Parents Warned National Standards Misleading

Parents Warned National Standards Misleading

‘A new set of league tables ranking primary schools according to their national standards results will soon be made public,’ said Philip Harding, President of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation.

‘Let’s be quite clear,’ said Harding, ‘the profession continues to have no confidence in the reliability of the standards and nor does the Minister’s own advisory group,’ he said. ‘To use them as a measure of a school’s effectiveness is quite irresponsible and besides there are many factors other than national standards that contribute to a school’s success,’ he said.

The profession has publicly voiced its reasons for having no confidence in the standards many times.

‘The standards need a full review and insufficient professional development has accompanied their introduction. Further there are likely to be negative effects on children labelled below the standards and these are likely to affect their engagement with learning and their on-going progress,’ said Harding

The Minister’s own ‘National Standards Aggregate Results Advisory Group’ agrees with these statements and is also recommending a review of the standards policy.

ENDS

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