Holdouts on standards risk penalty

Schools were repeatedly warned they had until the start of this month to send in their charters. Photo / Thinkstock

More than 300 schools are risking statutory intervention after failing to send in National Standards targets to the Ministry of Education.

Schools were repeatedly warned they had until the start of this month to send in their charters, which had to include information about what National Standard targets they hoped to achieve by the end of the year.

Ministry figures released to the Herald yesterday show that 102 schools have still not sent in their charters, while 237 others failed to include information about the controversial standards.

A further 455 charters are still to be assessed to see if they contain the required targets - an estimate of how many students a school thinks will meet the standards in reading, writing and maths by the end of the year.

The ministry's regional education programme manager, Pauline Cleaver, said a number of the schools that had not yet submitted their charters were in Christchurch and "have clearly had delays in their planning processes".

She said the ministry would offer support to those boards requiring further aid to develop a 2011 charter.

Others might be required to implement an action plan showing how they would complete and submit their charters.

However, Education Minister Anne Tolley has taken a tougher stance against those who failed to meet the ministry's deadlines.

She said there was a process that was being worked through to help school boards develop compliant charters but the next step was to appoint an adviser under section 78K of the Education Act - a section which relates to statutory intervention.

It was, however, too early to "determine whether we do need to step in and replace the board" of schools which continued to not comply - something that has been threatened in the past.

Ian Leckie, president of the NZEI educational union, said hundreds of schools were refusing to include National Standards data in their charters because they knew it would produce unreliable information.

The schools were instead sticking with "trusted and evidence-based" assessment data they had always used.

Mr Leckie said many schools were complying with the charter demands only out of fear of having their boards sacked or losing funding.

Mrs Tolley has been consistently attacked by the union and labour's education spokeswoman, Sue Moroney, over National Standards.

Last week in Parliament, Ms Moroney asked the minister if it was correct that it would take two years to get to the point where 80 per cent of teacher judgments would be consistent using National Standards.

Mrs Tolley replied that it was.

Ms Moroney said that meant one in every five children was likely to be incorrectly assessed and potentially labelled as a failure.

"That is the harsh reality of a top-down system which is unwanted, unsupported and ultimately likely to damage our children's education."

However, Mrs Tolley said National Standards were being introduced over a three-year phase and this year - the second - was focused on moderation of overall teacher judgments.

"The aim is to get to 100 per cent as soon as possible, hence all the resources and professional development for teachers."

SCHOOL CHARTERS

* 1978 (95.2%) of schools have submitted their charters, 102 have refused.

* Of the 1523 charters that have been assessed, 237 didn't include the required National Standards information.

* So far, a total of 339 schools have not complied and will face further action from the ministry that could eventually lead to statutory intervention.