Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill

We have been debating this education bill for about 2½ hours, and I think there is a consensus in the Committee that literacy and numeracy standards for students in our schools are things we all desire, but the question that the Labour Party asks is this: how does this bill do anything about lifting literacy and numeracy standards in schools?

We heard the new Minister of Education saying that somehow national standards would make a difference. Well, we have explained, more than once, about the national administration guidelines that govern all schools. I personally think the Minister has never heard of them and knows nothing about them. I want to tell her, as many members of the House have already done, that schools are required under those guidelines to do exactly what she says the national standards will do. So we ask ourselves—as the public and certainly all members on this side of the Chamber are asking—what the point of this bill is. If these things are already happening, why are we doing it? Labour members have explained already why we think the Minister is doing this. We think the Minister is doing this so that she can create competition between schools.

League tables will be an inevitable result if this legislation becomes law. It is about introducing, for the first time ever, the concept that primary schools would be able to compare their results with other primary schools, and that individuals would be able to compare their results with those of other individuals. It is not that a 5-year-old should know this, or a 7-year-old should know that—that is already required in schools. It is already happening in schools. We have the benchmarks; we have the progressions. We have asTTle tests whereby the individual achievement of pupils is recorded and is available to parents, and it is required by the national administration guidelines in schools to be available to parents. The Education Review Office checks it every 3 years. So what is the point? The point is a right-wing agenda in education.

The scariest speech I have heard in this whole debate was that of the Associate Minister of Education Heather Roy, who started to talk about what, I think, is behind this legislation. She talked about choice. She talked about competition. She talked about reshaping New Zealand education. That is a truly scary prospect.

Let us remind ourselves of what happened when we came into Government in 1999. We inherited an education system that was absolutely demoralised. Not only was it full of decaying buildings, through the neglect of the property programme, but schools were set up in competition with each other, and bulk funding had divided the profession and demoralised education. We had a crumbling education system. The Labour Government doubled the funding. We put in $5.5 billion extra. We put $3.4 billion into school property, and we put all sorts of amazing programmes into schools to lift literacy and numeracy. We employed 6,000 teachers above what was required by roll growth.

Those are the practical things that one has to do to lift numeracy and literacy in schools. It is not about slogans; it is actually about an ideology of making sure that public education is just that—available to all the public—and that the neighbourhood school is a quality school that any parent would be pleased to send their child to. As many of our members from provincial and rural areas know, the school is the centre of a provincial community, and it should be a quality learning place where quality teaching and learning takes place, and where literacy and numeracy levels are lifting for all students.

New Zealand education after 9 years of Labour is world class. It is cutting edge. During the time that I was the Minister of Education—and during the time of my two predecessors, Trevor Mallard and Steve Maharey, in that portfolio—international visitor after international visitor came to New Zealand to look at our education system. They asked why New Zealand 15-year-olds score best in the English-speaking world in literacy and numeracy. How is it that New Zealand education has been cutting edge, with everything from Marie Clay and the reading recovery programme to Professor Hattie with his asTTle programme at Auckland University rolling out into our schools?

International educationalists ask why New Zealand schools are so good. I will tell members why they are good. It is because we have poured resources into our schools in the last 9 years; we have had a culture in New Zealand of collaboration in our schools, a culture of innovation; and we have a curriculum, developed under a Labour Government, that is flexible enough to cater for individual creativity among teachers and educators and to allow for local flavours within those core competencies. We have an education system that is cutting edge. It is an education system that I as Minister was incredibly proud of. I was incredibly proud of what New Zealand teachers were doing in our schools.

Yes, we do have a tail in education. I have been the first to admit that. When we were in Government, we were the first to admit it. Indeed, that is why we rolled out the decile rating system. That is why we poured money into those low-decile schools. That is where the challenge is for lifting literacy and numeracy. That is where we have to make the difference, to pick up the tail. We have to lift up that 14 percent of young New Zealanders who are leaving school with no qualifications, and those large groups of students in low-decile schools who are not reading at their chronological age, not only for their own potential but for the potential of our country.

Māori and Pasifika students figure highly in underachievers in New Zealand education. The global picture is that New Zealand education is first-class—world class. Within that global picture there is a specific problem: how do we lift up those underachievers—the tail—for their sake and for all our sakes? We can do that only through resourcing. Slogans will not work. National standards or league tables for primary schools will not work. Making children in primary schools focus on a one-off test will not work.

What are the dangers of a one-off test? Well, those of us who are teachers—I was a teacher for many years; and on the National side I can see Hekia Parata and Mr Peachey, who have both been teachers—know that a test is a one-off event. A child may be sick or may have had something happen at home, or he or she could be freaked out by the pressure and tension of the test. It is a snapshot of that moment, on that day, for that child. It is not cumulative, and it does not show the progress of a child over a period of time.

