School ditches 'elitist' National Standards

Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson says National Standards would reward only those pupils 'who arrive at school from extremely advantaged backgrounds'. Photo / APN

A Carterton school is the latest to turn its back on National Standards.

Dalefield School describes the regime as elitist and unworkable, and says it will brand most pupils as failures.

The National-led Government enacted National Standards legislation in primary and intermediate schools within its first 100 days in power.

Children aged five-to-12 are ranked under the standards at above, below or well below benchmarks in reading, writing and mathematics.

Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson said the standards would reward only those pupils "who arrive at school from extremely advantaged backgrounds such as inherited intelligence, emotional security, financial prospects and pro-active parenting".

"The many children who come to school less advantaged not only demonstrate their lack of readiness to learn at higher academic levels but also inflict on the school their many and varied social problems."

National Standards had allowed politicians and bureaucrats to "get in by the back door" and influence policy and practice in schools, which under parent control were "more relaxed and human", he said.

Now boards of trustees face the axe for not implementing National Standards and teachers are hamstrung and demotivated by "countless restrictive practices".

"With the tyranny of officialdom flooding our schools they will soon descend into mediocrity and then over time become ripe for closure and mergers."

Dalefield School board of trustees chairman Ewan Hyde said the board had decided after lengthy community consultation that the standards would "prove detrimental to the learning of its children".

He said Dalefield School - in line with about 200 other New Zealand schools - would, from next year, ignore ministry directives on national standards.

"We at Dalefield cannot afford to wait any longer for the minister to wake up and rescind an unworkable, treacherous and anti-child educational law.

"It is time for the lawmakers to stand up and apologise to our citizens for wasting precious taxpayer funds and degrading high performing schools on a political whim."

Three educational groups, the New Zealand Education Institute, New Zealand Principals' Federation (NZPF) and Boards Taking Action Coalition announced last month that they will fight the next phase of the national standards battle together.

"We will not be walking away from this fight despite the political threats and bullying that our sector has endured for months and continues to suffer," said Peter Simpson, President of the NZPF.

"We have a duty to the children of this country to maintain the very high educational standards we have now and not just let our children's futures and our high international rankings be destroyed by a political neoliberal ideology which has captured the present government," he said.

One of the reasons for introducing national standards, a system which assumes every child in the country is the same, starts the same, learns the same and progresses at exactly the same rate, was so that parents could compare their child against every other child nationally and compare schools with one another.

"It's nonsense that every child starts the same and progresses the same way," said Simpson. 'Every parent in the country knows that and pouring millions of dollars into a system to create league tables comparing schools is a total waste of precious education funds. The OECD report last year demonstrated that there is hardly any variance in the performance of schools in New Zealand irrespective of decile level.

"The government's national standards have been problematic since their hurried and shoddy introduction after the last election and as we approach the next election the problems are no less serious," said Simpson. "The difference now is that opposition to this most ill-advised policy, is gaining momentum."