School Boards to deliver No to National Standards

BOARDS TAKING ACTION COALITION
MEDIA ADVISORY
June 29 2011

School Boards to deliver message to Ministry of Education: No to National Standards

Groups of boards from primary schools around New Zealand will defy the Government’s National Standards policy and hand-deliver their school charters without National Standards targets to Ministry of Education regional offices on Friday July 1 at 10am.

The schools, part of the Boards Taking Action Coalition, have instead set targets using existing and reliable achievement data.

“There are serious issues with the reliability of the Standards. The Coalition’s view is that target setting using the Standards is unsafe and unfair to students and their learning. Any data made publicly available from these Standards will be invalid,” Simon Mitchell, the Auckland region co-spokesperson for BTAC says. “We are choosing instead to set targets for our students using trusted and reliable data, and including clear school expectations in our charters based on what is appropriate and defensible.”

“New Zealand is in the top four in the world for student achievement. What we need is to focus resources on the children we already know are at risk, not sink more money into Standards that are fuzzy and unreliable and lead to the labelling of children as failures.”

Peter Bateman, the co-spokesperson for the Auckland region, says schools shouldn't be made to implement unsound educational policy.

“Excellent evidence-based student assessment tools already exist and are widely used by schools to help identify children who need additional help. National Standards are an unnecessary duplication and waste financial and personnel resources which could be used to help schools with interventions directed at specific students.”

BTAC says the number of schools supporting BTAC in spite of the Government’s punitive approach is a clear indication that their concerns cannot simply be dismissed or ignored.

BTAC urges the Minister of Education to reverse this policy and engage in a more productive and inclusive approach with schools to boost student achievement.

ENDS

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