We have moved in secondary schools from that one-off School Certificate and university entrance approach—an exam—to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which is a cumulative assessment process. That is a modern, effective system. Indeed, young people are coming out of the system with a true picture of their quality. If we go to national standards for primary schools we will fall back into that old problem of the snapshot for kids.

A number of my colleagues have talked about the experiences of other countries that have done that. We will no doubt hear some more in the next couple of hours. In the United States there is the No Child Left Behind policy. What it has actually done is leave the education system behind. The American education system performs worst in the English-speaking world, and it has got worse under the right-wing Bush regime. Teachers’ salaries became dependent on the result of the tests. Schools’ funding became dependent on the result of the tests.

What was the effect in the United States of the sort of choice that Heather Roy was talking about yesterday—the ACT right-wing agenda where schools are in competition with each other? Well, teachers started cheating in the test. That is well-proved now by educational researchers. The tests themselves became the criteria for teachers keeping their jobs. Low-decile schools in inner-city ghettos and the poorer suburbs of American cities were closing down or were completely restricted in their resourcing. That was the effect of the No Child Left Behind policy.

In the UK the schools of Manchester are ranked 1 to 560. When parents looked at the rankings, who was going to send their child to the 560th school on the list? Everyone wanted their child to go to the schools ranked No. 1, No. 2, or whatever, but, of course, they could not afford to do that because they did not live in the right suburbs. That was the effect of national standards. That was the effect of having league tables between schools.

Mrs Tolley said that this information will not be available to the public; it will be available only to the Government. Has she not heard of the Official Information Act? Does she think that schools will not, with glee, publish the results of their tests, as they do already? With the tests that they sit—the Australasian maths test, and the Cambridge International Examinations—schools love showing what success they have. Who would not? Every teacher and principal is proud of what happens at their school. The effect of that, though, will be to create and compound differences between low and high-deciles schools; between perceived winner and loser schools. We have had a double whammy for education: the 90-day rule, which has made teachers in small schools vulnerable, and now league tables for primary schools.

I have before me an interesting blog from the principal of Ōpōtiki College—a college the Minister of Education would not be totally unfamiliar with. He makes within it some comments that are probably better not read in the Chamber. But he makes a couple of pretty succinct points. The first is that the country that has gone furthest along the line of this bill—the United States—ranks 42nd in the international Programme for International Student Assessment tests, while New Zealand consistently ranks in the top five. A school in a system that spends a lot of time measuring against a standard, rather than focusing on teaching and learning, is one that is not succeeding. He indicates the reason for this: spending time weighing the pig does not make the pig fatter.

The point I want to make is that as part of the learning process, having regular quality assessment is important, and that is what the National Administration Guidelines do. But doing more—putting it into a national testing system and having a national standard that people have to get to, which is the objective of this bill—will add nothing and, in my view, will in fact take away from our education system.

New Zealand has an enormous international reputation for teaching and learning, especially in the literacy area. We are the home of Dame Marie Clay, the person who developed reading recovery, which is now the basis of many, many systems internationally. We have had a lot of debate around the right way to teach reading. One of the challenges in my time as Minister of Education, it might be fair to say, was to get some officials within the ministry to accept that there is more than one approach to the teaching of reading and that different things work better for different young people at different times. It was therefore important not to write off particular systems, which I think it is fair to say had been written off under Nick Smith and Wyatt Creech as being unfashionable, old-fashioned, and not working. I refer especially to phonic approaches to reading. As a teacher I say that it is not my favourite approach, but there is no doubt that it works for some young people at some stages.

I felt slightly in two minds about heading down the route taken by Nick Smith and Wyatt Creech. I was supporting the systems that were more old-fashioned. I was supporting the systems that we learnt to read by. I am not saying that they were the best systems for all kids, and I am not even saying that they were the best systems for most kids most of the time, but I think we got to the point where we managed to more or less drive ideology out of the ministry with this approach. We did a lot of work bringing together the best evidence on the teaching of reading. There was a lot of documentation, and a lot of work now informs the teaching of teachers, both by way of their professional development and also within the colleges of education.

This is a slow process. It takes a lot of time to re-educate, and to develop in a professional sense, people who are teaching reading. We are actually talking about every classroom teacher, including most of the teachers within secondary schools. The point I am making initially is that I think it is very important that we do not get ideological in this particular area.

When I spoke on Part 1 of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill last evening I lamented the fact that there was no opportunity for the general public to come to talk to Parliament about their views on these very, very important issues. This is even more so in Part 2.

