New school year, new educational nonsense
New Zealand’s education system is once again being subjected to political tinkering disguised as reform. With the school year barely underway, the Government has announced a return to twice-yearly reporting on Reading, Writing, and Mathematics — a policy that echoes failed reforms of the past. This article examines why these recycled ideas didn’t work before, why they won’t work now, and what is being lost when education is reduced to a narrow set of political talking points.
Well, here we go again. The school year has barely started and we are already being dumped on with loads of educational nonsense. I see I’m going to be busy!
The Return of National Standards by Another Name
Let’s start with advanced stupidity. A couple of days ago, Erica Stanford, Minister of Education (remember her – she’s the educational expert who learned everything she knows from reading one book) accompanied by the bloke masquerading as the Prime Minister (actually Minister of Spotify playlists – seems he knows more about Spotify than he does about running a country, the activities of his cabinet members, or an airline for that matter) made this stupendous announcement about requiring schools to report to parents twice a year on progress in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics (way back last century known as the 3 Rs).
Wow, this is a major advance in education. Whoever would have thought this would so easy. Apparently parents have been asking for better reporting on how their children are doing at school and so Erica has obliged. Good on her, right?
We’ve Been Here Before: National Standards Under National Governments
Except, we’ve heard this refrain before, back when Anne Tolley and Hekia Parata were Ministers of Education in the years of the John Key led governments, when the solution to all the country’s supposed educational woes would be cured by the introduction of National Standards of Achievement in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. And to cap this off, schools would be required to report on children’s progress twice a year, because parents had been asking for this.
If It Worked Then, Why Is It Being Reintroduced Now?
A question that I hope someone can intelligently answer (that rules out a number of the people who usually comment on my articles, right Bob?) – if this plan was so successful back in 2009 and onwards, how come it has to be introduced again? And don’t fall for the usual cop out answer of blaming the 2017 – 2023 Labour led governments, as they didn’t make any substantive changes. Plans were in place but these were not fully implemented by the time they lost office (yet another example of that government not actually getting things done.)
What was found, back in 2017, was that starting about 2009, there was a sudden drop in children’s achievement in these subject areas. Coincidence of course.
But since then Erica has read a book and now things will be different.
Schools Already Report — And They Used To Do It Better
What she ignores is that schools have always been required to report twice a year on student progress, in far more comprehensive ways than Erica’s simple three subject reports. In the past, prior to the National Standards era, reports covered all subject areas, not just the three Rs. Further, most/all schools also held parent-teacher conferences where teachers and parents could go through a child’s progress in detail, discuss successes and concerns, and plan a way forward. Far more valuable than marks on a piece of paper.
What Parents and Grandparents Are Actually Missing
As a grandparent I’m always very interested in how my grandkids are doing at school and I like seeing their school reports. Without fail, these days, I’m left scratching my head, feeling somewhat cheated, as the reports are so shallow, limited to ranking children’s progress against set criteria, and I really have little idea of how they are doing beyond these rankings.
The Disappearing Curriculum: Science, Social Studies, Arts and Physical Education
I’m always left feeling shortchanged about the minimal or no coverage of the other subjects like science, which was, back in my teaching days, my favourite area to teach. Likewise with Social Studies, which seems to have disappeared, even though a strong case can be made of its valuable role in helping children learn about how people live and meet their needs, both here and overseas. The current state of our world would suggest that this is a huge deficiency in children’s learning.
As for the Arts, where are they? Without the Arts, our world would indeed be a very shallow and bland place, mind you, maybe this would suit the government and their overseas string pullers?
What about Physical Education?
Apparently Erica and government does not see a role for them in our children’s education, or if there is any role, they are subservient to the need to spend the bulk of each school day drilling (and rote learning) in the golden trio of Reading, Mathematics and Writing, focusing, as far as I understand, on the technical aspects of writing, and downplaying the creative side of writing, which is a subset of the Arts.
Why Politicians Keep Using Education as a Political Weapon
What we must not overlook, in spite of all the spin, is that politicians see education as a vote catcher, recognising that parents are naturally concerned that their children receive the best possible education. This is especially so on the conservative side of politics who always want to stay anchored to traditions (definition of conservatism). Promoting schools as failing and therefore requiring drastic changes to improve things, is a common refrain, especially from the parties on the right and especially in this neoliberal world. Dr Nick Smith was peddling this back in 1999, a quarter of a century ago.
The Case for Removing Politicians from Education Policy
You’d think we would have learned by now that the best way forward, as I wrote in my previous article, is to kick politicians out of education and leave it to qualified experts to design and manage an education system that meets 21st century needs, not the memories of politicians educated last century.
This is something I will cover in my next article.
Erica Stanford is doing a remarkable job, with educational standards improving across the board.
Conservatives don’t particularly want a well-educated population. They want someone who is okay a basic reading and maths, but on the whole they just want robots for capitalism. Preferably not interested in learning about the wider world.
The education system over the past few years has not turned out good work force material
yep all learned under the national standards failure system .Where they learnd how to be followers not inovaters
Sorry, Allan: If we get the three R’s right we are already 80 to 90% of the way there of what an education should accomplish. To think otherwise is first world privilege.
Exactly, Mark. It’s the remaining 20% that is essential to a developing well educated population.
If we get the three Rs right and nothing else, students will at least leave school equipped with the skills to be productive citizens and get a decent job and contribute to society.
The problem there is an issue with the three Rs at the moment and that is where massive focus should be directed. I have seen it first hand in students not even being able to get direct access to polytechnic engineering programmes because of inadequacy in this area
The other 10 to 20 percent is a nice to have, but let’s concentrate first on getting the basics right.
You appear not to deny the importance of the three R’s and I don’t deny the importance of a well rounded education. But much of the remaining 20 percent relies on competency in the three Rs.
My daughter did a philosophy degree along with her commerce. She loves literature and philosophy, developed from being an avid reader from her very early years. The enjoyment of reading naturally arises only if one has the ability to read well. At the same time while not being exceptional at maths, and not being much interested in it, she has firm capabilities in numeracy developed at high school (she want to an excellent school that concentrated on this, she did Cambridge exams) and this has served her well in her finance career.
Are these not the kind of opportunities you want for all students, regardless their socio economic background? Yet they are readily achievable without requiring a huge amount of resource, so long as the dedication is there among educators.
The Soviets and Chinese communists, regardless of whatever else you think of them, achieved spectacular results in raising literacy levels in their respective countries, on far fewer resources than we in what is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world. This laid the essential foundation for industrialization.
My childhood in the 1960s with 3 brothers and 2 sisters and no TV is nothing like what modern families face although we did all learn to read very well and still read today. Technology has complicated children’s lives and parents are often responsible for the introduction of habits that hinder rather than advance their children’s education. While schools and especially politicians can be blamed for the failures in education it is unfair to make them fully responsible for poor results. Good parents tend to have well educated children although the list of reasons that limit the number of good parents is complicated. I would place economic conditions as a major factor although other values are important as well.