Drop National Standards following damning survey - NZEI

Drop National Standards following damning survey - NZEI

12 December 2016

EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 13

Research showing less than 16 percent of teachers think National Standards have had a positive impact on student achievement is the latest evidence that the standards are not working and should be dropped, NZEI Te Riu Roa says.

A New Zealand Council for Educational Research survey of principals and teachers showed their opinions of National Standards had dropped further over the past three years. Less than a quarter said the standards provided a good picture of student learning - down from 37 percent in 2013 - and only 20 percent said the standards helped motivate students to take on new challenges.

"This survey deals a huge blow to the credibility of National Standards and shows how dangerous it would be to use them as the basis of any future school funding system," NZEI president Louise Green said.

"National Standards have failed to achieve the two purposes they were set up for - lifting achievement, and giving parents better information about the progress of their children.

"Its bad enough that the standards are not useful for lifting achievement, or measuring progress, they also offer little to students with additional learning needs - the very group we were told they were supposed to help.

"Teachers have tried hard to make the standards work since they were introduced seven years ago and if they were helping children learn better we'd embrace them, but they're not.

The survey follows recent international assessment findings that New Zealand children's scores in maths and reading had dropped since the standards had been introduced.

"If National Standards have failed to lift achievement, don't provide good information for teachers or parents, and are demotivating for students, the obvious solution is to drop them.

"Parents deserve good quality information about their children's progress, children deserve a modern, broad curriculum that motivates them to learn, and teachers deserve the best teaching tools. National Standards fails on all fronts," Ms Green said.

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