National Standards

Imposing National Standards on bi-lingual and ESOL students amounts to cultural bullying and will do nothing to help them become competent learners, says the education sector union NZEI.

NZEI says an evaluation report into National Standards counters government claims that concern about National Standards is confined to a small group of politically-driven activists.

The School Sample Monitoring and Evaluation Project 2010 carried out for the MoE shows an overwhelming number of principals and boards of trustees have concerns about the unintended consequences of National Standards and those concerns have increased over time.

The impact of National Standards in schools is to be studied as part of a three year project involving some of the world’s leading educational researchers.

The ‘Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards’ (RAINS) project is being funded by NZEI Te Riu Roa and will be led by Professor Martin Thrupp from the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato. 

NZEI says expert research on National Standards backs up the deep concern being expressed by principals and teachers and proves that they are doing thousands of children a disservice.
The New Zealand Council for Educational Research has found that about 35 per cent of Year 8 students will not reach the National Standard in maths despite making normal or satisfactory progress for their age on the Progressive Achievement Test.

There is widespread concern about the large number of students who are under achieving in education and leaving school without suitable qualifications for tertiary study or employment.

Faculty of Education Professor John Hattie and the Visible Learning Lab at The University of Auckland will run national standards workshops for teachers in 2010.

With just two weeks before schools reopen, the implementation of the government's National Standards hangs in the balance, says the union NZEI.

This is an opinion piece from Martin Thrupp of the University of Waikato, the second part of two looking at the consultation of the National Standards that are currently underway.

Over the next two weeks we have an opinion piece from Martin Thrupp of the University of Waikato, looking at the consultation that is underway for the National Standards.