The third and final report on the effects of National Standards, which is to be released in Dunedin today, has found some parents choose not to share school reports with their child because of the new judgements, and is expected to recommend the Government abandons the four-point National Standards scale.
The Research Analysis and Insight into National Standards (Rains) project, is a three-year study by Prof Martin Thrupp, of the University of Waikato Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, which examines the enactment of the National Standards policy in six diverse New Zealand primary and intermediate schools.
The report, to be released at the University of Otago during the New Zealand Association for Research in Education annual meeting, provides an overview of the National Standards policy as experienced by staff, children and parents in the Rains schools.
It recommends. -
• Changing teachers' expectations of progression through the curriculum levels to be in line with national norms.
• Abandoning the four-point National Standards scale and instead reporting whichever underlying curriculum level a child has reached.
• Leaving it to schools to determine pupil achievement against curriculum levels while informing their decisions through high-quality professional development.
• Removing the reporting of primary achievement to the Ministry of Education and the public.
• Gathering system-wide information through a national sampling approach.
• Continuing with Education Review Office reviews but with different policy informing review teams' practices.
The report also considers why those who were initially sceptical or dismissive of the Government's National Standards policy, had mostly come around to engaging with the standards with more effort and attention.
''Reasons for falling in line with the National Standards include professional identities, pressure from central agencies, and incrementalism,'' the report says.
''National Standards are having some favourable impacts in areas that include teacher understanding of curriculum levels, motivation of some teachers and children, and some improved targeting of interventions.
''Nevertheless, such gains are overshadowed by damage being done through the intensification of staff workloads, curriculum narrowing and the reinforcement of a two-tier curriculum, the positioning and labelling of children, and unproductive new tensions amongst school staff.
''These problems are often occurring despite attempts by schools and teachers to minimise any damaging impact of National standards.''
Whether National Standards were seen as a good idea depended on the experiences and perspectives of particular families and particular children.
''Parents tended to trust schools to know what they were doing and were clearly not very interested in how the National Standards judgements came about.
''Some parents chose not to share school reports with their child because of the National Standards judgements.''
The report says if evidence is found that National Standards is damaging schools, it needs to be taken seriously because it has surfaced while New Zealand's version of high-stakes assessment is still in ''an embryonic stage''.
''National Standards are not going to avoid the problems found internationally; they represent a variation on the theme.''
