Maxim Institute - real issues - No. 255

Maxim Institute - real issues - No 255 Real Issues No. 255 31 May 2007

THE NEW AND IMPROVED NCEA?
STATING THE OBVIOUS DIVORCE MORE DIFFICULT FOR MEN

IN THE NEWS AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH SUGGESTS MORE FLEXIBILITY IS NEEDED IN TEACHER PAY ASIA-PACIFIC INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

THE NEW AND IMPROVED NCEA?

Education Minister, Steve Maharey, has finally unveiled a number of significant changes to the NCEA this week. The main changes will aim to tackle persistent problems, and include: introducing excellence and merit grades to NCEA certificates; introducing grades for subject areas; and including not achieved grades in NCEA results notices for all achievement standards, not just external exams. There will also be a rise in the number of internally assessed standards which face external moderation. The changes, long desired by schools and educationalists, are a step in the right direction to improve the reporting of information about achievement, but they still leave unresolved a number of other problems with the NCEA.

One of the major reported problems with NCEA, quantified in research in 2006, was the demotivation caused by the lack of merit and excellence grades—pupils were only given achieved or not achieved grades in final NCEA results. While reporting the higher grades of merit and excellence is touted as a way to motivate pupils to strive for higher achievement, in reality the change does nothing to prevent the practice of “credit collecting,” where pupils work the system by pursuing the minimum of 80 credits needed to pass an NCEA level in easy subjects, meaning they can slack off, or miss out parts of a course.

Another nagging shortcoming of the changes relates to the way achievement standards are set and examined. NZQA and the Ministry of Education will still produce achievement standards, which have been criticised in the past for being too vague; especially in failing to distinguish between higher achievement at merit and excellence levels. Consequently, too much pressure remains on teachers and examiners to arrive at a common understanding of the standards pupils are supposed to be achieving. Disagreement leads to confusion and variability in the marking.

More precise procedures should be used to set the standards. Methods such as pre-testing of questions and “bookmarking,” where specimens of pupils’ assessment are examined to define the boundaries around each grade, would help define the standards better. Using externally assessed achievement standards to moderate the internally assessed ones would also help improve reliability. These measures would vastly improve the accuracy of NCEA grades, and would give pupils more concrete targets to aim for.

The debacle of NCEA has shown that the ideology of standards-based assessment is not a suitable basis for an excellent “world-class” qualification. However, it is the system that we have. Hopefully, these changes will begin to restore confidence in the NCEA among pupils, parents, teachers and employers. Despite this, more work is needed before the NCEA can become the precise meaningful qualification pupils and parents deserve.

STATING THE OBVIOUS

Media campaigns increasingly clutter up our TV screens, instructing us not to gamble to excess, not to overindulge in drink, not to drink and then drive, not to speed, to watch intersections, and not to smoke. Recently announced additions to this parade of government preachiness include new ads for KiwiSaver, new pictorial warnings on cigarette packets, and this week, the government announced a new campaign to encourage healthy eating.

It may seem harmless to address social evils by the use of “education campaigns,” and indeed, many of the campaigns on issues like drink driving and smoking have had beneficial effects. But the provision of public information does not replace the personal motivation, character and ability to do the right thing—telling people to do something through advertising is no substitute for modelling it in real life.

The provision of “positive messages” and the relentless repetition of the obvious is actually the preserve not of advertising executives, but of parents and families. Rather than having a government ad campaign to tell us to make healthy choices, do the right thing, “wash our faces and tie our laces,” we should be focusing on the modelling and fostering of healthy lifestyles where it matters—in families. Too often, “education” is the reflexive response to a social problem, as if the problem is rooted in ignorance, and all that is needed is a sound byte to hit the ignorant with the obvious. Is anyone living in New Zealand today really unaware that smoking is bad for you? Is it really not clear that parents should be “eating together as a family…involving children in the preparation of meals, and promoting milk and water as the first choice for children, instead of sweet drinks”?

