Kelvin Davis Nonsensical with ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’

Kelvin Davis on Red Alert blogs that unless Cambridge exam national standards are developed, it proves that Cambridge is no better than NCEA. I find this post completely nonsensical. I will break down the post a paragraph or two at a time.

Anne Tolley inextricably linked success in National Standards to success in NCEA when she wrote in a letter to parents, “The standards have been designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at NCEA Level 2.”

Okay. She has said something along those lines plenty of times.

National Standards have not been designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at Cambridge Exams.

I agree. My understanding is that National Standards were designed as signposts against the New Zealand curriculum.

So what are primary school teachers who contribute pupils to Auckland Grammar going to use to ensure their boys are on track to pass Cambridge Exams?

Nothing. Why would primary school teachers make a different set of standards for signposting the Cambridge curriculum? Is Davis ignorant of the fact all primary teachers hate the National Standards for the New Zealand curriculum? Why would they create more work for themselves that is not required tacked on to a policy they don’t even like? Tolley hasn’t suggested this, I don’t understand the teachers would either.

Without Cambridge Exam National Standards teachers will not be able to tell parents in plain english reports whether their son is achieving at, above or below the level required to pass Cambridge Exams.

Quite irrelevant. The idea of National Standards is linked to New Zealand curriculum learning outcomes. Nobody has suggested otherwise.

If the Minister is consistent she will in the next few weeks develop a separate set of “Cambridge Exam National Standards” and impose them on all the teachers at Epsom Normal School, Mt Eden Normal and Auckland Normal Intermediate School,etc.

Consistent with what? Is Tolley supposed to tell AGS off or not? They would expect National to take strong action against AGS if this were the case. The use of word “consistent” seems to imply that Labour thinks they shouldn’t remain committed to NCEA. Labour can’t have the argument both ways.

It has been reported in the NZ Herald that Labour have been questioning National’s commitment to NCEA as the national high school qualification. If they are committed to NCEA, why would they make these nonsensical “Cambridge National Standards”?

“Anne Tolley’s unwillingness to defend the NCEA system against the might of Auckland Grammar School shows she has no faith in the system at all,” Mr Davis said.

To be fair to Davis, he got a decent quote in the article.

These ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ are necessary because according to John Morris, Principal of Auckland Grammar School, NCEA would be provided for his weaker students.

Why would you need ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ for students sitting NCEA?

The implication is Cambridge exams are harder than NCEA therefore achievement above the regular National Standards expectation is not a guarantee that a student is on track to achieve above the level expected to pass a Cambridge Exam. If the Minister does not create ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at Cambridge Exams, all the arguments she applied to justify the imposition of National Standards can be thrown back in her face.

Davis has spent an entire post building a straw man argument. He barely touched on an issue of real substance – the posturing of Cambridge for smart students and NCEA for dumb kids. The failure to address such posturing undermines the public credibility of the NCEA qualification. I am surprised that he hasn’t used this in an argument about Tolley’s apparent lack of commitment to NCEA. Neither did he attempt to capitalise on the lack of a response as a cause quoted in the Herald.

If she says the regular National Standards will suffice, then we have proof that Cambridge Exams are no better than NCEA.

If this were true, this would actually help Tolley…then there wouldn’t be any need for these nonsensical ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’.

NCEA and Auckland Grammar

So Auckland Grammar School (AGS) has decided to do “officially” do away with NCEA for its Year 11 (5th form) students, as reported in the NZ Herald. I love how the greengrocer’s apostrophe appears in error in the article’s title, one with educational standards as a theme.

What does this actually mean? It is well known that AGS has not been a fan of NCEA for various reasons, and has pushed the Cambridge exams (what we call the IGCSEs and International A-Levels in New Zealand) for its students ever since the introduction of NCEA. This is not a radical step for them, merely an extension of what they have been doing for a long time.

Of course as a state school, it must offer the state qualification NCEA. Anne Tolley, in reaction to this announcement so far only has only released a slap with a wet bus ticket statement in response.

Trevor Mallard has blogged about this on Red Alert trying to put the heat on Tolley, attempting to link this snub of official educational policy by the school to that relating to National Standards for primary schools. I think he should be far more worried about statements like this from the article:

but the school could allow “some exceptions” with weaker students to have a “backup” plan and allow them to sit NCEA maths and English.

