No “Deal” On National Standards And League Tables

14th October 2009
For Immediate Release

There Is No “Deal” On National Standards And League Tables

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says categorically that no deal has been struck over National Standards and league tables.

The Education Minister Anne Tolley is reported as saying that the government and sector groups have held breakthrough talks and struck a deal on the introduction of National Standards. She also said the government will make it as difficult as possible for the media to use National Standards data to compile league tables.

NZEI President Frances Nelson says a meeting was held yesterday but absolutely no deals were done.

“What did happen is that the Minister, the Ministry and representatives from sector groups including NZEI, the Principals Federation and the School Trustees Association, agreed to work together to nut out some of the issues around National Standards. That is very different from formal deals being negotiated.”

National Standards of literacy and numeracy are being introduced into schools next year. NZEI says despite concerns over the haste in which they are being implemented, principals and teachers know they will have to work with them.

However Frances Nelson says their bottom line is that National Standards assessment information is not collected in such a way that it can be used to create simplistic tables to compare and rank schools.

Overseas research shows that league tables harm student learning as they do not provide a fair picture of a school or how its students are achieving in terms of progress or improvement made.

Frances Nelson says “far from deals being done, there is still a lot of work and discussion ahead to ensure that the government continues to listen to the sector’s concerns about how National Standards will actually fit into schools and to work out exactly how the assessment data can be protected.”

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