Posts by ChrisW
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Someone needs to give James Weir a good fisking.
Is it worth a full fisking? It may be reasonable to assume the rest of the NZIER/Weir analysis and numerical awareness is on par with that happily stating NZ has 1.24 square kilometres of protected land per person - cf total NZ land area c.270,000 sq km. So our population must be two thirds of five eigths of SFA.
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Tolley's flailing rather than failing I think.
She'll be supported by Key. And they know they've been embishus enough in seeking instant implementation of National's national standards, quite close to biting off more than they can chew. So this kite-flying nonsense coming out of right field - it's gonna crash pretty soon I reckon.
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Thanks again for that insight into the Minister's mind. It seems they are using the misleading ERO report as their trump card.
There are some good letters in the latest Listener from educational experts, including one from Ivan Snook deconstructing this report
Indeed, and thanks Hilary. But I wouldn't say Snook deconstructed the report - really he only quoted from its Figure 1, but made an important error in the process. ERO found 'adequate' or better teaching of reading at 90% of schools (not 90+% of teachers) - the same schools/teacher error made by the school principal I heard at Tolley's meeting, by the NZEI in its response to the report, and in half the cases by the ERO report's Overview writer, and their 'graphics' person.
But really I thought the Listener editor’s response to Snook was interesting – perhaps there’s a hint of doubt of ERO on their part in their inability to find the source of the “30% of teachers” claim in the body of the report. There’s a mineable vein of irony in that the Editorial stimulating Snooks’ letter also commented on the apparently unrelated matter of “Revelations of embarrassing mistakes and unproven claims" in the IPCC’s report and the consequent doubts on climate change policy, and called for “transparency”.
We can hope, I guess, that the ERO report might yet get a tiny proportion of the scrutiny and transparency of the IPCC report, process and data ...
This detailed analysis of the Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035 debacle rings true to me. It refers to an apparent "curse" whereby every player including layers of technical media commentators, well-meaning and not, made or missed basic errors in the data or review process leading to the report errors, then in the subsequent presentation and explanation of the story. Something like it lurks in this ERO report business.
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In regard to literacy standards at least, doubtless they would blame it on their own teachers having
minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching
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the ERO report on reading and writing in Years 1 and 2 ...
Whilst this is obviously totally anecdotal, to me it indicates the shallowness of reducing a review of our education system to the sum of one statistic.The ERO report indeed deserves more attention, good to come back to it.
My summary of your post is not a bad description of the ERO report, and its style is closely modelled on the report's Overview summary in relation to the body of the report - selective, distortionary, overstates the anecdotal so 'The ERO report Overview is substantially anecdotal' gets misrepresented as "totally anecdotal". But leaves out that the original has numerous errors, and displays sub-standard achievement in numeracy and literacy.
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Hadyn -
The ERO report (which I totally happened to have open) says:
In contrast [to the 70% who are doing well], the remaining 30 percent of teachers had little or no sense of how critical it was for children to develop confidence and independence in early reading and writing. These teachers had minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching, set inappropriately low expectations and did not seek opportunities to extend their own confidence in using a wider range of teaching practices
indeed looks like an oops on my part, at first sight. I was relying on a clear statement of the ERO report's real findings by a school principal in earnest conversation (with someone else) immediately prior to the meeting.
I've read the ERO report on teaching of reading and writing in Years 1 & 2 myself now.
The quote is from the Overview (= executive summary), but it's not supported by the body of the report.
The quantitative data in the body of the report and its appendices and methodology as described is about schools. All Tables express data in terms of percentages of schools. Strangely, however, four of the eight graphs are presented as depicting percentages of teachers, but in each case the associated text makes it clear the percentages are of schools, as for the other four graphs, and as more credibly required considering the report as a whole.
Half the schools are ‘small’ with only one or two teachers of Years 1 and 2. So the discrepancy between percentage of teachers and percentage of schools will be large. Again, there is no sign in this report of any data being compiled in relation to numbers of teachers.
So the quantitative statement in the Overview that 30 percent of [Year 1 & 2] teachers had "minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching" involves mistakenly taking some sort of average of confused percentages relating to other things from the body of the report and attaching it to anecdotal observations of a small number of teachers.