There would be a lot to be gained from the Education and Science Committee hearing from people as to how they want to see these national standards put in place. What type of national standards would they be? What would they look like? What must we try to avoid? There are some things that we know we must try to avoid. We have evidence-based research from overseas that shows us exactly what we must avoid. We must avoid national testing, in the way that it drives teachers to teach to a test and therefore does not allow them to use their creativity to address individual children’s needs. I am pleased to say that there is a Supplementary Order Paper that may help to ease the general public’s concerns about their lack of consultation on this bill and the legislative process to date and I want to speak in favour of this Supplementary Order Paper put forward in the name of the Hon Chris Carter.

The purpose of the Supplementary Order Paper is to ensure consultation with the public before the Minister can publish, by a notice in the Gazette, any national standards. I think that is a basic minimum requirement. I would be very, very concerned if the Minister was to not support this amendment. If the National Party is not supporting this amendment, then I think the intention is very clear: the Minister, who has a lot of power and not very much knowledge about these issues, has absolute carte blanche to go ahead and decide what these national standards will be. That could very easily turn into national testing.

💬 David Bennett: What do you know?

I am not arrogant enough to believe that I am the person with all the wisdom on this issue, unlike the Minister, who has rushed this legislation through the House, has not asked for public submissions, and has not allowed the opportunity for ordinary people like me—just parents—who might like to have a say about what the education standards might look like for my children and for other people’s children as well. We have not been able to have that opportunity so I want to speak in support of that Supplementary Order Paper, and the associated Supplementary Order Paper from the Hon Chris Carter.

The second Supplementary Order Paper will provide for greater scrutiny of national standards and the ability for them to be reviewed, by treating them as regulations. I think that is a very important power, a very important amendment, that this House needs to consider very carefully. What if the national standards are gazetted by the Minister and they are not quite right? What would be the redress? What would be the recourse? How would we review that?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why should it be any different from the curriculum?

I say to Dr Smith that I look forward to him voting in favour of this amendment. If he believes there should be a review, that there should be proper processes around this, then I invite him to support the Minister’s amendment, because I think it is an excellent one. I would be very, very worried indeed—I think it would be a very worrying signal to the New Zealand public—if National Party members could not find it in their hearts to support these two amendments. These are the safeguarding amendments to make sure that, even though we have not had a democratic process for this particularly important bill, there is at least some ability for the public to have some say over what those national standards may look like, and then to come back and revisit them and see whether they have worked and be able to review them. I think that is a very important part of any robust legislative process—not that this has started very well at all. It has not been robust from the start, because we have not had a select committee process.

I want to take the opportunity also to talk about a few other parties’ positions. I find it very interesting that the ACT Party, the party of freedom of choice, is supporting a bill that potentially forces everyone down the same pathway. They are national standards. Where is the freedom of choice argument from the ACT Party on this issue? Forcing children to go to school, for goodness’ sake, under Part 1! Where is the freedom of choice in that? I find the ACT Party’s position very interesting. I turn to the Māori Party’s position on national standards. Yesterday I listened very carefully to Dr Pita Sharples. He was very interesting. He talked about how mainstreaming does not work necessarily for Māori. I agree with him, but forcing national standards that only the Minister will have the right to have a say on—what will that do for Māori children?

I am happy to take a call on Part 2, and to follow my colleague Sue Moroney in reiterating that members on this side of the Chamber are concerned at the lack of process in this bill.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will you repeal it?

I say to Dr Smith that there is a bill before the House that would normally be referred to a select committee, except it is being rammed through under urgency, on a Saturday, so that the Government can look as if it is doing something. The reason we oppose this bill is that all it does is write a blank cheque for the Minister of Education to do whatever she wants, with no redress to the sector, no ability for anyone to have his or her say, and no ability for anyone to do anything about it if the Minister gets it wrong. The Minister says that she will go out for consultation, and that is great, but why does she not send this bill to a select committee, which is the natural form of consultation built into this democratic process? I am sceptical about the fact that the Minister says she will consult. By doing it this way, it means she can pick and choose whom she consults. It means that those who disagree with her may not be asked to have any input into this process. So I ask the Minister to support the Hon Chris Carter’s amendment—which at least says that this would be done under regulation—so the bill can go to the Regulations Review Committee if people do have concerns about it.

The Minister says that this is not national testing. She has been quite at pains to let people know that. Of course, that is where this policy started. We have to ask why everyone in the sector thinks this will include national testing if the Minister says that it will not, and says that it is just about national standards. It is because anyone who knows anything, in the sector—and we can read the enormous amount of commentary on the bill within the sector—knows there is no point in having national standards if we do not test to them. Standards mean nothing if we do not actually compare students with them. This bill started as national standardised testing when it was policy in the campaign. But there was such an uproar from the sector, including from those who normally support the National Party, that the policy got watered down, and watered down. I was at election meetings with Mrs Tolley where she basically said it was not national testing; it was just standards. People would say that we do have those now, so why are we replicating what we already have in relation to a Government that said it wants to reduce compliance for schools?

