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ED

Tag: reform

  • Tomorrow Schools and the Equity Gap

    It’s interesting to see that word “review” and “reform” getting bandied about.

    At one point, reform was an issue as we fought off “GERM”…

    Now, a review is taking place of our school system, and some suggestions being made, and suddenly those that may have been encouraging GERM are now questioning this review.

    The main objection to the review is stemming from the education elite; those sizeable schools who have clawed in students and money and status through whatever means possible. The bigger the school, the more influence you’re seen to have, as the more students you have, the more parents you have, and usually, the more chances of having very rich or important parents. The sphere of influence grows and it becomes all about who you know, not what you know.

    Take the article They’ve Seen the Future for instance; Martin Thrupp has some very good points that he makes in the article. He says…

    “It is a kind of view that runs through New Zealand society; this great concern about inequality, poverty and so on, but at the same time people who are on the advantaged side of it don’t necessarily want to share their resources.

    “Because of that, we do see principals of high socio-economic schools not particularly supportive of redistribution efforts and greater equity funding for low socio-economic schools.”

    He goes on to say that parents are the same, clustering together to improve their status, keeping up with the joneses, purchasing houses in specific zones (Look at the marketing done in the season of the Block where one house was in zone for a particular Auckland school). They work together to all jostle for position, and not only demand, but provide resources to ensure, that their child gets the best possible education. This carries on at home.
    Thrupp says that this doesn’t always happen in low-socio economic communities.

    We see what money means to those schools as well.

    Wellington College Principal says that with the donations his school receives, he is able… “to make decisions around overstaffing, to pay for a teacher’s salary beyond the [roll-related] staffing. It’s enabled us to sometimes have smaller classes, start new subjects, retain high-quality staff.”

    Now, that’s all well and good, and a great luxury to have. But there is always another side of the coin.

    This kind of luxury is simply not available to schools in low socio-economic  areas – places where smaller classes and decisions on overstaffing would be very much beneficial. These schools have high-quality staff, but they often get burnt out managing classes of 30+ pupils, or leave for greener pastures at schools that might be able to offer smaller classes, better resourcing, or other incentives for them. Needless to say, this also means that any high quality staff these schools have, won’t have the same effectiveness due to their larger class sizes. I don’t really care for what Hattie’s research (however bogus or biased it is) says about class size; if you take a great teacher and put them in front of 30 students, and then put them in front of 20 students, they are going to have better success (not to mention overall better well-being) in the class of 20 students.

    Okay. Time for some maths.

    In the article, it states that Wellington College received $5.7 million in donations in 2017, the most for any school. It’s roll is around 1750 students.

    So taking that $5.7million, and calculating how much that amounts per student, we end up with a figure of $3,257 per student. PER STUDENT.

    I can guarantee, that is more for one student than most schools receive in donations for their whole school. Add to that the notion that the Government suggested during their election run that they would subsidise schools $150 per student if they dropped their school donations for parents. This has yet to happen, but I know of several schools that have waived asking for school donations from their communities, because of this, but also because they know the burden it puts on some of their families.

    Three and a quarter thousand dollars per student is a long way from a mythical $150.

    No wonder these schools don’t want the review suggestions to be implemented.

    I wonder what would happen if, just for a week, those principals in the lofty heights of the wealth and famous, got to see the otherside of the coin, and got to see that we are all here for one reason – to educate our young people, and begin seeing this as a New Zealand wide system rather than just from their ivory insulated tower. Maybe, just maybe, they’d see things in a different light, and hopefully be able to see the disparity that exists and that this taskforce are trying to address.

    How can education in New Zealand provide the same opportunities for every child when there is such a massive gap between the rich and privileged and the rest who are doing the best they can with what they’ve got?

     

    Original Article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/110421061/theyve-seen-future–its-not-tomorrows-schools

     

  • Five Year Limit – Enough time to make a difference?

    It could be a seismic shift in education, tearing apart the model schools have operated on for more than 30 years.

    School leaders are “cautiously optimistic” about radical reforms recommended by an independent taskforce last week, which said there was no evidence self-governance had helped schools improve equity or lift student achievement.

    Its proposals are open for public consultation until April 7, when Education Minister Chris Hipkins will consider what changes to pursue.

    The taskforce’s main recommendation is that New Zealand establish 20 ‘Education Hubs’ to act as the middlemen between the Government and individual schools.

    The hubs would take over many of school boards of trustees’ business and governance responsibilities, leaving them to focus on student achievement, strategic planning, community engagement and local fundraising.

    The idea has caused some uneasiness in the education sector, partly because it is not known exactly who or how many people would act as minister-appointed directors of these Crown entities.

    But the main cause of angst has been the hubs’ potentially wide-reaching powers over property, employment, advisory services, professional development, and funding for up to 125 schools each.

    “The one thing I do like is the personalisation and communication to communities that we currently have; I would hate to lose that,” Canterbury West Coast Principals’ Association president and Burnside High School principal Phil Holstein said.

    “It’s another layer of administration and I’m not sure how that would look.”

    Beyond a massive restructure of school governance, the independent taskforce has made several other game-changing recommendations.

    …

    The taskforce has proposed principals spend only five years at a school before they are moved elsewhere.

    The proposal came as a surprise to New Zealand Principals’ Federation president and Bathgate Park School principal Whetu Cormick.

    ​”We would all be thinking, what does this mean for ourselves? I would expect we would still have a permanent position within the hub arrangement,” he said.

    “The idea of us moving across and sharing knowledge in schools … is an idea we haven’t had for a very, very long time.”

