Further evidence National Standards need to go

Further evidence National Standards need to go for the sake of children’s education

3 June 2015

National Standards continue to damage children’s education and the government needs to urgently drop its failed experiment.

NZEI National President Louise Green says the latest report from the Ministry of Education is further evidence that National Standards are a waste of valuable teaching time.

It backs up an earlier report by the Ministry as well as findings in 2013 by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research which found that almost 90 percent of principals and teachers believed National Standards were an unreliable measurement of student performance.

The report points to a lack of dependability around the National Standards assessments.

“This is because a computer tool which pigeonholes a child's achievement cannot replace the professional judgement of a teacher working alongside a student on a daily basis.

“What this tells us once again is that we need to stop wasting time on inaccurate and damaging assessments and allow teachers to spend more time on real teaching and learning.”

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