The problem is not always ignorance, but the lack of personal motivation to make healthy choices, to put down the cigarette packet and pick up the broccoli. That motivation is primarily a result of individual choice and the formation of the heart and the conscience. As the messages advertising throws at us become more and more obvious, it is difficult not to wonder what is going so wrong that the formation of character and virtue is being left to the TV. Perhaps it is time we looked at a more intimate and real form of education—the education which occurs in families, neighbourhoods and communities, where virtue and healthy choices are modelled and valued, not just preached.

DIVORCE MORE DIFFICULT FOR MEN

Research just released in Canada confirms the results of many international studies which indicate divorce is associated with higher rates of depression for adults. The study, Marital Breakdown and Subsequent Depression, also shows that men are more likely than women to be depressed following a divorce. The study relied on data from around 17,000 Canadian men and women. The results showed that after controlling for changes in household income, levels of social support, age, number of children in the household, employment status, history of depression and educational attainment, men who divorced were three and a half times more likely to be depressed than those who remained married. Similarly, women who had divorced were twice as likely to exhibit depressive symptoms following divorce, compared to women who stayed married.

The author of the study noted that differing levels of social support networks for men and women were one of the primary reasons for this difference. This is because while men typically rely on their spouse for support, women tend to have better support networks they can rely on at such times. Accordingly 19 percent of the men who divorced indicated a decline in levels of social support, whereas only 11 percent of women did. In contrast, only six percent of men who stayed married indicated a decline in social support and five percent of women.

There remains some uncertainty as to whether divorce actually caused the higher rates of depression shown in the study, or if there were unmeasured characteristics that led to those symptoms. There are also limitations in the methods of data collection and gathering used which moderate the conclusions we can draw. Nevertheless, the results of this study highlight the fact that even though men are stereotyped as being less emotional than women, everyone relies on social support and friendship, especially at difficult times. The study also adds to growing evidence that happiness is strongly connected to the quality of our relationships. In a society that spends an increasing amount of time on up-skilling, training and developing to achieve career goals, it is a reminder of the need to prioritise learning about the significance and dynamics of human relationships and marriage.

Read Marital Breakdown and Subsequent Depression http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-003-XIE/82-003-XIE2006006.pdf

IN THE NEWS

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH SUGGESTS MORE FLEXIBILITY IS NEEDED IN TEACHER PAY

A new study by researchers at the Australian National University has found that teacher quality can have a significant effect on how well pupils learn and that the impact of teachers on pupil performance can be accurately measured. This research is the first in this area to be done in Australia or New Zealand. The research suggests that attracting high quality teachers into the profession is imperative. It also shows that flexible pay structures, where teachers’ performance is taken into account, are possible. Good teachers, and good teaching, should be rewarded, and we are running out of excuses for not doing just that.

Read Estimating Teacher Effectiveness From Two-Year Changes in Students’ Test Scores http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/TQPanel.pdf

ASIA-PACIFIC INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

The difficulties of language and interpretation have been highlighted this week, as Bishop Brian Tamaki and others have debated the meaning of the term “established.”

After a lengthy process of drafting, a National Statement on Religious Diversity has been presented to the Asia-Pacific Interfaith Dialogue, held at Waitangi this week. The statement includes the legal fact that New Zealand has no historically established or official religion in the same way as, for example, England and Scotland does, but it also recognises that the Christian heritage of New Zealand is important. While some have suggested that New Zealand’s de-facto Christian ethic should be enough to “establish” it as an official religion, this is contrary to a traditional understanding of the concept of a “state” religion. When settlers arrived from the UK they deliberately broke with the British tradition of a state church, instead opting for a more organic approach which contains religious elements, but does not privilege any denomination or church.

Read the National Statement on Religious Diversity http://www.hrc.co.nz/hrc_new/hrc/cms/files/documents/25-May-2007_08-24-50_NSRD_booklet.pdf

TALKING POINT

"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions." Edward Murrow

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