Protesting Too Much

National Testing, Although Well Meant, Will Fail

It has been fascinating to watch the predictable reaction by the primary school "sector" to the introduction of national testing for competency in reading, writing and arithmetic. State education has long been dominated by educators who cast themselves as professional experts. In the reaction we see their "expertise" displayed--and it is vociferous.

A powerful, vested, interest-group nexus has formed within state education made up of teachers unions who are driven to protect their members, principals who are driven to protect their positions, and education bureaucrats who are interested in expanding relentlessly the stifling dead weight of bureaucratic control over state education. The government initiative to introduce testing has truly set a hungry cat amongst these fat pigeons.

We predict that the pushback by the state education complex will be orchestrated, relentless, and, in the end, successful. "You can't fight city hall", is a time-honoured adage. And in this case the educational interest groups aligned to oppose national testing are far bigger and more powerful than any city hall. And the centrist government of the day is not willing to pick a fight with anyone, let alone the state educational complex. We predict that national testing will die the death of a thousand qualifications and modifications as the Minister of Education tries unsuccessfully to placate the relentless critics.

The idea of national testing in primary schools itself is sound, if it were stripped out of the ambit of state-controlled education. It builds upon a "tools of learning" hierarchy, where basic competency in reading, writing, and arithmetic are seen as the foundations of learning in all other disciplines. This is not a "common sense" notion: it is, rather, a Christian concept. But it is a concept which modern Unbelievers rejected long ago as part of the reconstruction of the world around the image of autonomous man.

The educational-theory arguments being advanced against national testing in these three disciplines reflect this Unbelieving reconstruction right down the line. The focus upon these three subjects will squeeze out other subjects, it is argued. It will stifle creativity. It will inhibit individuality and spontaneous expression. It will make children into automatons and machines. These emotive arguments reflect accurately their religious underpinnings.

Because man is believed to be the master of all things, nothing human can be foreign or wrong, at the end of the day. There is no body of knowledge, no subject matter, no particular curriculum which is more important or foundational than any other. There are only perspectives of spontaneous and creative beings: each perspective is as worthy and authentic as any other. Thus, in state education the teacher is not an imparter of authoritative knowledge, as a superior to an inferior, but a facilitator of a child's self-discovery. True, some may self-discover reading, writing, and arithmetic; but other pupils may discover art, texting, and hip hop. Each is valid, equally worth while, important and authentic. The skilled modern professional teacher, we are told, will facilitate and affirm each to their own. That is the essence of professional skill of teaching in the modern state education frame.

The NCEA system was designed with just this intent: to build a state education system where there were no failures, but that all students could find something at which they could and would achieve.

So the pushback by the complex will be relentless and comprehensive. The national testing policy contradicts the fundamentals of modern educational ideology--and is therefore akin to blasphemy.

Meanwhile, it is diverting to see the hopeless contradictions on display as the educational complex gears up. To date, the standard apologia for increasing illiteracy and innumeracy rates in state schools has been to plead the ever expanding number of subjects teachers are required to teach. You would think that now the state is requiring them to focus down upon three fundamental subjects in primary schools, they would breath a sigh of relief, and say, "At last, thankyou". But, not a bit of it. The self-interested educational complex is now talking out of the other side of its mouth: if they have to focus on the core three subjects, they will be forced to neglect all those other subjects they really, truly so love to teach, er facilitate that are so, so important.

Or consider this one. Testing on the three r's will result in us neglecting other subjects. Well, one thinks, surely this is an argument to introduce testing on those other subjects as well, since, you know, they are so important. Not so. The state educators are not having a bar of it. Their argument remains: because all subjects are equally important and authentic, not one of them should be singled out for testing. Go figure.

State education will continue to wither on the vine until it eviscerates itself. The national testing programme, while well meant, will not do that. The monster will thrash about a bit, but it will remain. Expect widespread fudging on the test results, and huge discrepancies in testing standards. The system will defend itself to the death--or at least until the testing policy is stopped.

To eviscerate the state education monster the government would need to offer a full tax credit for fees paid to every parent who chose to send their child to a non-state school. Within a generation, the state educational monster will have starved. In its place would be a rich plethora of non-state schools, effectively controlled by parents. And these parents will be dumb enough to insist that their children achieve proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic--and lots of other very important subjects.

That will not happen in our lifetimes--and will only occur when it has been preceded by a widespread turning back of the community to the faith of our fathers.