Tapu Misa: No easy formula for pupils doing well

Why can't all schools have the things that would give more children the chance to succeed? Photo / Christine Cornege

I don't ask a lot of the education system that an international think-tank recently called the best in the world. I know schools can't solve all of society's ills. I know no school is perfect. But I would like to be able to send my children to my local high school without feeling that I've somehow shortchanged them.

I'd like not to have to pay for extra maths and English tuition because I'm not confident about the school's ability to prepare my youngest son for his Level 1 NCEA exams this year.

I'd like not to have been told by the school this year that I should try the public library or shop around for the book that my son is studying for English because the school doesn't have enough copies to allow students to take the book home (essential when you have a boy who doesn't concentrate well in class).

And I'd like not to be told that a teacher can't print out work her students had spent a week doing on their computers because she's used up her photocopying budget for the year. Or that my son and his classmates have to pay $1 each for a missing science book because no one had owned up to taking it.

The school is decile 4, in the bottom half socioeconomically. The school community is mixed; some families are relatively well off, too many are not. That creates particular pressures for a school.

I've always been a staunch supporter of public education. I used to think it was character-building not to have everything on a platter - at least that's what I told my daughter. It worked for her; but then, like many of the high-achieving girls she went through high school with, she would have done well just about anywhere.

Not so for my sons. I confess that this year for the first time I experienced a small twinge of envy every time I visited a private school. Why can't all schools have the environment, the resources, the teachers that would give more children the chance to succeed?

I was commiserating last week with the mother of 10-year-old boys who go to a decile 10 primary school in Wellington.

She told me she was refusing to pay her school fees in protest at having spent thousands to send her twin boys to Kip McGrath for extra tuition.

She'd known, because she had two older children, that her youngest weren't doing as well as they should have been, but every time she asked the boys' teachers, they would reassure her that they were doing fine.

When she finally had her boys tested, she found they were lagging behind expected levels - on one measure by about two years.

At a school report evening a couple of weeks ago she was given, for the first time, a clear picture of how well her sons were doing compared with other boys in decile 10 schools. One of the teachers even thanked her for putting them in Kip McGrath.

I find that worrying. The family is middle class, and the eldest two children are high achievers. The mother is highly intelligent, and involved. Her youngest boys are bright and engaging, and don't lack stimulation or resources. If they can't do well without expensive tuition, who can?

She thinks it comes down to resources and good teachers. She thinks teachers should be paid more.

Her story advocates for schools to be given good tools for tracking student achievement, but it also makes it clear that measuring children's progress - which most schools already do well - doesn't begin to address the critical issues in education. Her children are still having private tuition.

The 240 school boards rebelling against the rushed introduction of National Standards are right about the risks of getting it wrong.

Educators are understandably worried about children being labelled failures in their formative years. Under National Standards, as a Council for Educational Research report points out, children making "normal" progress for their year level in mathematics would be "failing".

Teachers are well aware of the self-fulfilling effect of such labels on impressionable young minds. This is not just about children needing to harden up and face reality.

If you tell children they're failures, they tend not to disappoint you.

A 1968 US study (Pygmalion in the Classroom) showed that if you divide school children randomly into two groups, and label one "improving" and the other "not improving", the "improving" group will improve and the other will not.

Educational success can be complicated. The essential components are the home, the school, the student, and even the community.

What part does money and inequality play? That's one of the bigger, more important, questions in education that the National Standards debate obscures.

Tapu.Misa@gmail.com