Still No League Table Protection

2nd October 2009 For Immediate Release

Still No League Table Protection

The education union NZEI Te Riu Roa says it is disappointing to see the government sticking to its agenda and failing to give guarantees over protecting National Standards data on children’s learning.

The Ministry of Education is now seeking tender proposals for a monitoring and evaluation project in relation to the new National Standards of achievement. It says the contractor will collect, store, analyse and report on a range of data to provide monitoring and evaluative information about how a sample of schools are implementing the standards.

There has been overwhelming concern from the education sector about the potential for national standards data to be misused and published in the form of simplistic school league tables which are not in the interest of student learning.

NZEI Vice President Ian Leckie says “surely this would have been the ideal opportunity for the government to signal its intention to guarantee data protection and prevent league table production. Teachers and principals are still looking for that assurance and the government could find the implementation of National Standards compromised if protection is not given. It’s their bottom line.”

He says this project, which will run for three years and involve a sample of about 150 schools, could be used to provide a model or blueprint on National Standards data collection, storage and analysis nationwide.

Ian Leckie says there is also a danger that too much focus is being placed on National Standards at a time when schools should be concentrating on implementing the revised curriculum.

“The curriculum must be what drives learning yet it is being sidelined in favour of National Standards which schools will feel pressured to teach to, and report on,” he says.

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