Summary of analysis
Levels of disparity within the New Zealand education system have stimulated reason for concern. As part of the National party’s 2007 election campaign, education reform was an important platform by which to garner public support.[1] Indeed it is this idea of a popular mandate for change in the education system that has been used by the Government to propel the passing of the NS into legislation under urgency.
The government has used legislation of NS as a tool to introduce new rules and procedures that will, in theory, congeal with NS’ intended outcomes. What seems odd is the departure from a tradition that began in the late 1980s of allowing schools autonomy in making decisions about standards of achievement and the development of their curriculum. It would seem that alternative means for inducing the types of intended outcomes were not necessarily considered in a meaningful way during the formulation of the policy.
Voluntary ascription to NS could have been one way of determining the support NS would attract. Similarly, but perhaps more controversially, monetary incentives could have been targeted towards schools that have already been identified as in need of support in the form of competitive grants. Statistics on Maori underachievement and that ‘1 in 5’ students leave school without appropriate skills in numeracy and literacy tend to mask the fact that many non-Maori, and 4 out of 5 students are doing comparatively well. NS that are enforced through coercive legislation applicable to all year 1 to 8 students seems to be a heavy handed tactic enforced upon a majority of learners and students that are achieving well in education. This is not to say that the disparities are not cause for alarm or considerable attention, but it is to say that a more targeted approach to lifting achievement may have achieved more optimal outcomes considering the substantial time, energy and financial resources that the government has had to deploy in convincing the education sector of the merits of NS.
The implementation of NS has faced fierce resistance that continues to persist despite efforts by the MoE to allay concerns in its responses to national consultation. One notable concession has been made in the timeframe of implementation – the requirement of reporting on NS has been drawn out to 2012. Whilst this concession addresses some concerns over the speed at which schools are required to understand, assess against and report on progress with NS considerable barriers to its acceptance within the education sector remain. Some of these concerns will not be immediately apparent i.e. whether NS has an effect on motivation or teacher competition, whether NS in fact lead to standardized testing or a narrow focus on curriculum, however these concerns are unlikely to slip away quietly and will glean considerable attention as the implementation continues- especially should implementation result in detrimental unintended consequences. If concerns are not adequately addressed non-compliance and institutional inertia will provide significant barriers to the policy gaining any kind of traction.
From the perspective of implementation analysis, it seems that the implementation of NS requires greater sensitivity to the fact that irrespective of government legislation the education sector has a significant ability to resist policy at the operational level- in the presence of support from BOT and the wider community means that power to resist becomes almost absolute. This particular feature of the education sector is one that needs to be considered closely particularly with a policy that ultimately is reliant on teachers for its implementation. Other educational policy areas i.e. adjustments to funding, the removal of educational advisory bodies etc, do not share the same degree of sensitivity to teacher ‘buy-in’ (at the operational level) that a policy dealing with reporting and curriculum does- if teachers do not agree with NS they can simply choose not to use or report against them. The punitive action that follows non-compliance is not clear and this could arguably be said to make resistance to NS more feasible, however administering hefty fines or penalties will not address persisting concerns around NS and would be a heavy handed, and likely an antagonistic tactic not advisable to the government.
A broader and perhaps more significant ambiguity seems to underlie many of the concerns over the implementation of NS this is – the correlation that the intention of the policy has with the tool used to achieve it. Whilst the government has attempted to make connections between the need for parents to be well informed and for teachers and students to have consistent expectations for learning to lifting achievement it is difficult to understand how this will actually have an impact for a very specific group of learners with complex learning needs in New Zealand schools. Numerous studies, and other sources of national monitoring i.e. NEMP have already established national trends in assessment and achievement and who the learners in most need of support are. ERO consistently reports on schools that are not meeting rigorous achievement standards or reporting ineffectively so in theory NS will not be telling parents and teachers anything they do not already know. Is the government implying there are problems with these organizations ability to monitor achievement? – if that is the case it needs to be made explicit. If that is not the case then why is it that the already available data is not the premise for identifying the schools that will receive a portion of the $36 million earmarked for supporting underachieving students?
[1] Anne Tolley, ‘National Standards Training for Trainers’ http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/national+standards+training+trainers