The cure for this in the eyes of the people who have the loudest voices in the education debate is to raise standards. Standards, of course, are very good things. But the loud voices are really talking about something much less desirable - standardisation and conformity.
This is because the debate is too often informed by the assumption that the key role of the education system is to rank young people from first to last.
This process is thought to be best done by constantly testing students and setting exams. We do a lot of this in New Zealand. The development of diagnostic tools like AsTTLe for use in primary schools was intended to provide teachers and learners with a way of finding out where things were going wrong so they could be fixed. The introduction of a formative style of assessment like NCEA was seen as a way of gathering information on students' work and activities to support progress.
But at all levels of the education system the pressure has been to increase summative experiences otherwise known as testing and exams.
The arguments against this are well known but poorly understood. Testing and exams are seen as the "tough love" of education. They sort students out by telling who is better than whom. This appeals not only to the students who succeed at tests but also to the parents, employers, politicians and educators who want a simple way of measuring success. Anything else risks being labelled "soft".
Polarising the debate in this way is a problem. What we need to be talking about is the kind of learning that we think is appropriate before we get to assessment. Good learning begins with the curriculum.
New Zealand is blessed with a revolutionary 21st century curriculum that defines the knowledge, competencies and values a student needs to acquire. For it to work properly it needs the input of highly professional teachers who are given space to personalise the learning experience to the students in their classroom.
And they need access to a wide range of assessment tools that allow them to really find out what a learner knows. Relying on testing and exams too heavily leads to students being compared with one another rather than finding out where they are weak and where they are strong so their performance can be constantly improved.
This is important not just because it reflects the fact that students are different from one another but also because they should all be working towards success. For this to happen we need forms of assessment that actively assists the learning process as opposed to simply measuring how much knowledge has been acquired.
An education system that works something like this can be found in Finland where children start school at six and do not sit an exam until they matriculate. If they decide not to go to university they may never sit an exam. Finland is regarded as having one of the best education systems in the world.
We should not simply copy Finland, even if we were of a mind too, but it should give us confidence that another way is possible. Notably Finnish students do well in such international measures as PISA. This is something of a relief because the countries currently topping these international rankings have been getting there on the back of what is essentially rote learning. Even they are beginning to ask if this is an appropriate approach in the 21st century.
This is a world that will belong to flexible, innovative creative life-long learners; people who will judged not on what they know but on what they can do with what they know.
For my money, the kind of assessment system that will assist with these outcomes would be a 'learning record' that stays with a student throughout their life - something that has been talked about in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world.
This 'record' would provide students, their teachers, parents, employers, moderators, examiners - anyone who needs to know - with a real understanding of what it is a student knows and can do. It would incorporate all forms of assessment being used to underpin learning. Comparisons would still be made because standards remain at the heart of the assessment process and, when relevant, exams would still be set. But there would be no need for standardisation.
This will no doubt disappoint those who think the whole point of education is to rank students. But it will delight those who think (I am quoting Ken Robinson here) that the aim of "education is to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens".
Steve Maharey is the Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, a sociologist and a former Minister of Education.
