From 2025, testing will assess reading, writing and maths annually for Years 3, 6 and 8. New entrants will facea phonics check to help teachers understand how well they can read.
The initiative forms part of the Government’s strategy to get 80% of students “at curriculum” by the time they reach high school.
Richard Prebble is a former Labour Party minister and Act Party leader. He currently holds several directorships.
OPINION
Howls of protest greeted Education Minister Erica Stanford’s announcement that, from next year, all pupils’ progress will be measured by standardised tests.
For Years 1 and 2,children will be checked for whether they can read words by sounding out letters. For Years 3-8, reading, writing and maths will be tested.
The teachers’ union said “children and school communities are not standard”. One principal claimed teachers were already monitoring progress and another said the proposal was “Eurocentric”. Labour says it is a “backward step” towards National Standards.
As a parent, I received rosy school reports. When my daughter went to secondary school, we discovered her primary school had not taught her the maths syllabus. As an MP, I heard similar stories from many parents.
Objective assessment is not a European invention. How do parents at that principal’s school know whether learning reading, writing and maths is ignored as being “Eurocentric”?
Standardised tests by themselves will not reverse the decline in educational achievement but, as the educator and management consultant Peter Drucker famously observed: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
The new Government is requiring primary schools to spend an hour every day on each of reading, writing and maths. Only by standardised testing will we know if the extra tuition lifts outcomes.
We know our education achievement is falling, not from school reports but from standardised testing.
New Zealand participates in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Every three years, we compare what 15-year-old New Zealand pupils know with pupils from 81 other nations.
The first report of the 2022 Pisa has been released. It is a report on the Labour Government’s record.
Pisa assesses reading, maths, science and creative thinking. The tests are not just what pupils know but whether they can use that knowledge to solve everyday issues they will encounter as adults. Has compulsory schooling equipped the pupils for life?
The report states New Zealand’s Pisa results must be regarded as suspect. We failed to test the required cross-section of 15-year-olds because of “chronic absenteeism”. The report notes the failure to test chronically absent pupils probably inflated our Pisa results in reading by 10 points.
Pisa has identified the biggest single reason for our declining achievement. It is hard to learn if you do not go to school. The test results are support for the Government’s emphasis on lifting attendance.
The 2022 Pisa results are sobering; “unprecedented drops in mathematics and reading point to the shock effect of Covid-19 on most countries”.
“Trend analysis of Pisa results reveals a decades-long decline that began well before the pandemic … reading and science performances peaked in 2012 and 2009 … while performance began a downward descent in mathematics before 2018 in … New Zealand.”
Standardised testing gives insights we could not otherwise have. The report found that: “Students who spent up to one hour per day on digital devices for learning activities in school scored 14 points higher in mathematics than students who spent no time, even after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile.”
Computer-assisted learning for maths works well.
“Yet technology used for leisure,” notes the report, “rather than instruction, such as mobile phones, often seems to be associated with poorer results.”
Education Minister Erica Stanford wants to get 80% of students “at curriculum” level by the time they reach high school. Photo: RNZ
Pisa is support for the ban on mobile phones in school.
Pisa’s standardised tests reveal that neither money spent nor class sizes are as important as teacher quality.
“For many OECD countries … there is no relationship between extra investment and student performance. Countries like Korea and Singapore have demonstrated that it is possible to establish a top-tier education system … by prioritising the quality of teaching over the size of classes.”
More than half of all new primary school teachers have not achieved the basic level in compulsory science required of 15-year-olds. Lifting the quality of teaching must be a priority.
Singapore scored the best results in the 2022 Pisa.
The good news is that New Zealand is just above the OECD average for reading, maths and science.
Now the bad. The test gives each country a mark. Singapore top scored in maths with 575. New Zealand scored 479. Singapore scored 543 in reading, New Zealand 501. In science, Singapore received 561 and New Zealand 504. Remember our results are inflated because we failed to test chronically absent pupils.
What is alarming is the decline. The first Pisa test was in 1997. New Zealand’s scores in reading have since fallen 44 points and 28 points in maths and science.
What gets measured gets improved.
In requiring standardised assessment from Year 1, the Government has taken an important step towards turning education achievement around.
