Protecting the Patch

Government Education Under the Hansen Verdict

We have seen the unedifying spectacle in recent days of Primary School Principals objecting to the publishing of performance data on government primary schools.

As part of its election policy-plank the current New Zealand government promised to introduce national testing in primary schools for achievement in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In general the teaching profession has resisted such testing: their reaction to the latest proposal is no exception.

The Primary School Principals do not like the idea that national testing will allow "league tables" to be published which rank primary schools from best to mediocre to worst. They are arguing that the data from national testing should be withheld from the public and made available only to in-house employees of the state education system and the Ministry of Education. "If you are going to test, let's keep the results confidential" is the plea. Why?

Before we go further, let's remind ourselves that the New Zealand government education system is failing. Over 30 percent of our adult population is functionally illiterate--a national rate which would have horrified our parents and grandparents. This is the state of affairs after nearly 150 years of free compulsory secular government education. On any given day, at least ten percent of the nation's school children are absent from classes. Clearly, education is no longer compulsory: this too has become a legal and cultural fiction. Neither, of course, is it free.

In our view these problems are systemic. We are both cynical and sceptical over the worth of any reform efforts--national testing included. The current imbroglio helps illustrate the inherent problems which make reform and improvement virtually impossible. At the very heart of the problem is a deep and pervasive cultural conviction shared the Ministry of education, teachers unions (which now effectively control the government education system), government funded educational support quangos, and the departments of education in our universities that competition is an inherent evil in any education system. In other words, the government education system has become pervasively bureaucratic in its ethos, culture, and operations--which is unsurprising and unexpected. That is exactly what we would expect in a government education system. But it is also why the government education system will not be able to reform itself and will continue to decline.

To illustrate the myopic mindset, consider the following from a Professor of Education at the University of Waikato, in which he describes the evils of national testing:

Teaching becomes a less rewarding occupation and it becomes harder to recruit teachers, especially in those low socio-economic settings where the pressures are greatest. For individual children in high-stakes testing cultures, lessons become less interesting and less likely to address their needs. They become labelled by their achievements and subjected to 'educational triage' where schools focus on some children at the expense of others depending on whether or not they have the potential to pass the tests. Children also become a commodity for schools when they try to recruit high achievers who can enhance their school's test results. They try to avoid taking on 'expensive' special needs students and those with behavioural problems.

In contrast to this disastrous scenario, the New Zealand Education Institute, the New Zealand Principals Federation and the New Zealand Assessment Academy (a group of education academics) are all calling for approaches which would see National Standards providing assessment information in ways which do not set up harmful and controlling performance cultures in schools. They are asking for a focus on supporting and enhancing teaching and learning rather than taking a heavy-handed approach which displaces teachers' professional expertise. Their arguments offer sensible responses to the paradox that the more performative pressure is placed on teachers, the less authentic their teaching will often become. For this reason high-stakes National Standards will be deeply counterproductive.
Martin Thrupp is Professor of Education at the University of Waikato and a spokesperson for the Quality Public Education Coalition and the Child Poverty Action Group.

This is the mindset prevailing within the state educational apparatchik and the government schools. As long as that mindset prevails--and it has been insinuated and now ingrained for over one hundred years--the government education system will not be able to reform.

Let us then document the obstacles which make reform of the government education system and the state education model impossible:

1. The prevailing presumption of parental incompetence and irresponsibility with respect to their children's education.

2. The belief that the Ministry of Education, its supporting apparatchik, the teachers unions, and the teachers are the professionals and the experts in the matter of education. All others are relatively incompetent. "We know best" prevails and is entrenched.

3. The pervasive view throughout the system that all knowledge is radically relative and contextualised; that there is no body of knowledge which can be objectively and subjectively imparted in an authoritative manner from a teacher to a student. Knowledge must not only be contextualised, but learner-centric. (This is what the good professor is alluding to when he speaks of "authentic teaching".)

4. The presumption that it is easier to recruit quality and ambitious teachers to a system which is non-competitive and non-performance based than one which is.

5. The utter and complete abhorrence to the idea that education is like any other service which is subject to market forces. Commercial constructs when applied to education are both blasphemous and an anathema.

6. At the same time, whilst abhorring even the suggestion that education can be congruent with the application of commercial constructs and forces, the overwhelming belief that all problems within the government education system reduce down to one dominant and essential cause: a lack of tax monies. More money is the basic answer to every problem in the government education system.

7. The abiding conviction that government education has both messianic and redemptive potential (and, therefore, responsibilities); education is believed to be the key to preventing and solving all social ills, from poverty to obesity and everything else imaginable.

8. The deeply held view that education is a demand right (as contrasted with a freedom right.) This consigns education to being government run and controlled; it also means that failure is seen as a matter of injustice. The fundamental intolerance of failure means that the system must always be lowering standards to redefine success. Mediocrity becomes a virtue.

All of these views and beliefs are now pervasively institutionalised. They are the very air which the government education system breathes. They are part of a consensus which is unchallengeable. National standards testing when brought into this realpolitik will fail, and fail badly.

Is reform of the government education system then impossible? In practical terms, yes. Yet we remain remarkable sanguine about the future of education in New Zealand. As the government system grinds its way to institutionalised ignorance and failure, more and more parents and pupils will vote with their feet. Eventually a tipping point will be reached politically which will remove the monopoly of the government education system and break its stranglehold on taxation driven funding. We will inevitably see the introduction of vouchers and/or of full taxation rebates for all educational fees and expenses.

Ironically, as soon as the government system begins to feels the chill winds of significant competition it will likely start to lift its game and reform from within. We will end up with a much slimmed down, focused, government education system that functions as a safety net, rather than a prescriptive government monopoly. The chains of ideology by which the government system is currently enthralled are likely to loosen somewhat, if not fall off entirely. But in this case we are talking decades, if not several generations. At present, to all intents and purposes, the government education system is terminally ill. It needs hospice, not remedial care.

All Black coach, Steve Hansen delivered his verdict on the poor, even abject performance of the All Blacks against Italy. "Flush the dunny, and move on", was his conclusion. The Hansen verdict is equally apt to the government education system.