I can tell members why we are doing it. It is so that the Minister and the Government can save face. They started off promising national standardised testing, but they backed down hugely under enormous pressure from the sector, which said that all the research showed that it did not work. The principal of Ōpōtiki College in the Minister’s own electorate pointed that out, as did a Programme for International Student Assessment test: the USA, which has gone down this path, is ranked 42nd; New Zealand, which has not gone down this path, is ranked in the top five. All the research shows that the policy does not work. But the Minister did not want to say they should just dump the policy and find something that worked, so she watered it down, and watered it down. It is now going to force schools to do something they are already doing—to replicate the work they are already doing—while she goes around telling them she will reduce compliance. I say to members of this Committee that no party should be voting for a bill when it does not know what the bill will do, and when there is no redress for the public, the sector, or for any member of this House to be able to change it if it is wrong. This bill will simply be gazetted, and then that is it. If it is wrong it will be tough luck. The Minister says she will consult, but I do not believe that.

I want to respond to something I heard last night from Te Ururoa Flavell, who talked about the very good select committee inquiry, and I was a member of that committee on that inquiry. I point out to the Māori Party that no one came along and said they wanted national standardised testing. In fact, they came along and said exactly the opposite. That inquiry was a very good inquiry, but if we read the report on that inquiry we remember—as I am sure the member does, because he was on the select committee just as I was—that everyone who came along talked about the very good testing that is already going on in our schools. They talked about the fact that the asTTle test is giving schools a chance to measure students in a way that is relevant. Not every student comes into our education system on the same level. To set an arbitrary standard and say that this is what children have to achieve, whilst ignoring where those children were when they came into the school system, will do nothing. In fact, the child who came into the school system doing very well, who achieved at that national standard, might have gone backwards. That child might have actually been above the national standard when he or she came in, but went backwards and then met the standard, yet the Minister will say that is fantastic because the school is reaching the national standard. Another child who came in far, far below the national standard, and who then fell just short of it, might have done an incredible job with incredible teachers to get to that point, but they will be told that they have failed. That is what national standards do. Those schools that pick up students who are in the latter category will find it harder to get teachers.

The Minister also said there would be no league tables. Is she going to tell me that every local MP who gets more resources because that school does badly under national testing will not go out and trumpet that?

In some of my earlier contributions I mentioned my concern that private schools will not be included in this policy. Private schools will not be subject to the national standardised testing regime introduced by the National Government, even though they get a considerable amount of public funding. Indeed, it is National policy to increase the public funding of private schools, from around $40 million a year to $70 million a year. That is nearly a 100 percent increase in funding from public money going directly to private schools, but without the imposition on those schools of the same obligations that State schools will need to have in order to meet the national standardised testing. That then raises the issue about how the schools that might not meet the standardised testing regime of the Minister will be funded and resourced in order to meet that standard or to support their children to meet those standards.

It recalls to mind the No Child Left Behind policy of the US legislation, which I talked about in my second reading speech. The experience in the US is that the standardised testing regime had a major impact on the schools that failed to meet that test, even if they were improving. None the less, if they continued to fail to meet those tests, then one of the obligations was that the school potentially had to hand itself over to be run by a private company rather than by the community. Indeed, there has been a great deal of interest in the No Child Left Behind policy in the US. Privatisation advocates in the US have said that in their view, the schools that fail to meet the standards would be the first to be privatised. They would be the first to be either handed over because of the law to private interests, or just bought out by private interests and run by private companies as private schools.

What will it mean for New Zealand if, in the future, schools consistently fail to meet the standard? They might be progressing and making advances but they might none the less not be meeting the standards. What will this mean for schools in poorer communities such as Aranui, Highbury, Ōtara, and Porirua at the same time that decile 10 schools and private schools will get almost a doubling in their public funding? For example, if we look at Kings High—and I understand that John Key is a parent of a child at that high school—it will get an increase per annum—

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: King’s College, not Kings High. Kings High is Dunedin; very good.

King’s College—that is quite right. King’s College is to get an increase in public funding of $1.2 million per year from the National Government. I am sure that will be very helpful to John Key’s children, but at the same time that school may not necessarily be subject to the new national standards. We might get some clarification on that. However, schools in Ōtara, Aranui, or Highbury may well desperately need those resources to try to meet these standards and provide support to their children—particularly decile 1 and 2 schools.

Where will that money come from? I have said in earlier debates in this House that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said that there will be no new money for Ministers to spend in their portfolios, and that if they are to have any new initiatives, then they will have to find the money from within the portfolio for themselves. So where will this new money come from to fund private schools? It will come from the poorer schools in our community. The money will be used to do the standardised testing and to force our State schools into league tables, which will identify some of them as failures and make them more subject to criticism and disregard, even though those schools actually need a great deal more financial support. The money will be sucked out of the decile 1 schools and funnelled into the expensive, private decile 10 schools that do not need those resources.

