National's standards less about education, more about power

If I were in a better frame of mind, it might have made me smile. But since John Key has set the smiling standard, beaming ceaselessly from the web, television, newspapers, and now the glorious pamphlet for parents on national standards in primary schools, I feel inadequate.

My lips are too thin, my lipstick's not right and my teeth are yellow.

I can't even live up to Education Minister Anne Tolley's rather too wide and, dare I say it, slightly desperate-looking grin which also features on the same pamphlet, along with many National Party logos.

Quite why the taxpayer should be required to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for anything featuring such happy snaps and any party logo I am not sure, particularly when National used to be critical of others for similar behaviour.

Still, as I said, I am not in a good frame of mind.

If I were, I might also be roaring with laughter at the incongruity of the PM's electioneering pamphlet appearing the same week he was prissily tut-tutting about the inappropriateness of money-making from the Maori flag.

Following my late grandmother's advice for the doldrums, I have been tidying, a chore she enjoyed as much as I do - her theory being that doing something "ghastly" must make you feel better afterwards.

Delving into the rats nest in my bedroom I discovered old files from the late 1990s about plans for national external tests for literacy and numeracy in primary schools at years 5 and 7.

Sadly, the parents' information pamphlet on that, How is Your Child Really Doing at School?, has not survived my filing system.

Perhaps it featured photos of an ebullient Dr Nick Smith, the Nats' then minister of education.

Whatever it contained, I wasn't impressed at the time, describing it in a submission as inadequate and clearly designed to get a yes vote for testing.

I also posed the curly question, and am not sure it was ever answered, of what would happen if I refused to have my children participate, since other forms of national testing were a matter of choice.

Nick was banging on about Spice at the time - Standards, Pride, Innovation, Choice, Excellence - and National making no apologies for being the party of choice.

"We believe choice helps drive excellence."

Do parents have any choice under the current standards proposals?As four education academics, including Otago's Terry Crooks and Lester Flockton, pointed out in their very reasonable letter to Anne Tolley last year, the outcomes of national standards could be worse than national testing.

Rather than a one-off event, there is likely to be repeated assessing/testing of children as teachers attempt to justify their judgements.

St Nick's jolly proposals faltered when National left office, but it's worth noting he was prepared to pilot his tests in 10% of schools, something he called "a sensible response to this difficult issue".

"The devil is in the detail and I am determined that we get it right," he said in 1999.

Ten years on, his Government's steadfast refusal to allow a standards pilot shows this is more about power politics than education.

It can argue it campaigned on the policy so it should be allowed to get on with the job, but isn't good management about taking people with you?If the idea is such a stunner, a pilot could show that, as well as addressing any difficulties.

No National government likes having to deal with powerful unions such as NZEI, but this blunderbuss approach is likely to make teachers more rather than less revolting.

How is that good for pupils?The pamphlet does not tell the whole story about how much this nonsense will cost, and carefully avoids mention of spending on spin.

As someone who has experienced school as a parent, a board of trustee chairwoman and a poorly paid teacher aide, and who knows first-hand how tight money is for necessities in schools, such wanton money-wasting seems criminal.

I am suspicious of waffly claims about under-achievement, such as that in the pamphlet that "as many as one in five Kiwi children are leaving school without the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need to succeed".

What does that mean?When experienced researchers and teachers suggest that between 10% and 15 % of children are struggling, that teachers already know who they are, and that money would be better spent concentrating on them rather than pointless testing of everybody, why is nobody listening?If there are valid concerns about plain language reporting to parents, couldn't these be addressed in Education Review Office visits?Perhaps John and Anne could set the tone for telling it like it is, renaming their parents' pamphlet National Standards or Double Standards? - You Choose.

Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.