These sorts of statements posture Cambridge exams for the smart students, and NCEA as a poor relation for the dumb kids. This posturing has been a key disadvantage of the NCEA qualification since its introduction. Because some schools were strongly dissatisfied by it, they sought alternatives like the Cambridge examinations or the International Baccalaureate (IB).

This posturing increases the negative discrimination based on what school one went to. Simply put, under the old system, a 70% mark in Bursary history from Aorere College was just as good as the same from AGS. That is not the case now. A two-tier system has been created in our schools.

Mallard has made a subtle error in making the link to National Standards. National Standards are more popular with parents, and less popular (in fact not popular at all!) with teachers. NCEA is less popular with parents and more popular with teachers.

One thing to note is that NCEA is a lightning rod for education issues. What this means is that NCEA gets the blame for the perceived ills of New Zealand’s education system, even for issues that have nothing to do with the exam format or qualification structure.

Also, it is important to realise AGS is not a typical state school at all.

Some accuse schools using Cambridge exams as a marketing tool. AGS doesn’t need to market itself at all. It spends thousands of dollars every year trying to keep students out – it costs the school a lot to combat enrolment fraud.

I would go far enough to say it’s a de facto private school with full state funding. It asks for a very large (probably the biggest) “donation” in the country, which most parents pay. Even disregarding the donation, if one does not already live inside the school zone, it’s arguably more expensive to send your son to AGS than a private school. Only the well off can access real estate in the “Grammar Zone”, which commands a big house price premium.

I also can’t think of anywhere else in the world where having a prison in your own backyard doesn’t dampen the demand for real estate.

Anne Tolley Interview Analysis – Part II: Status and National Standards

The next part of the interview is the status of being a teacher. In part, it is reflected in pay, but I think Espiner overestimates the importance of money in status. When I trained to be a teacher, money was important but not the most important thing. I do not know any teacher who is in the job because they want to make lots of money. The high points of teaching are hard to match – it does however take a whole lot of hard slog to get there.

Espiner also pushes Tolley on why there are fewer men in the profession than in the past. Tolley points to the lack of status it has. Status is referred to, but not defined. It is worth pointing out that it is one of the situations where if the situation were reversed, there may have been far more attention paid to the gender imbalance. It is also interesting to remember that at the beginning of the segment, Tolley is introduced as the first female Minister of Education. Quite noteworthy for a sector that has been dominated by women for quite some time isn’t it?

The entry requirements into the profession are brought up. At the moment on paper, one needs a three year ordinary bachelor’s degree aligned with a school subject (eg you need some maths in your degree to apply to be a maths teacher), a minimum standard of literacy in English or Māori, and referees to affirm you have certain qualities suitable to the profession to apply. You are interviewed, and if they deem you have the right motivation for doing teaching, communication skills and your credentials and police records check out, you are admitted to the programme.

These requirements sound reasonable – but they are not much more than any other job, really. Other professions with high status like medicine or law are known for their highly competitive grade cutoffs for example. However, that is not to say institutions let anyone into their teacher education programmes – when I applied for entry into two teachers’ colleges I was rejected by one of them.

Tolley refers to proposals like needing a Masters degree or fast track programmes not having universal agreement, and said she agrees with the sector for needing higher entry requirements. If there is universal agreement on that, I wonder if changes will be formally enacted. As far as I know there is nothing barring institutions setting as high a bar as they want.

National Standards once again come up. Espiner points out that the high membership teacher unions are against it, and points out that the $36 million only works out to be $60 per child, per year. He’s quite prepared with this figure and tries to draw more out from her on it. He then asks the question on what the Minister could do with basically a dollar a child a day, quite reminiscent of those charity ads for sponsoring malnourished children.

The political reality is, no extra spending is ever going to be given carte blanche to anything. It will always be part of a highly targeted initiative so that politicians can say how wonderful programme X is. As a result of the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms way back in the 1980s, schools are highly devolved so specific targeted programmes are the only way to visibly increase education spending. Tolley appears confident in explaining ways in which limited money is being shuffled around to address the government’s priorities.

The last thing I’ll mention is Espiner breaks down the 80 percent figure Tolley quotes on the takeup rate on the standards, Espiner saying that’s really only 19 percent, with those identified as being well on track. Tolley was calm in explaining those 19 percent were already doing things like the policy anyway and only had to make minor tweaks. She says the rest had to make major changes to get to where they were. She also punts other problems into touch saying that it will take time for data to appear in any case. Other things in the debate have not really progressed and have already been mentioned elsewhere.