This is another means by which the National Government will suck money out of poor communities and funnel it into rich ones. All the legislation passed under urgency so far has been exactly about that.

What will be the next steps? National’s policy talks about allowing popular schools to expand in the future. It talks about having capital funding for those schools that are growing their role, which will again extract money from out of the schools that need support and into the schools at the high decile end that have community support. It will be helping them to grow at the expense of the other schools.

Last night I spoke about what is currently available in schools—notably, the curriculum levels and the achievement objectives for each level. Part of my point was that we already have standards in schools.

If we look at an intermediate school year such as year 8, it is reasonable to expect that a child in that year will be learning and functioning at level 4 of the curriculum. In fact, in each curriculum level there are three sub-levels. It is relatively easy for a child who comes into a school and is operating at, say, sub-level 11 to progress through one sub-level in the course of a year and reach the benchmark. A relatively mediocre teacher can achieve that. It is a lot more difficult for a teacher who receives a child who is working at sub-level 5 to progress that child through five or six sub-levels to reach the benchmark. A teacher who gets a child at sub-level 5 and progresses him or her through four sub-levels is actually doing a fantastic job—a better job than the mediocre teacher who gets a child to move just one sub-level and reach the benchmark. That excellent teacher could be penalised and called a substandard teacher, although he or she has actually done a better job in raising a child from a lower level.

If that teacher and the school do a fantastic job in raising achievement to a greater level but still fail to meet the benchmark, the school could be deemed to be a failing school in the league tables. The effect of a school being deemed to be failing is that parents tend to vote with their feet, the school suffers a falling roll, and that affects resourcing. Good teachers who see the writing on the wall then get out of that school because they can, while they can, and lower-quality teachers tend to remain. There is a downward spiral effect on the quality of achievement. In effect, the school starts to suffocate through the good teachers leaving and through the resourcing leaving with the kids whose parents vote with their feet, and there is a detrimental effect on education overall. There are alternatives. It is reasonable to expect—and this is something our school worked with last year—a child to progress two sub-levels in the course of a year. I suggest that instead of setting a benchmark or a standard, we look at alternatives such as minimum progress over the course of the year.

However, because the bill is not going to go through the select committee process, we are unable to explore all the various options. Members have spoken about getting the truants to come in; well, how about getting the parents of truants to come in? We could get all manner of people within the sector to come and talk about truancy, and we could hear the various options that are available. It is arrogant of us to believe that we sitting here have all the answers and know what the various options are.

So that is the effect of comparing schools’ results—the league tables that will inevitably happen if we have national testing. My biggest concern about this whole process and the lack of transparency is that we are neglecting to bring people in to give them an opportunity through the select committee process to have their say and put forward alternative systems and ideas.

The bill is not going to raise achievement whatsoever—which, of course, is the goal of the bill. I keep going back to the point I made last night that we will not raise achievement until every child in every class in every school has an excellent teacher in front of him or her. I believe that it is the role of the Government to provide the conditions where excellent teachers can weave their magic. Generally, a child will truant because he or she is disengaged, unmotivated, and disenfranchised from the classroom. It is imperative that we give the teachers the skills, the training, and the opportunity so that they can weave their magic for the kids.

I would like to have just a quick word because I get the impression from Opposition members that they are rather confused. They have been saying that we do not need this bill because we already have it, there is nothing new there, and we are already doing it. I again acknowledge the very thoughtful contribution from Mr Davis. His is a welcome voice in this debate. However, unfortunately not all principals are as thoughtful and competent as Mr Davis has shown in this Chamber that he is.

We have to wonder why the previous Minister went out to the media yesterday and said “We cannot support this legislation because of its content.” If the content is something we are already doing, how can he vote against it? The Opposition needs to think through the processes. I say again to Mr Davis that he has done a fantastic job at his school, and we want every single school to have that same opportunity. In 2007 the Education Review Office told us that unfortunately 56 percent of our schools are not doing that. We are setting these standards because we want every child to have that opportunity. It is very interesting that the previous Minister of Education, Chris Carter, said that if Labour gets back into Government he would repeal this law and would not have educational standards for children. That is what a Labour Government would do in the future.

I remind Opposition members that while they are trying to make up their minds whether something we are already doing is a bad idea, a former Minister of Education Trevor Mallard himself said that “A national system of benchmark testing was needed so principals and teachers could significantly raise standards in schools and help New Zealand to regain its status as a world leader in education. Mr Mallard said standards testing was necessary to improve the delivery of education.” Mr Mallard said that. He said that if he were Minister of Education, “trial testing would have started this year.” Well, why do not those members make up their minds? I cannot believe that on the one hand they are saying that we are already doing it, but on the other hand they are voting against it.

