Ranking of primaries unlikely, says Tolley

Education Minister Anne Tolley has given her strongest indication yet that primary schools will not be ranked in league tables when they are forced to meet national standards from next year.

The Government is planning to introduce the new benchmarks in reading, writing and mathematics for all Year 1 to 8 children in primary and intermediate schools.

Teachers have fiercely opposed the change, saying the results will be used to rank schools in league tables with no regard for children's natural abilities and socio-economic background.

Similar policies - using a single national test for young children - have caused an uproar in Britain, the United States and Australia, where New South Wales teachers this week threatened to boycott testing.

Mrs Tolley said the standards were intended to measure how well children were progressing through the school system - not where they were at any given moment.

"I'm not requiring the sector to report to the ministry to get a nationwide picture. I'm asking schools to produce exactly the same reports that they report now.

"They will be reporting against their targets but they may be able to report them in such a way that School A differs from School B, which differs from School C."

Schools would not be using a single nationwide test, as in Britain, the United States and Australia.

It would therefore be much harder for news organisations here to compile league tables. She could not rule it out but it would probably remain as difficult as it was today.

"Clearly the sector is concerned that simple league tables will be put together based on aggregated data that doesn't tell the whole story and that doesn't reflect the different stages that children come to school at. I accept their concerns."

Principals Federation president Ernie Buutveld, who last month warned that schools might refuse to co-operate, said talks had reached a constructive stage and there were "potential good points" in the Government's plan. Principals were still concerned there was not enough time to make the changes for 2010.

Meanwhile, Metro magazine has published its own interpretation of the best and worst secondary schools in Auckland, using a "value-added" approach to their exam results.

It named Mt Roskill Grammar as the best school, based on its NCEA and Scholarship marks compared with other decile 4 schools. Private girls' school St Cuthbert's College had the highest unadjusted marks.

The magazine admitted that its results could be misleading as many of the city's top academic schools use the Cambridge exams, which do not supply results for individual schools.