Who’s Going to Chicken Out First?

The game of chicken that Tolley and the unions are playing over National Standards is starting to heat up. What I am interested in finding out is who is going to chicken out first. Or if they are going to crash. A question that I wouldn’t mind an answer to is this: Are National Standards the policy clash between government and teachers like bulk funding was?

A few comments have turned up in this story. First of all there’s the “parents don’t understand this policy”. Of course there are parents who don’t understand this policy, how is this different from any other government policy? For someone to understand this policy (or any other) they have to wade through, in no particular order:

• What the Minister says
• What the Prime Minister says
• What the teachers say
• What the opposition parties say
• What the teacher unions say
• What the media say
• What the legislation allegedly implementing this policy says
• What parents say
• What Boards of Trustees say

That is no means an exhaustive list, but my point is that using the “people don’t understand” in the National Standards debate is useless as it’s just a truism that doesn’t mean anything in itself. Each of these parties have their own agenda, and will spin the thing differently to reflect their own world views et cetera.

And then there’s talk about whether Anne Tolley is listening or not. Well, as Anne Tolley and the unions want mutually exclusive things, the only way that anyone in the unions will be convinced that she’s listened is if she ditches the policy. Tolley can’t win this battle by default. So basically she is trying to be as diplomatic as she can, but really, it’s terribly ineffective as it’s something the teachers clearly don’t want.

I have forgotten a possible scenario. Tolley doesn’t back down, but gets replaced as Education minister because she’s taken too long. The Prime minister would do this because he’s also been quite behind this policy, and of course it is one of the core election planks. So what could happen is that Tolley gets dumped so that another minister with more firepower is charged with getting the policy through. Or alternatively is the one charged with the retreat option if it really has been too long and the government embarrassingly had to give up. And if takes too long, the other main party will get back in again and have a field day with glowing PR about how they’ve repealed some evil policy of a previous government.

So it’s game on. I think the onus is on Tolley to make the next move.

It’s a Game of Chicken – Tolley Versus the Unions

The Hon Anne Tolley has issued a press release to the unions essentially saying “get over it” about National Standards.

Tolley’s greatest PR challenge is that the public only ever sees the more overt political arm of the teachers’ unions. And they tend to be the more vocal left wing activists compared to the rank and file union members who just try to get on with their job. I believe we do not see a true representation of the political views of the members when we see union spokespeople in the media. To be fair, I think the nature of the news media doesn’t help. The bread and butter activities of the union aren’t newsworthy for example, helping out new teachers to the profession, ensuring teachers get their entitlements, submissions and consultation on non-controversial issues.

Tolley also doesn’t have a triple B shield. What does that mean? It’s a new term I’ve coined, too political in origin for my liking, oh well. The BBB shield is the [it's hard to plant the label] Beneficiary Basher [on] Bennett shield. I say it’s difficult because it seems rather ridiculous to call a former DPB and single mother a beneficiary basher. Tolley is an easy target in this regard because she is not a former teacher, with the implication that she doesn’t understand the education sector. Tolley’s pointing to her own upbringing of children in the education system helps but is nowhere as effective as a BBB.

I think Tolley is saying bring it on. She knows she has an electoral mandate and that parents at worst do not have outright hostility to this policy. The escalation will come either in refusal to implement the policy either by boycotting, or by striking, or by cleverly subverting it.

My best evaluation of the situation is that both sides are playing chicken. Tolley could yield by dropping the policy, or delaying it. Presumably delaying is enough for the unions as it would stop the policy long enough for Labour to get back in again in the next election (assuming favourable conditions for those of that political persuasion). The unions could yield by implementing the policy as the government intends, or ending their opposition campaigns.

I don’t think either side will back down, at least not easily. Tolley especially as she has everything to lose from backing down. Firstly, a back down is embarrassing for any minister, in fact it’s a kick to the ego for anybody. Secondly, it’s a key election policy so there is an electoral mandate for this policy and would be sacked as minister if she failed to deliver.

The unions don’t have as much to lose. If all else fails, they will be happier when Labour (eventually?) gets back in. Even if the collision occurs, I think the dismissals will be symbolic rather than holus bolus sackings. Nonetheless a minister ordering sackings will never create great looking headlines no matter how justified the decision.