If there is any confusion in this Chamber today, it comes from the Minister. Nobody on this side of the Chamber has said we do not want there to be standards in education. The Minister seems to be unaware of the situation, so I will help her by drawing her attention to the National Administration Guidelines, which already say “Each Board, through the principal and staff, is required to”, among other things, give “priority to student achievement in literacy and numeracy, especially in years 1-4;”, and “through a range of assessment practises, gather information that is sufficiently comprehensive to enable the progress and achievement of students to be evaluated;”. That is already in the guidelines. They say that student achievement in literacy and numeracy, especially in years 1-4, is a priority.

We have to ask ourselves again why we are debating the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. I think the regulatory impact statement on the bill gives us some guide to that. We read in it that “The Minister of Education can set national standards through the existing provisions of the … Act … either by way of the national education guidelines or by regulations. Regulating for this power could achieve the same policy objective as legislating”. So why would we not do that by regulatory power? Why would we not have a situation where the standards could come under some scrutiny? Today and throughout this week we have seen that National members do not want their policy to come under scrutiny. They do not want to hear from parents, they do not want to hear from educators, and they do not want this policy to come under a proper gaze.

We are left with the Minister being able to gazette the standards. There is no chance for anyone to look at them; that is the Minister’s prerogative, and into the Gazette they go. Members on this side of the Chamber believe that if we are to have standards in education, then we should actually trust parents through boards of trustees, and with their schools and their teachers using the guidelines, to put the standards in place. Those members are saying they do not trust parents. That is the message we are hearing from the National members today. They are shutting parents out of this debate. Part 2 of this bill should be debated by parents and educators in a select committee process. That is important. Does National not believe that getting the views of parents on an important issue like standards in education is something we should do? It is a shame on this Committee that the National Government is ramming this bill through.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months and years from National about the compliance costs for businesses. We often hear those members talk about cutting red tape; they say that has to be the aim. If we refer to the regulatory impact statement on this bill, we see there are some interesting statements about compliance costs. I will quote from it. It states: “The Ministry of Education is unable to calculate the compliance costs of setting national standards at this time, as this is dependant on its implementation.” So we do not even know what the costs for schools will be. We do not even know what the impact will be on hard-working teachers and stressed principals of putting this unnecessary extra load in place. We hear that compliance will come about by having further reporting and more assessment programmes, which will put more pressure on teachers, who are already stressed out and already finding it difficult to do all that work.

This measure does not cut red tape; it increases the burden of compliance for no gain, because we know from the administration guidelines that schools are already doing those things. We have heard from my colleague Kelvin Davis about the excellent work that is going on around the country in terms of standards. We are getting there, and there is no need to go down this path. Why would we want to go down a path led by George W Bush, with his No Child Left Behind policy? We know that policy has been a failure; we know about the inequities that have been caused by that policy. Why would we choose to follow USA down that path? More particularly, why would we choose to go down that path without bringing in the educators and the people who have researched it, to hear their point of view? But no, this Government, 1 week into office, believes it can simply ram this bill through under urgency, without any input from people in the sector.

We have an education system in New Zealand that we can be proud of. It is staffed by dedicated professionals and dedicated teachers who should be talked to, who should be listened to, and who should be brought in to analyse this bill. The learning that our children do is defined by the teachers in the classroom—and I totally support Kelvin Davis when he says that. This bill is no crusade for literacy and numeracy in education; this bill is pure politics. It is about National members being able to say they have done something on literacy and numeracy. Well, I say to the Minister that she has not done anything in this bill.

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr Chair, kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. During the election campaign in the Mana electorate an education forum was held at the Whitireia Community Polytechnic in Porirua. Representatives from the early childhood, primary, and secondary education sectors attended. Most political parties, including National, were represented at that forum, and heard the strong voice and the views of the education sector. The educators spoke with one voice. They said that there had been a lot of education reforms, but now they had got it right. They said that the education system is not broken, so we need not fix it—if it ain’t broke, do not fix it. Teacher after teacher and principal after principal stood up and emphasised that fact. As research has proven, we New Zealanders have a world-class education system. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), despite early problems, is now working and is very successful. The educators were all against National’s policies to introduce more tests and the one-size-fits-all approach, disguised as the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill crusading for numeracy and literacy. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”, they said.

The testing regime, as proposed by National, will lead to winners and losers. It will lead to elite schools and disadvantaged schools. It will lead to haves and have-nots. The current education system, introduced by the Labour-led Government over the last 9 years, has been reducing inequalities in education, building inclusion, and ensuring that all of our children—Māori, Pacific, Pākehā, Asian, and all the other cultures—have the educational opportunities to reach their potential. That was the vision of Peter Fraser and Clarence Beeby. Every person, whether rich or poor, or from town or country, has a right as a citizen to an education that will allow that person to fulfil his or her potential. Their vision was implemented by Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, and now, under the leadership of Phil Goff, Annette King, our Labour team will continue that vision. We will shed light on the Government’s real agenda, and we will hold it to account.

