Ernie Buutveld: Govt plans for schools won't tell full story

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Almost every primary school principal is opposed to any move that could see children and schools compared in a high-stakes environment in the form of league tables because of the serious damage it can cause to quality teaching and learning.

The ability for such tables to be prepared and thus create a high-stakes environment will be possible next year following the Government's decision to introduce new national standards for schools should safeguards not be built in.

League tables report on very narrow aspects within just two curriculum areas. These are maths and English.

They assume that a school ranked higher than its neighbour is performing better. They assume better teaching. But this tells nothing like the full story.

Parents deserve access to all the assessment information schools gather on their child. Reporting should also give them a clear idea where their child fits in relation to others of a similar age and stage across the country.

If the process stopped with reporting individual achievement in plain language to parents and aggregated school data to the board, principals would support the proposed standards as potentially they are a useful tool promoting teaching and learning.

If national standards data as well as classroom observations are used by teachers to reflect and improve their practice, student achievement will rise. But if the gathered data is used to create a high-stakes league tables environment, it will undermine critical teaching processes and will narrow the curriculum. The overseas experience shows that teachers will teach to the standards and prepare children better to achieve where the measurement becomes so important. That means other curriculum areas will suffer because teachers will be judged purely on what is measured.

The impact on children will be just as stark. Overseas reports tell us that many children suffer anxiety, avoid test days and are disengaged from their learning. The current debate often fails to mention what might be best for children. Raising the stakes by publishing a school's achievement data represents a huge threat to our internationally acclaimed new national curriculum.

Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in Britain, says: "None of these [improved] educational outcomes is achieved or enhanced by ... ... league tables. But rather they are the result of enlightened school leadership and effective classroom teaching across the full range of the national curriculum."

If parents want schools to foster the self-esteem and confidence of their child, whilst exposing them to the delights of music, the arts, sport, taha Maori and technology, they need to consider how schools will respond in this imposed new environment.

At the recent international assessment symposium in Queenstown, the experts advised Education Minister Anne Tolley that "the purpose of assessment is to develop the whole child; as people, as learners, as life-long learners, as good people - it is bigger than achievement".

The context in which many parents will judge these ideas will be their memories of their schooling in the last century. They will have memories of classrooms where the teacher stood up the front and poured knowledge down the throats of sometimes unwilling learners, even with the use of force.

These were classrooms where working together was called cheating and where computers and the internet were science fiction. This industrial model prevailed for over 100 years.

Schools produced leavers who expected to hold one job for life. They expected to retire at 60 on a decent pension. But things have changed since then.

Boston recently wrote: "Future employability skills are the product of a well-rounded education. The creation, growth, maturation, and possession of the skills required to succeed in employment in adult life depend on good teaching of a broad and enriched curriculum at primary school."

The recently revised New Zealand Curriculum of 2007 therefore offers a wonderful opportunity for this country to continue to lead the world in education.

It states: "This will enable schools to prepare students for life now and in the future. Schools of the now must develop the whole learner as a confident, creative, connected and actively involved life-long learner."

Despite the scaremongering about New Zealand's achievement, international monitoring places our schools in the top performing countries in the OECD.

What lifts achievement in schools is not a mystery. The Best Evidence Synthesis (Ministry if Education 2003) describes it clearly. It is fostering positive relationships between the learner and the teacher. It is forming effective partnerships between the school and its community. It is the quality and use of feedback to the learner. It is real-time assessment used to help the child identify their next steps and the teacher's next steps.

There is no evidence anywhere in the world that shows that a high-stakes league tables environment improves achievement. There is however, plenty of evidence that countries that have gone down this track are reviewing their strategy and are moving away from such odious comparisons.

We invite the minister to work with us to develop protocols and safeguards to protect our children from these public and unworthy comparisons.

The principals are not opposed to national standards. Nor are they opposed to plain language reporting. They are not opposed to sharing data within the school community. They are however, for the sake of our children, implacably opposed to the high-stakes environment of league tables.

* Ernie Buutveld is president of the New Zealand Principals' Federation.