Expert Research Backs Up National Standards Concer

Expert Research Backs Up National Standards Concern

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa 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 percent 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.

“Principals and teachers have been expressing concern about this mismatch since the National Standards were released. The research confirms that our concern has not been misplaced and identifies some of the problems we have been flagging.”

“We all want to raise the achievement of our students but this report shows that rather than targeting underachieving students, National Standards call into question the progress of the average student and tell perfectly competent children that they are failing. The result will be to paint a very distorted and misleading picture of the underachieving tail.”

The Government says that National Standards have been designed so that students who meet them will be on track to achieve NCEA Level 2.

“That’s not going to make any sense to the majority of Year 8 students who will simply take away the message that they are below Standard,” says Ms Nelson.

“The real consequence is that children are being penalised for not meeting a set of National Standards which are untrialled and don’t have enough evidence to support confidence in them.”

Once again NZEI is calling on the Government to set up a robust process in which teachers and principals can be involved in sorting out the ongoing confusion around National Standards.

ENDS

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