No to National’s secret league tables
Principals in threat to boycott standards
Hundreds of primary school principals are threatening to boycott the Government's flagship national standards policy unless changes are made to limit public access to performance data. A teachers' union claims the Government has backtracked on its timetable to introduce the numeracy and literacy standards, delaying their implementation 12 months until 2011. Education Minister Anne Tolley denied the claims yesterday and said she was disappointed by the principals' ultimatum, which comes at the end of six weeks' consultation between the Government, education groups and parents.
Anne Tolley wants league tables so that she can create another level of competition between schools, the problem is that there is a lot of research material that shows educational levels of children are near impossible to rank because as children develop at very different stages. National doesn’t care about that, they care about competition and the free market and believe having league tables for Primary Schools can create that competition, even if the data is totally unreliable. Primary Schools HAVE to boycott this, amendments have been suggested that would hide the identity of the school from where the information will come from, but Anne Tolley has turned that down because despite her claims that she isn’t creating a league table, she actually is and intends to release the information the second she has it.
The privatization agenda of National can’t be allowed to pollute primary schools.
posted by Bomber @ 7:23 am
2 comments
2 Comments:
I have just read the latest editorial in Listener and was appalled at the attack on the hard working professionals that run our schools. Where does this right wing Neocon Idea that we can run our education system under a business model come from? The concept of reducing a complex process such as education to a list of numbers is ludicrous. If parents want to know how their children's education is going, a good place to start is to talk to them and their teachers.Maybe take the time to read the ERO report that is done every 3 years in all schools.
Well said Paul.
I suspect I may differ from you though in that I have no problem with National Standards in primary schools. But any reporting needs to be on an individual childs progress (or lack therof) by the childs teacher directly with parents. Not comparing a child against other children or other schools, but instead as to where theirex child is at with their learning.
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