Educator critical of union's campaign

Adriana Van Altvorst-Harrison

A South Auckland teacher says the New Zealand Educational Institute should stop fighting national standards and start working with them.

Adriana Van Altvorst-Harrison's stance is in opposition to the view of the teachers' union.

"I support the national standards, but I'm opposed to the way NZEI has put out this campaign bus," said Mrs Harrison, who is based at Mansell Senior School in Papakura.

She wants NZEI to "cut the propaganda" and start helping principals, schools and teachers to work with the new standards.

"The sooner they come in, the faster we can adjust and fine-tune them."

Last year, while working as a site representative, Mrs Harrison told her schools to find out all they could about national standards and put in submissions.

"When national standards came out and we had time to review it, the first thing I thought was they were too high, but then I thought, 'Are they too high or have my expectations of children dropped?"'

Last year, the Ministry of Education provided free information workshops, but she said there was no push from principals or the NZEI for teachers to attend.

Mrs Harrison said the NZEI had been involved with developing the standards from the start and should have spent time educating teachers.

"They should have sent the bus out last year, before the submissions. They're spending our money doing it now and teachers need the support of the union to adjust and to get to grips and be clearly informed."

NZEI president Frances Nelson said Mrs Harrison was the only teacher she had heard from who was not happy with the union's stance.

She said Mrs Harrison was entitled to speak her mind, but the union's view matched that of researchers, academics, parents and principals.

In her role, Mrs Harrison works in several schools with children who are falling behind and said there was a big difference between schools and their assessment data.

She said teachers had their own standards of where they expected children to be, but these changed from school to school.

Mrs Harrison has worked with children as old as 12 who were struggling with the basics of reading and writing and blames the different assessment tools used in different schools.

She said the children who were failing were stopping other students from achieving and causing stress for teachers.

In a statement, Education Minister Anne Tolley said the NZEI was deliberately upsetting teachers, parents and children. "Everyone knows it's time for the union to get off their bus and get on board with national standards, to support teachers and to help our children make progress in reading, writing and maths."