I have visited every early childhood centre and every school in my electorate, and have attended prize-givings. I have talked to and I have listened to principals, teachers, support staff, boards of trustees, parents, students, and members of our communities. There is a deep sense of pride as a result of Labour’s massive investment in education and in the outcomes. The proof is shown, with most of our schools performing extremely well, and New Zealand is already a world-class leader in literacy, participation, numeracy, retention, and achievement. This manifests itself in the way our children from schools in Porirua East, like Cannons Creek School, walk tall. They have worked hard, and they have all the support in terms of world-class teachers and support from schools, families, and communities to achieve. I also add that all the support from Labour, with 20 hours’ free early childhood education, numeracy and literacy support, home-school participation, the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters, Computers in Homes, Gateway, apprenticeships, the Youth Enterprise scheme, and the emphasis on Māori and Pacific preschools, has led to wonderful results. And our parents are in work, they are in affordable housing, and they are getting Working for Families and cheaper health, which all leads to better education outcomes and pride in our children. That is what I want to emphasise.

With regard to Pasifika children, we are above the national average in terms of leading level 2 in NCEA examinations. We have increased numbers in tertiary education. Our graduation levels have gone up. Yes, there is room for improvement, but it is always there and we are committed to that. The education system ain’t broke—do not fix it. If it ain’t broke, do not fix it. Our New Zealand schools are already world leaders in literacy and numeracy achievement and they already have all the assessment tools needed to measure and benchmark our children. The targets have already been set, including in relation to Pasifika children. We have already a joint education programme with the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs with the targets. National’s testing regime will lead to winners and losers. It will lead to elite schools and disadvantaged schools, the haves and have-nots. The worst and most dangerous agenda that National has—and the Minister of Education should listen—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair; kia ora anō tātou katoa. I will refer again to the Education and Science Committee’s report in February on the school system, for two reasons. The first one is it seems to me, on reading the report on that inquiry again, that all the information is there—that is the first point. The second point is that, importantly, most of the parties in the House at this point in time contributed to that report, so one would think there was a commonality of view about it.

If I could firstly just set the scene, the report states that the National Administration Guidelines aim “to put good assessment practice at the heart of the schooling system. Accurate, comprehensive assessment enables teachers to plan appropriate learning programmes to build upon students’ knowledge and skills and address their learning difficulties. It also enables schools to report on what students have achieved to parents and the wider community.” Here is the crunch: “Persuasive evidence was presented to the inquiry that inconsistent assessment practice hampers the development of appropriate learning programmes in many parts of the schooling system. The most significant inconsistencies in the effective use of assessment occur within schools, between classrooms or teaching teams. The failure to observe the National Administration Guideline means that students do not learn progressively and cannot steadily improve their achievement. This is particularly damaging to the underachievers, for whom the consequences of following an unsuitable learning programme can be lifelong.” If there is a rationale for this particular part of the bill, there it is.

The second point is that the report talks about assessment tools. This point was picked up by my colleague Moana Mackey. The report continues: “A wide variety of assessment tools are available. They can provide teachers with a wealth of information about what students know and can do, and can be of immense value in planning programmes that will enable students to improve their achievement. . . . Reports are generated to show what students know, what gaps they have in their learning, and what they need to learn next.” Well, I do not necessarily agree with Moana Mackey about the discussion in the select committee. What that discussion told me was that there are umpteen numbers of assessment tools, but the problem is that they assess different things and, therefore, deliver different outcomes. Again, if ever there was a rationale for moving in this direction, there it is, because the general view of the submitters to the select committee was that the vast number of tools produce different outcomes. I will read out some of them: Prose Reading Observation, Behaviour and Evaluation of Comprehension, the Junior Oral Screening Tool, the Numeracy Project Assessment, and the Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading. Those are some of the ones mentioned in the report. It told us simply that, yes, tools are available, but they produce different outcomes. This provision will perhaps streamline that process.

The third point that the select committee made was in respect of the use of data. Its report states: “We are satisfied that teachers have plenty of suitable assessment tools at their disposal. Our concern is that the schooling system as a whole is not using the huge potential of these tools to support the creation of programmes to improve the achievement of students. This is an issue for all students, but is particularly important for those in the underachieving tail.” The vast majority of those students are probably Māori and Pasifika. “The gaps and deficiencies in the learning of these students cannot be corrected until they have been precisely diagnosed.”