    Under the taskforce’s plan, principals would be appointed by the hubs rather than by boards of trustees.

    Several principals welcomed these ideas as a way to keep them accountable – even if they lost some job stability.

    But it could take five years just to become established in a school community and “white knights” were rarely well received, they said.

    Read the entire article here.

  • The National Standards Fallacy

    Since the coalition bringing Labour, NZ First and Greens into power, teachers have been rejoicing. Especially primary teachers.

    Why?

    Well, early on in the election campaign, Labour outlined it’s distaste for National Standards and signalled their intention to remove them from our education system. Something that teachers across the country had been asking for since their inception in 2009.

    Today Labour announced through the new Education Minister Chris Hipkins that it would keep it’s promise and scrap National Standards.

    Inevitably, Nikki Kaye was quick to reply and outlined a number of reasons why it was a mistake to get rid of the Standards.

     

    And while jubilation is all around, and teachers have a new bounce in their step as they skip around the school playground while on duty, there is a small part of us that is left in wonder, concern, and nervousness as to what we’re now meant to be doing now.

    See, there is now a generation of teachers who have only ever taught with National Standards standing behind them with a whip and directing every decision they ever made in their planning, their teaching, their practise, and their career. Put simply, many of us know no different. We simply weren’t teachers before National Standards hijacked our education system.

    So many of us are left wondering, what can we do now? What are we meant to do? Obviously we still have our assessments, but how often do we need to actually do these now? How much do I need to change in my reports that go out at the end of this term? Some are even asking ‘What do we replace them with?’

    But here’s the thing.

    It’s all false. A complete fabrication. It’s a fallacy and has been from the start.

    Here’s what I mean.

    National Standards were pushed out on schools. No beta testing. No ironing out the kinks. Schools had to re-build their charters, teaching programmes and assessment schedules to fit them in. Up until then, schools had been surviving quite well on the assessments they had beforehand. Reporting to parents may not have been as regular as twice a year, but no doubt would have commented on student ability, academic or otherwise, and would have made mention of progress rather than achievement.

    The reality is we didn’t need them. We don’t need them. And now we don’t have them.

    We do not need to replace them with anything.

    When you take a worm out of an apple, you don’t go putting a caterpillar in it’s place.

    While they are gone in the blink of an eye, as signalled by Chris Hipkins today, this doesn’t mean it won’t take a significant amount of time and energy to adjust, to rebuild, and to get used to life without the standards. Lots of policies need to be re-written, new systems designed in each school (as best they see fit for their community) and training and support provided for teachers who know no other way (or can’t remember a time without), such is the entrenchment of National Standards on their career to date. This is a huge undertaking, and should not be taken lightly. For my own school, a big job that will need to be done is to return to a mid and end of year report schedule for our Year 1 to 3 students, and of course, a re-design of the school reporting template. These are just two of the jobs that are going to require time and energy to roll out for our school. Multiply this by the total number of schools across the country, and suddenly there’s a better understanding of the task ahead for us.

    The bonus of course is that it is hard and difficult work that teachers will be only too happy to do. Some are chomping at the bit to get their hands dirty stripping out any mention of National Standards in their schools. Some are a bit more relaxed. But I’ve yet to see a teacher since this announcement who hasn’t felt like a large and heavy burden taken off their shoulders and who haven’t breathed a big sigh of relief.

  • Reform ‘high stakes’ primary tests, MPs urge

    As we look to the future of education in this country, why is it that we are following the trend and examples from the UK? Yet our Education Minister(s) head over there to see their awesome examples of how to destroy public education…

    Children’s education in England is being skewed by the use of high-stakes tests taken by 11-year-olds as a school league table measure, say MPs.

    Annual test results should be replaced in the tables by a three-year rolling average to “lower the stakes”, says the Commons Education Select Committee.

    The current system has led to a narrow curriculum and “unnecessary stress” on pupils and teachers, argues the report.

    Last year, new tougher tests for 11-year-olds saw passes drop sharply.

    Ministers maintain that parents have a right to expect testing in schools to show whether their children are gaining the right skills in maths and literacy.

    But the committee says the close link between the tests at 11 and school accountability can “lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and ‘teaching to the test’, as well as affecting teacher and pupil well-being”.

    It wants the current system scrapped, with three-year rolling averages for schools published instead of the results of individual year groups.

    ‘Held to account’

    The report also calls for greater emphasis in Ofsted inspections on a broad and balanced curriculum.

    Committee chairman Neil Carmichael said too much emphasis on test results had led to too much “focus on English and maths at the expense of other subjects like science, humanities and the arts”.

    “It is right that schools are held to account for their performance but the government should act to lower the stakes and help teachers to deliver a broad, balanced and fulfilling curriculum for primary school children.”

    The report says poor implementation of the new system last year, with “guidance delayed and test papers leaked online”, caused significant disruption in schools.

    The MPs want ministers to reconsider the new writing assessment which emphasises “technical aspects like grammar and spelling, over creativity and composition”.

    “The balance of evidence we received did not support the proposition that focusing on specific grammatical techniques improved the overall quality of writing.”

    They also want spelling, punctuation and grammar tests for 11-year-olds to become non-statutory.

    Ministers recently announced proposals to scrap tests for seven-year-olds, following years of pressure from teachers, parents and educationalists.

    The Department for Education is consulting on a new assessment for pupils when they first start school – but the report urges caution when introducing a “baseline” measure.

    “It should be designed as a diagnostic tool to help teachers identify pupils’ needs and must avoid shifting negative consequences of high-stakes accountability to early years,” they warn.

    Read more here.

    Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-39745884