I think their biggest fear is that the policy will last long enough that it won’t just be an easy Labour decision to abolish them, especially if National get more than one term. The NZEI and PPTA, although they have friendly relations with Labour, are not officially affiliated with the party. Labour wouldn’t suffer terribly in the event that they didn’t repeal this policy once in office. It’s not as if the NZEI and PPTA would start championing for the National Party any time soon.

A Few Notes on National Standards

There are two things that are prominent in the papers – National Standards and the debate about the New Zealand flag. The former matters because it’s about education and more importantly laws have been passed for them to take effect. The public debate about the flag is as always a waste of time because no law or policy change has been actually proposed by the people who do have the power to change it.

The NZEI and the PPTA have started an online campaign on twitter are trying to trend #NationalStandards. There’s hardly anyone interested – the people that would do this aren’t likely to be ones to be interested in some educational policy that doesn’t affect them I suspect. It’s just not the right demographic.

John Hattie has been mentioned a few times. Again there are people who write about him that I strongly suspect haven’t read his books. For example the following quote comes from Andrew Laxon in the NZ Herald.

Not everyone in the educational establishment agrees with Hattie’s views, which include support for teachers’ performance pay and rejecting the popular argument that lower class sizes improve children’s learning.

If one read Hattie’s book Visible Learning, one would know that he argues reducing class size can improve learning, but only if the teacher takes advantage of the reduced class size. That is to say, that reducing class size doesn’t lead to an automatic improvement.

National Standards and the Anne Tolley Interview

The Ministry has released a summary of feedback received from consultation. Anne Tolley also appeared on Q+A and spoke about them last Sunday week.

On the response page, under the Design of Standards heading the following made me laugh at first

The mathematics standards are being reorganised to reflect the strands in the mathematics and statistics learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum.

because it sounds so simple and innocent at first – but will cause great nightmares for all the teachers.

The panel discussion following Tolley’s interview was interesting to watch. Kate Gainsford, president of the PPTA, could have easily launched militantly into Tolley but seemed to be far more diplomatic. It is difficult to rail against something which has just been described as very “reasonable”, and since the finer detail was not probed, she didn’t get a good chance to advocate against the National Standards on behalf of her primary union colleagues. Tolley did well politically by being “consistent” and “on message”. Gainsford was right though, we did need to hear more detail on “growing the pig” rather than just “weighing” it.

Holmes in my opinion was very good in facilitating panel discussion this time. Here he manages to elicit a side of Gainsford I don’t think many people in the public have seen before. Normally the public only ever see her tearing into the government savagely (you could argue the case that any non-Labour minister gets more) and getting media attention for things like teacher strikes. This excerpt is long, illustrates the political versus educational reality but shows the Gainsford the person behind the union line.

PAUL: There are one or two principals I think who’ve told us during the week well we don’t think she’s on top of her portfolio, but she sounded like when she said she’s been surrounded by teachers all her life, that resonated well. That had good credibility. She seems to like teachers. Here’s a clip on what she was saying about teachers:

SOUNDBITE: Well I’ve been a parent of three children and I’m a grandmother of two. So I’ve had three children go through the education system and I’ve also got a family of teachers so I’ve lived with education all my life.

PAUL: Now, that answer had credibility Kate?

KATE: There were some vital bits missing I believe – a passion for education and a deep knowledge of education. I believe the minister, politically…

PAUL: She’s a mother and a grandmother – she’s put three kids through school, what more does she need to know about education?

KATE: Well, it’s a highly technical area isn’t it Mr Creech – you’d be able to agree with that…

PAUL: Do only teachers know about education?

KATE: Not at all, not all and we’ve had that argument way back in the 80s and 90s that provide and capture thing. But I would just like to comment on what you were asking before about the political nature of what we were listening to. I believe this Minister is frequently consistent and on message, we have met those sound bites consistently since her appointment about the fiscal environment, about priorities….

PAUL: We’ve all heard the same things for 20 years from politicians…

KATE: But there is a layer underneath that isn’t there? There’s a layer underneath that is of critical importance and it’s that detailed, technical, educational knowledge that’s important to get right.

PAUL: I don’t necessarily want to be Anne Tolley’s champion but I like what she said about attracting the best people into teaching, retention of teachers.

KATE: If she had trained and qualified as a teacher then she’d be fitting in with our policy perfectly. She could be a member.

