Making visible the policy of National Standards in New Zealand schools.

1. National Standards in New Zealand Schools Let Teachers Teach, Not Count From The Perspective of Parents PAL-Parents Against Labelling http://apps.facebook.com/groupsplus/members/all.php?gid=7877

3. Why National Standards? ‘ The result is according to ERO, most primary schools are generally ineffective at using school-wide information to improve achievement.’ National Party manifesto paper (Policy 2008 Education, National Standards, Question and Answers) The National Government claims ERO sees a problem Minister of Education Anne Tolley has announced that the standards were based on an Education Review Office report that said half of schools were not using assessment well and did not know who struggling students were.

4. But ERO Reports Differently Seek The Truth (Page 2) % %

5. What Did Parents Say? Seek The Truth Tolley's press release on the report was titled "Parents Support National Standards". Its opening line read: "Consultation feedback shows strong support from parents." % %

6. How Could National Standards Affect Your Child? A generation of school children destined to educational impoverishment with an over emphasis on the ‘three Rs’ and rigid testing Memorisation and recall will be valued over understanding and enquiry. The transmission of information will be favoured over the pursuit of knowledge in its fuller sense. Labelling children will only marginalise those that are struggling even further League tables may lead to inappropriate reallocation of funds and even the flawed justification to close schools based on test scores of only two curriculum areas. Children who are excelling are restricted to a narrow curriculum that is based around averages for that year

8. ‘ Sad Day’ for education in New Zealand The Principals Federation, which branded the introduction a "sad day", called for the standards to be scrapped and wanted the Government to start from scratch. Federation president Ernie Buutveld said schools could already identify pupils at risk of not achieving and make changes themselves. Setting national standards in reading, writing and maths was a National Party campaign promise and is due to come in next year. THE DAILY NEWS THE WORLD’S FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER October 2009 Teacher unions are afraid the national standards will be used to compare the performance of schools through "league tables". However, the Principals' Federation and NZEI have said they would not attend the standards launch in Auckland today, as to do so would be to offer tacit support to a policy they did not agree with. Frances Nelson, head of primary teachers' union the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), said: "It is absolutely no surprise at all that parents are worried about the standards." Nelson added that government had not addressed those concerns before launching the system. Minister of Education Anne Tolley

9. Focus On How Children Learn

10. See The Whole Picture

12. So What’s The Big Deal?