The Government is only investing in a system of measurement which will tell us what we already know about schools - wealthier schools will show better educational achievement outcomes than poorer schools. A whole body of international research already tells us that. They aren't investing in pedagogy, an improved classroom environment, educational materials or technology - so they aren't doing anything to improve education.

Teachers have always resisted measurement because it introduces accountability. Unfortunately because, as academics, they have always been in a closeted environment, accountability is a frightening concept - and will of course be resisted. However, the underlying concept is that "what gets measured gets attention" - so bring it on Ane Tolley! Well done National. Lets bring eduction into the real world!

Its not about rating schools - read the article.... “Inevitably this policy will identify some teachers who will need to change their ways and step up, and they are union protecting their members.

Mr Key cited an Education Review Office report which said that two thirds of the schools are not reporting children’s progress to parents in any meaningfully way and about 30% of teachers cannot adequately teach numeracy or literacy

It's taken him and all the other politicians long enough...They've known for decades now that the left-wing education bureaucracy and the rabid teacher unions have been politicising the curricula, and that too many teachers are useless. Why is he leading now, from the rear?

2 February 2010

How does going to school HUNGRY help children learn?

What is this Government doing to address the problem of transient children, who never get a proper start because they're shifting from school to school?

What is the effect of poverty on learning?
What has the Government done to address poverty?

Oh yes - an extra 25 cents per hour for the minimum wage.

That will REALLY help,

not.

Penny Bright
waterpressure@gmail.com

This is all about letting parents know how their kids are doing relative to other kids. We want to know that. It is not about ranking schools. Most parents know that schools in the more affluent areas have a greater percentage of the brighter pupils and, on average, better teachers.

If NCEA is not a rigorous system of assessment, then get rid of it. If teachers are underperforming, then review them, and deal with them. But, why spend a vast amount of money on yet another measurement system, which the Government has already admitted has serious flaws?

And don't be suckered into believing the expensive advertising campaign that is about to sell National Standards to you. Critical thinking is still supposed to be in the curriculum.

if everyone knows that richer schools do better then why is there an issue proving or disproving that theory and for what reason would one want to keep it secret... except if one just wanted to get their own kids into those schools.

As to stigmatising people who go to poor schools... They are already stigmatized. The only difference is that now it is based on a guess about how good they are - a guess that may be even more closely related to decile than actual standards would be because as per above "everyone knows richer schools do better".

Education is a life-long responsibility of the individual and (for young persons) their parents. These "Teachers" need to take an active nurturing role beyond the school gates. By introducing standards of measurement AND a system of reporting, enhanced delivery of materials is enabled when areas of weakness are identified. Likewise, areas of strength can be acknowledged for praise - perhaps even be extended for greater acheivements in that area!
It is a common misconception that the new standards are intended to shame disadvantaged schools. Such rhetoric is unhelpful and could only have come from the mouths of the ignorant.
Forget the group hug, examine yourself in the mirror and stop being so lax.

Welcome to my world. I'm a secondary school teacher and we've had 'national standards' forever - except in our sector they're called NCEA (previously School Certificate, 6th Form Certificate and University Bursary). I am watching developments with wry amusement!

Children in higher socio-economic areas are fed, have books at home and usually grow up with social advantages that underpin their learning success at school. Such children are (usually) easier and more rewarding to teach because they achieve at higher levels. Poorer kids are less likely to have these advantages and, therefore, tend to do less well at school. Costing millions, National Standards will show that the first group does better at school than the second. - very enlightening. Very cost effective!

Look no further than the "Frankfurt School" for the rationale - which is not to say that these types are in any way rationale. Their "Common Purpose" objectives are very clearly stated. In short these neo-Marxists are chip chip chipping away at what they perceive to be their major roadblock to such corkers as "UN Agenda 21". In short these "Gramscians" come from a "Critical Theory" tradition that fled from Frankfurt, during the 30's (to escape fellow Travellers - The National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party AKA NAZI's). They were offered Tenure of Faculty by Columbia University and then attempted to radicalise the US worker. Why? Well quite simply they were horrified that the German white working class male became NATIONAL Socialists, as opposed to the "International" variant espoused under Marxism-Leninism & Western variants such as The Fabian Society. They failed to radicalise the American worker because the 40's represented a joint effort to nail the Nazi menace & the 1950's saw a boom that allowed Capital and Labour to work together amd provide - in the main - a fairly decent wage for a decent day's work.

