Prime Minister John Key yesterday said National's MPs would hold public meetings around the country and he was posting 350,000 letters to households explaining the controversial flagship policy.
National standards are benchmarks in reading, writing and maths that will be used to assess year one to eight children, with regular reports sent to parents.
The Government says it is vital to improve skills because one in five students leave school without the basic skills they need to succeed in life.
Teacher unions oppose it and are demanding at least a trial, but the Government has rejected that and the standards are in place now.
The NZEI, which represents 90 percent of primary teachers and 97 percent of primary principals, said the Government was launching a marketing campaign because it knew opposition to national standards was growing.
"It is clear that New Zealanders are confused about national standards and have no confidence they will raise educational achievement levels as the Government claims," said NZEI president Frances Nelson.
"This information campaign is a kneejerk reaction to that."
Mr Key says teacher unions are looking after their members, while the Government is concerned about children and the effect poor education has on their futures.
"National standards will demand a significant step up in performance from some of New Zealand's teachers and schools," he said when he announced the campaign.
"An Education Review Office report last year found that two-thirds of school leaders are not properly monitoring how well young people are achieving.
"Around 30 percent of teachers aren't doing a good job of teaching reading and writing...that is simply not good enough."
Mr Key said $26 million had been set aside for targeted teacher training and $36 million to help struggling students. There was another $75 million for specialist teachers to help primary and secondary schools.
The Government believes misinformation about national standards is being put out and the campaign is aimed at delivering "the real facts" about the policy and why it is needed.
