No doubt in election year, the battle over “Standards” will be loud and polarised.
A lot of boards, parents and teachers around New Zealand are uncertain whether the National Standards can provide accurate and meaningful information about pupils’ educational achievement.
Their concerns are not unfounded. There are problems with the design and implementation of these particular standards.
However, these concerns are not enough to warrant scrapping the idea of national literacy and numeracy standards, as will undoubtedly be suggested in election year.
Handled correctly, National Standards could really improve New Zealand’s education system.
New Zealand should have a set of national literacy and numeracy standards because they can enable parents and educators to compare the performance of pupils, or groups of pupils, at their school or with pupils throughout the country.
Prior to the National Standards, New Zealand did not have a nationally consistent report of all pupils’ progress. This is helpful information but the current National Standards are deficient in certain ways.
First, the standards were the victim of committee design. They are essentially inventions; abstract statements of what the experts think pupils can achieve in relation to the New Zealand Curriculum.
Being based on the curriculum is advantageous insofar as the standards can fit within day-to-day classroom teaching and do not require pupils to sit separate national standardised tests.
The pitfalls
However, a big danger of using standards designed in the abstract is that different teachers can interpret the standards differently.
Assessing pupils against the National Standards relies heavily on the quality of teachers’ judgements, and a consistent report within and across schools relies on every teacher having a common understanding.
This problem can be solved with professional development but there is neither sufficient time nor money to do so.
The current standards also fall short in the way they measure the growth in pupils’ learning. Again the benchmarks are set based on what experts think children should achieve based on their school year.
The reporting assumes a linear progression, when we know that different children actually start at different points and progress at different rates.
The ‘normal’ progression of children does not necessarily correlate well with the way the reporting is set up. It would be preferable for standards to show growth based on whether students are making adequate progress in relation to what is normal for the pupil population, rather than in relation to expectations of year level progress.
It would be a shame for the concept of National Standards to go down with a policy that has not been perfectly designed or implemented. They are an excellent idea and can be improved upon.
Schools, teachers and parents should move forward with National Standards, and argue for the Government to make improvements that would see them become a New Zealand education success story.
In the long run, the benefits for education in New Zealand could be significant.