We then see Professor Marcuse of Frankfurt School / Columbia fame updating "Critical Theory" (deconstruction of Western value systems) in his new theory " The Theory of Polymorphic Perversity" - which was designed to deconstruct social mores re; the family in order to destroy the major roadblock to radicalisation of the West i.e. the now "untrustworthy from a Revolutionary perspective White Westernm Male).

Thus a series of neo-Marxist lies were built into everything to do with education - EVERYTHING. The lies that were promulgated were that white males wished to destroy women, ethnic minorities & homosexuals. Remember, and as discussed at lenght in their freely available Theorems, that with the new belief in the untrustworthy nature of the white male re: revolutionary reliability, that they now sought a new constituency - which just so happened to be radicalised Feminists (as opposed to women that rightly demanded a fair go), non-whites etc etc. What makes this so so odious is that Marx referred to women as "intellectually second rate" and the ethnic minorities as "racial trash" - what disgusting immoral hypocrisy.

What we now see is the result of long planned collectivist infiltration of those institutions that traditionally transmitted the values and learnings of previous male and female sages - to be replaced with factories churning out theories designed to fracture our children from their history in order to prepare them to be "World Citizens" in a neo-feudal society baded on their Statist agenda. It is simply about control.

Look up "UN Agenda 21" and read all about it - in THEIR OWN words.

The western lifestyle is predicated on energy, and lots of it. .

Anti-west groups such as these see energy production as a legitimate target, and they have invented an anti-energy zeitgeist centred on a dishonest exaggeration of the atmosphere warming effect of carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of fossil fuel combustion (and which, incidentally, also makes plants thrive).

The tactic suits the disparate agendas of a large number of different down-with-everything groups, and instead of being at each others' throats they are pulling together in an unprecedented fashion, which after decades of propaganda has caused a societal instability that forces even normally rational politicians to go along with it. Opposition was largely neutralised. Nuclear fission was demonised to avoid weakening the global warming stick.

However, the tactic is unravelling fast, since writing alarmist computer programs has failed to cause greenhouse Armageddon, and better scientific hypotheses which actually fit the facts on the ground and in the air and space have appeared. We can expect the left to bolt to some other anti-west political doctrine fairly soon - over-consumption, perhaps, or possibly bovine flatulence. Maybe we will see pollution and acid rain resurrected.

Unfortunately, however, this fallacious preoccupation with CO2-based 'green' issues has led Labour to land us in an energy hole. The kindest interpretation of their gross dereliction of duty is that they were so blinded by greater opportunities to kick people around, and of carbon taxes flooding in, that they ignored reality - a trait we have seen before in Labour.

Windmills couldn't ever cut it - there never was enough energy to be had from the wind - but Labour, as usual, refused to accept the reality. Not only did many of them prefer to study subjects easier than maths and physics, but also to be a socialist believer you have to be intrinsically unrealistic in the first place.

Huge sums of money are being squandered on a renewable energy illusion, and the extent of our politicians' culpability for their negligence remains to be seen.

And, of course, Labour also could not resist the extra excuse to pick pockets for doctrinaire reasons. The big give-away is their Big-Sisters in the UN going after private motor vehicles, whose global carbon dioxide emissions are negligible even in the exaggerated IPCC global warming context that Labour and their "Internationalist" cohorts use to justify their predatory extortion.

The official Labour/UN driven 'climate change' agenda is just another grubby money grab that has nothing to do with the climate.

UN Agenda 21 - check it out. If you truly love freedom... oh yes and people of every gender/race or persuasion as long as they also love TRUE freedom - then help our Common Law society route out this infestation of Trojan Mice at every level.

Sure, let's do something about the 'four months of paid annual leave' teachers evidently get: let's keep your children at school for three more months each year, so that teachers can more fairly get only the legislated four weeks annual leave - I wonder how your darlings cope with that?