The emphasis in the above is my own. Because nobody has been able to get Tolley off message in regards to Adult Community Education cuts, like she said are here to say. I think the cuts will only be reversed if the government can be convinced that it will cost votes.

Anne Tolley was reciprocally diplomatic in my opinion. Consider the following interview excerpt:

PAUL Couple of quick ones – how do you rate New Zealand teachers?

ANNE I think we’ve got some fantastic teachers.

PAUL How do you get on with them?

ANNE Reasonably well.

PAUL How are you getting on with the principals?

ANNE Um, quite a lot of them are being very constructive. Look there’s always some who don’t like what you’re doing for a variety of reasons.

The exchange seemed a bit awkward, particularly the last comment. It would appear that she was trying to dodge the question. But there isn’t a lot she can really do. What would you say if you are a National Minister when 90%+ of teachers and principals belong to unions that are left leaning politically?

PAUL: There are one or two principals I think who’ve told us during the week well we don’t think she’s on top of her portfolio, but she sounded like when she said she’s been surrounded by teachers all her life, that resonated well. That had good credibility. She seems to like teachers. Here’s a clip on what she was saying about teachers:

SOUNDBITE: Well I’ve been a parent of three children and I’m a grandmother of two. So I’ve had three children go through the education system and I’ve also got a family of teachers so I’ve lived with education all my life.

PAUL: Now, that answer had credibility Kate?

KATE: There were some vital bits missing I believe – a passion for education and a deep knowledge of education. I believe the minister, politically…

PAUL: She’s a mother and a grandmother – she’s put three kids through school, what more does she need to know about education?

KATE: Well, it’s a highly technical area isn’t it Mr Creech – you’d be able to agree with that…

PAUL: Do only teachers know about education?

KATE: Not at all, not all and we’ve had that argument way back in the 80s and 90s that

provide and capture thing. But I would just like to comment on what you were asking before about the political nature of what we were listening to. I believe this Minister is frequently consistent and on message, we have met those sound bites consistently since her appointment about the fiscal environment, about priorities….

PAUL: We’ve all heard the same things for 20 years from politicians…

KATE: But there is a layer underneath that isn’t there? There’s a layer underneath that is of critical importance and it’s that detailed, technical, educational knowledge that’s important to get right.

PAUL: I don’t necessarily want to be Anne Tolley’s champion but I like what she said about attracting the best people into teaching, retention of teachers.

KATE: If she had trained and qualified as a teacher then she’d be fitting in with our policy perfectly. She could be a me

How…Insidious

I knew that there would be some sort of showdown between teachers and the government over National Standards. Now the stakes have been increased. There are some that are going to undermine the tests by stacking the results by “teaching to the test” on the easiest tests they can get away with.  It is a far more creative subversion that I did not anticipate.

Regardless of whether one thinks of this action there is one thing which is clear. If teachers choose to take this action it will be extremely cheap to complain that the policy failed when they openly announced they would undermine it. Especially as it was one of the current government’s election policies well signalled prior to the 2008 election.

There is only one way I can think of to get away from people fudging the numbers for league tables. Have as many key indicators as possible and apply random weightings to them. Increasing pass rates at all costs would have little effect if one year it only counted for 5% of a ranking and then 15% the next and 0% the following. Many pairs of statistics are negatively correlated as well, which makes fudging a dangerous business. You could have some adjustments ensuring that statistics that are easier to manipulate gradually reduce in weight over time.

Alternatively you could have a system where anybody can choose the key indicators that matter to them and give them the weighting that they think is best. And other people could create statistics based on what they know that others don’t think is important. Then publishing a single “official” league table would be pointless – because different people have different values. Some parents might value straight out exam results. Other parents might place value on sporting prowess. Or what they regard as “added” value once adjusted for school decile. Special character or religious ethos are important and can’t be measured by statistics – but wouldn’t it be nice if there were a system available that people could factor that in for themselves?

I think this is better than telling parents they’re too dumb to have information. Telling parents they are undermining policies that formed part of the current government’s election platform.

I disagree with sentiments that teachers have some sort of socialist agenda to indoctrinate children. And even if they did, as I have said in an earlier post, they simply don’t have the time to brainwash. Teachers are altruistic people, they care about education. There is only disagreement on the means by which it is delivered, that’s politics. During one lecture at teachers’ college, the lecturer mentioned something about making money. Some of my fellow students and I called out “we’re going to be teachers”, that is teachers don’t go into the profession to make lots of money.