To get all binary on it, looks like ERO : fail. Who reviews the reviewers?
Perhaps not necessarily evil of Tolley to use the ERO report's 'findings' on 'teachers' the way she has, more ill-advised?
A curiosity - the school principal I heard was quoting from the ERO report's Figure 1 - overall quality of teaching of reading is 'high' or 'good' in 69% of schools, 'adequate' in 21%, 'limited' in 10% but mistakenly stated these figures as relating to teachers. Looks like it's a standard error. Statistics - pah!
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On my question of how the new funding of $36 million over 3 years or $80 dollars per "struggling student" per year stacks up in the context with current expenditure (or annual hours of one-to-one) per student that is getting extra support within mainstream schools, on average - Sacha pointed me to the Education Counts site where prominent is this 2009 report "Survey of Special Education Resourcing", based on a very large survey of primary to secondary schools and taking account of all sources of resourcing, in the latter half of 2007.
It's hard work extracting the info from this report, but having done so and to avoid wasting the effort (apologies for thoroughness) -
Comparable to the needs of struggling students who are in the "well below standard" bucket would I think be the least needy Category 4 of this study, needing moderate or high (not very high) intervention over less than 3 years, and comprising 10% of the roll in the schools surveyed (Table 4.1 p.38).
Table 5.7 p.145 indicates mean expenditure (at standardised rates) of $1917 per student in schools with less than 25% of roll with special needs (so mainstream schools) $771 each where 25-49%. The student-weighted mean of these two will be much nearer the higher figure, say $1750, but there's a trick - this for only two terms, so annually $3500 per student.
So $80 new funding - Tolley had it right, effectively nothing.
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Tolley did indeed wish to talk to us at her meeting in Gisborne.
Modest turnout of 50 or so, including a good few teachers. She gave a presentation emphasising the problems -
- The long tail of 20% leaving school without sufficient literacy and numeracy to function in a modern society, equating to 150,000 in the system
- The many international measures of where NZ stands in education achievement but she's particularly keen on PIRLS where we've stood still in reading achievement over recent decades and consequently fallen drastically in international ranking as the rest of the world accelerates away from us.
- The ERO report that 70% of teachers are "excellent", while the rest were "not so good, in fact, some of the language was very strong" [a classic false binary distortion - all better than 'adequate' are elevated to excellent, while 'adequate' and the ?10% worse than that are all implicitly condemned, and the message taken, as intended, is that 30% of teachers are useless. ]The new national standards for reading writing and maths year by year are in place and everyone's happy with them. But she stated repeatedly that there is to be no national testing against those standards, in particular involving tests on a specific day - all suggestions to the contrary are from misinformation out there.
She emphasised the multiplicity of testing and assessment regimes that are in place within different schools, that these will be used to report on each child's position and progress relative to the national standards in prescribed standardised formats currently under development. These will be the basis for the new improved reporting to parents featuring the "Plunket" graphs we all understand, all the other stuff too but in plain language.
Several anecdotes on how National Standards will lift performance - she's seen schools that have used such systems for ten years, and little Johnny has taken her up to his chart(s) displayed on the wall and shown her his progress proudly, and this is what he has to do to get to the next level, and over here, this is where his friend Matthew is at.
One of her three bright children was allowed to cruise through school, but such cruising will now show up on reports, and so can be addressed. (She was later asked a question on how this would be shown, and answered that the graphs would show it as flat-lining - ironically this while the example Plunket graph she'd left on the screen had only one band for "above standard" while two bands for below and well below standard.) [This graph with National Party logo on it is clearly the source of the mischievous misinformation mentioned up-thread that there that is to be an asymmetric emphasis on underachievement rather than boosting higher achievers too.]In two-thirds of schools, the principal and senior staff have not been assessing progress of children in Yrs 1 and 2. Now they will be enabled and required to, and principals/Boards will have the information on which to make decisions if there are problems [by implication non-performing teachers, as well as extra resourcing needs - let's do without a year 6 teacher and put another onto Year 1.]
How the individual reports against standards are to be compiled, and made available or used outside the individual schools is being considered by a working group. So implementation of this aspect is delayed till after, so this year within schools only, 2012 for national reporting [I think she means using 2011 data, but it will be after the 2011 election so let's say 2012.]
