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At last - a real debate

Posted on 20 February 2010 - 4:30 PM

The national standards debate is developing into a really interesting slug match. At last, we seem to be having a real debate in New Zealand education. Or is it a real debate? Are all the sides being heard, or is there a great deal of posturing?

One needn't run through all the various arguments to and fro, but the match became really intriguing when Lorraine Kerr, the President of the NZ School Trustees Association, began to put her view across. Simply put she seems to be saying the following:

that the Principal's Federation and the primary teachers' union, NZEI, are misrepresenting the issues
that parents have a right to the kind of information the National-led government is hoping will emerge from reporting against national standards
that Boards should not forget their legal obligations to the Crown (which includes implementing lawful policies that pertain to the schools governed by Boards)

The NZEI & NZPF are now fighting on two fronts. Not only do they have to contest the government/Ministry of Education policy on one front, but they also have to deal with what seems a quite formidable (and possibly unexpected) foe on the other. Lorraine Kerr is clearly a highly experienced operator. She has been President of NZSTA since 2006, and has been a Trustee since the inception of Boards in 1989. She is no fool, and I suspect she will not be one to suffer fools gladly. She seems to think that the two opposing professional bodies are in danger of losing credibility for themselves and their members with parents and Boards.

Weighing into this debate is fraught with danger for anyone professionally involved with schools. Unless, it seems, if one is willing to join the clamour for the scrapping of the policy - although now the tactic has changed to calling for a trial. I consider myself to be outspoken, and take seriously the notion that an ethical teaching professional is also a public intellectual - that is, putting out in public viewpoints that challenge orthodoxy or injustice. However, if I feel tenuous about joining this debate, how then are principals and teachers getting on who are both members of those professional bodies, yet are in support of national standards?

Clearly, the public picture presented by the two bodies concerning national standards is that this policy is self-evidently wrong and any rational person should see that directly. One would have to assume that Prof. John Hattie is such a person. He is, after all, a man of science (or at least one who believes teaching should be 'evidence-led'). It is interesting and intriguing to see how he has got caught up in all of this.

On one hand, he has found himself unwittingly (perhaps?) domesticated by the government (the Prime Minister no less referring to him as a source of inspiration for national standards). On the other, he has had to fight to retain his credibility amongst certain principals astonished to find John Hattie somehow 'behind' national standards. This credibility fight-back has included his public letter of protest along with some other academics. Confused? Well now he's consulting with the Minister of Education and is fine-tuning his assessment programme and delivering the good oil around the country so that national standards get used in a fruitful rather than destructive way.

So clearly a rational person believes that there could be some merit in national standards. Is this why the NZEI tactic has changed from abolition of the policy to trialling the policy first? Seems that is not a bad strategy - it is a pity it didn't get pushed harder, earlier. Now it is probably too late, and the political stakes too high for a government that made a sweeping promise and put a non-teacher in charge of education. John Key has had to gamble political capital (and good brokers don't gamble) to back Mrs Tolley AND a policy that may be based more on gut parental dissatisfaction than on clearly rationalised thinking.

So there's a great deal of huffing and puffing going on, and more to come yet. However, the reality is a lawful but not entirely popular policy, so perhaps John Hattie is taking the right approach - get the best out of national standards, because after all, we're there for the kids, right?

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