioning Autistic student and has for his entire life been below NS for his age group, until a few months ago where he made the NS in reading for the first time.
Above Draco said “Only if you want to destroy some children’s belief in themselves. If you need to divide the community into haves and have-nots.”
This is rubbish, as at no time was my son made to feel like a have not because he was below nation standards. We simply put more time into his subjects that he was behind in. with my 7yo daughter she has been above and below NS and we have worked with her teacher on individual plans.
I truly believe that any fall in education standards is not due the NS as NS is only a measure.
- Robert Guyton 12.1
  
  14 December 2017 at 3:04 pm
  
  The effects of requiring this particular measure, National Standards, has contributed to the recent fall in education standards, no question about it.
- One Anonymous Bloke 12.2
  
  14 December 2017 at 3:11 pm
  
  Who cares what you believe? Children should be taught on the basis of sound pedagogy, not your reckons.
  
  The only comment you need to read to understand the issue is at 4.1.2.3.1.1.
  - James 12.2.1
    
    14 December 2017 at 4:21 pm
    
    Geez OAB, a bit harsh there… And hard to make out what your saying “Who cares what you believe? Children should be taught on the basis of sound pedagogy, not your reckons.”
    As you are a parent, is it NS that is making them not achieve, your parenting, the curriculum or the teacher? Also if your children are achieving well is that measured against NS or your idea of where the child should be.
    Is it OK to have an opinion that is not so ideologically aligned with yours?
    As a foot note, I spent my school life in the late 70’s and 80’s split between a Rudolf Steiner school (I was living next door to and went to school with Jeanette Fitzsimons and her children) and State school, both had their merits and drawbacks.
    But the real world is not all flowers and honey unlike my childhood growing up on a farm with hippy parents and an “off the grid lifestyle”.
    - tracey 12.2.1.1
      
      14 December 2017 at 5:02 pm
      
      The real world comes in many guises and does not conform to one perspective. By all means consider NS has been a success for your children. Another possibility is the teaching has been a success for your children and tgat NS was a method by which you coukd acknowledge it cos you didnt trust it was competent before NS?
      
      Individual plans, btw, are not unique to NS. They existed before as an integral part of teaching.
      
      You appear to conflate reporting to you against an external measure of “normal” with advancing your child’s learning.
    - One Anonymous Bloke 12.2.1.2
      
      14 December 2017 at 7:14 pm
      
      As a parent, my children travel across bridges, therefore civil engineers should take my reckons into account in their calculations.
      
      No? And poof! There goes the whole “parental anxiety trumps expertise” argument.
      
      The National Party creates a constituency for its ~~education policies~~ greedy vandalism by appealing to parental anxiety. Sharpen up.
      
      Edit: Is it OK to have an opinion that is not so ideologically aligned with yours?
      
      Sure it is. I am a self-described nobody – my reckons have no value whatsoever. I’m just not sure that pedagogy is ideology but.
      - tracey 12.2.1.2.1
        
        15 December 2017 at 4:09 pm
        
        Nice to point out a difference between ideology and pedagogy. Something Nats struggle with despite having a chief science advisor
- tracey 12.3
  
  14 December 2017 at 4:58 pm
  
  Where is he in non reading areas?
  
  You know the work you did with the teacher? Multiply that by the number of children in tge class. Imagine most of your class has english as a second language. Now think about those individual plans and working with each set of parents etc… none of which is time spent preparing lessons and teaching, going to meetings, doing duty.
greywarshark 13

14 December 2017 at 7:15 pm

teachers who have supportive family up till now may spend evening hours up till 11 pm working on keeping up with NS requirements. Most will like to put that time into planning interesting new lesson plans that will be enjoyed and advance the children through their age-specific learning.