She emphasised that there is much more variance in student achievement within schools than between schools. Comparing schools, well it's tricky but we all do it, the media loves league tables - mumble not the plan - working group - let's wait and see on that.
Last year's Budget provided funding for focus this year on professional development of teachers and principals on implementing the National Standards; and $36 million over three years starting next to address the needs of struggling students.
So, National Standards - not the answer to everything but with great emphasis, a powerful, powerful tool for improving the education of NZers.
Questioning - fairly low-key for the most part. One teacher supportive of the National Standards themselves, but with clear concerns on the multi-dimensional apples and oranges problem in comparing schools - to which the only answer is and was mumble working group. Other teachers reticent I think in the context. No one took up the point that the graphs might equally be de-motivating for "struggling students".
I questioned how achievement was to be raised in the long tail if there was only $36 million over 3 years/150,000 students = $80 each per year. She agreed rather frankly I thought that this was effectively nothing, but the other mechanisms as above would be powerful.
I asked whether the mixed messages from the top might have led to the focus of concern on "national testing" and league tables - John Key's reference to national testing at the policy launch for example, and on the back page of the National Party pamphlet we held, immediately below his photo and PM's message the rhetorical question "Do you want to know how your child's school is performing in National Standards when compared with other schools?". But no, the misinformation it seems is all down the union, which does not speak for the good teachers and principals she knows.
If underperforming teachers were a major part of the problem, could there be more benefit from focus there? It can't be sorted in 3 years, more a 10-20 year problem and the standard of teachers at the outset is surely a key, meaning a need to increase the status of teachers to make it a more attractive career? No, we've gotta make do with what we've got.
Could the extra pressure on teachers and schools from the scrutiny relating to National Standards lead to distortions in assessments, and over-focus on the narrow parts of the curriculum being assessed and reported this way, to the detriment of broader education? Neatly side-stepped - but where does this pressure come from? - from the community? Surely that's a good thing, that's the essence of Tomorrow's Schools, that the school should be responsive to the needs of its community. Now this chap here is dying to ask me a question ...
And wrapped up at 7pm sharp.The politics are very strange - that this from the National Party campaigning for its policy which is being implemented while still in development, rather than from the government that knows what it is doing. (Sort of like their tax policy really.) But low-key meeting - I stood out far enough without going there as well.
Well, I'm not a journalist either and can't work evenings or meet my own deadlines like 9am, but hope this belated report of proceedings is of interest and use to others. I've sorted the earlier query on the baseline of current support relative to the $12M p.a - will provide separately.
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Can anyone help?
In asking Tolley some questions, along lines suggested by Sacha and Hilary - a key one seems to be on the new funding to support schools to actually lift the education standard of those 150,000 students currently thought to be well under standard.I know the simple answer to be expected - $36 million additional over 3 years - and that this equates to $80 each child per year or half a day of one-to-one attention, so obviously not expected to make much difference.
But can anyone put this in context for me with current expenditure (or annual hours of one-to-one) per student that is getting extra support within mainstream schools, on average? I understand broadly this is more like $thousands each but it would be helpful in my opportunity in two hours to "talk to Hon Anne Tolley about how National Standards will help your child" if I had a credible figure for the status quo.
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OK, I'll go, and report back. Good ideas on the specifics - any others welcome.
And Gordon - on the shortest, most pertinent point in your long post -
2. No replies so far to my belief that our literacy rate does not depend on tests AFTER you get to school, but what happens BEFORE kids get to school - so we are defining the wrong problem, and therefore the wrong solution.
I note the example "Plunket graph" in the*National Party* pamphlet assumes that no child starts school at the beginning of year 1 more than "just below standard" but as the years go by there is great scope for them to fall "well below standard".
In fact, the "snapshot" graphic beside the "plunket graph" purportedly showing where one's child stands relative to the standard(s) shows neatly two child-figures per band on the scale well below, just below, at standard, just above and well above - clearly setting up an impression that despite the rhetoric these are conceptually percentiles, and the National party expects there to be 20% of children "well below standard".
So, clearly the National Party disagrees with your evidence-based view on the importance of the pre-school period, and the teachers are being set up. (IANAT)