Posts by Sacha
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AS, it wasn't me that mentioned league tables, but we are already well linked in with proven global educational measures and I don't see many alternatives for setting standards.
I'm all for aspirational targets as long as we're clear that's all they are. We simply don't have the resources or the classroom time to apply to reaching perfection. Although overall NZ seems to be performing above-average there's always room for improvement - and no, our bottom-end results aren't any more OK than our income disparity figures.
I just doubt that Tolley's proposed approach will help improve those results. We can easily agree to disagree about that and I'll be happy to be proved wrong in another five years.
Call me pragmatic but I figure if other countries have no better performance than ours then doesn't that say something about what is achievable in the real world? That's where our students will be living, working and applying their learning.
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And is a teleconference discoverable?
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I imagine the eGovt folks would have an interest, wouldn't they?
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Heh. There could be fertile ground for that type of frank advice with the new crop of Ministers...
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Why do private schools have exemption from these Tolley standards?
Good question. If you wanted to privatise the system, wouldn't you want their results listed along with all the others?
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it seems to me your comment "...You calling us..." is an unconciously ironic QED of my point. If Public Address is an "us and them" community, then whose values do you think are reflected within it?
Tom, I was referring to the post on the other site - hence "us" meant PAS as a collective defined from outside. I really did find it amusing and should have added a smiley before leaving the building.
I actually agree that class is the elephant in our national living room, and I'd say poorer people are probably doing things other than sitting here conversing. Maybe in other places, but here not so much.
I don't think I'm alone in PAS-space in favouring aspects of both left and right policy and practice. I do regularly complain about assumptions that the playing field is level (just ask colleagues), and I prefer approaches like discourse analysis. I'm a fan of fairness as well as performance.
Now I doubt most Kiwis would say that makes me "socialist", but I really don't mind if they do. Though I should note that I'm not so keen on white wine unless it has bubbles in it. :)
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Had a look at PISA, they are about where I remember them. Around 50% with literacy at less than level 3. Stellar performance. Not.
AS, are we even reading the same report? From the PISA 2006 Key Findings:
Only 3 of the other participating countries had a mean reading literacy score that was significantly higher than New Zealand’s. Two countries were similar, and the other 50 countries were significantly lower.
Compared to other OECD countries, a relatively large proportion of New Zealand students were highly proficient in reading literacy and a relatively small proportion had low proficiency in reading literacy.
There was no significant change in the mean reading literacy performance of New Zealand’s 15-year-old students in 2006 compared with 2003 or 2000.
Figure 2 - graphically shows only one country with more than 50% of its population achieving above level 3. That's NZ in fifth place.
Our spread of results is wider than most and sure, it's bad that 14% of school leavers don't currently achieve NCEA1 as the Bill and BIM note. Our adult literacy (IALS1996-ALL 2006) results seem more internationally average (can't link directly to the data page as the URL contains double underline which PAS renders as emphasis).
So I'm really not sure how you arrived at your expectations - if they're not relative to other countries which trade in the same global markets and face similar challenges resourcing their education systems. Perhaps by "stellar" you really do mean not of this world? Anyway, do by all means point us to the reports of bad performance you referred to.
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Tom, is that you calling us "erudite chardonnay socialists"? Hilarious.
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Given our appalling literacy and numeracy record
If only that were true..
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Slarty, that's fascinating. Do you know if other agencies are following suit in shutting down online forums?
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