Those are important points, but perhaps we should reflect on a point made further on about an Education Review Office evaluation in March 2007 of how effectively schools collect and use assessment information. The report states: “only half of the 314 evaluated schools demonstrated effective assessment practices, and only 44 percent of schools used worthwhile assessment information which gave an accurate picture of the achievement of students across the school.” This is important information. I would be the first to acknowledge the risk of having too many assessment tools, because they place a huge demand on teachers, some of whom may feel that the assessment takes up time that would be better used in curriculum delivery. But in terms of some of the statistics we have on Māori students in particular at this point in time, I think the effort to give us more data would, in fact, shape those programmes, particularly in terms of what I read out at the start of my delivery.

The final point I want to make in terms of the report is that it also said we should not just go about the process and put out another assessment guideline; it said we should back it up with professional development. Again I quote from the report: “Access to good professional development is essential if assessment is to be used effectively throughout the schooling system.” I totally endorse that point, and I am looking forward to Dr Pita Sharples working with Minister Anne Tolley on this particular issue. In terms of that, the report makes one final point—if the Committee could indulge me by allowing me to provide this information. The report states: “We recommend that more resources be devoted to the provision of comprehensive professional development in assessment practice, so that by 2010 all schools have experienced appropriate training in the collection and use of assessment data. This would make a considerable difference to students’ achievement, particularly among the tail.”—the tail of underachievers.

From the Māori Party’s perspective, schools should be held to account for their part in the underachievement of Māori students. We see this particular part of the bill as an important ingredient in the data gathered being used for productive ends—for setting positive programmes for the future. It is an initiative that the Māori Party will be supporting.

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The debate has been quite relevant so far, and I have been impressed with the contributions being made.

The Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill is both unnecessary and alarming. It is unnecessary because, as is stated in the bill itself, the Minister of Education can set national standards through the existing provisions of the Education Act, either by way of the National Education Guidelines or by regulations. Regulating for this power could achieve the same policy as legislating, so why are we here and why is this bill alarming? We should be clear about this: the bill is alarming because it gives the Minister of Education the power to introduce national testing in our schools. The Government says it does not want to have national testing, so why are we passing a bill that allows for it? National could achieve the raising of national standards simply through using the existing regulatory powers that it has, but it does not want to do that; it wants to introduce national testing and performance pay for teachers. This is a slippery slope, and we are well on the way to it.

National claims that this bill is about raising standards, but we in the Labour Party know that there is a big difference between raising standards and standardising education. That is what this bill is about. It is about standardising education, and implementing a one-size-fits-all approach to the education system, rather than catering to the needs of individual students. This Government needs to wake up to reality and realise that different kids learn at different rates, and not all kids arrive at school at exactly the same point. Some have had early childhood education, and some have not. Some have a lot of support at home for their learning, and some have not so much. We need to recognise that fact in the primary school system. This bill will penalise good teachers who choose to teach in disadvantaged areas and teach disadvantaged students. It will reward the teachers who choose to teach in higher-decile schools, where the kids are already at a higher rate in their learning. The bill will stigmatise the students who live in lower socio-economic areas, and it will increase the gap between the rich schools and the poor schools.

My colleague Trevor Mallard spoke earlier on about a number of the things that Labour did when we were in Government to increase the number of resources for schools. He did a lot of work in looking at assessment tools in schools and promoting tools like the asTTle assessment tool—I tell Mrs Tolley that I am not referring to a cricketer. He focused on things that work, and he talked to the teachers, the principals, the parents, and the school boards of trustees. Why is this Government so afraid of hearing what those people have to say that one of the first things it does is ram this bill through Parliament without giving them any chance to have a say through a select committee process? In the Labour Party we focus on what works. We listen to the evidence, we listen to what teachers tell us, we listen to what the principals tell us, and then we act accordingly.

National is not at all interested in what the teachers have to say or what the professionals have to say. National knows best; it has had its polling company out there. Its polling company told it that raising national standards was the way to go, so that is what National will do. It will have a bill that is a page and a half long and is all about raising the national standards. That will save all of the problems that we have with literacy and numeracy! National is on a crusade—it is a page-and-a-half long crusade! It will not last for very long.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Less bureaucrats!

That is right; National is on a crusade for fewer bureaucrats, as well, so let us load a few more compliance costs on to schools!

💬 Hon Members: Fewer bureaucrats!

That is right.

💬 Moana Mackey: Less bureaucracy.

That is right.

The Labour Party, which I am proud to stand here and represent, is focused on what works. In the 9 years we were in Government we focused on giving schools the resources they needed to deliver on what works. We do not agree with Bill English, who said the low-decile schools were “awash with cash”. We do not agree with that; we base our policies on sound evidence, not bumper stickers that Crosby/Textor has told us are good ideas. We listen to what the teachers have to say. This is a typical National Party approach—it says whatever it needs to say in order to become the Government, and then it does whatever it wants to do when it gets there. And it will ram legislation through under urgency so that nobody gets to have a say on it.

This bill puts the boot into the people at the bottom of the heap, and that is what this week has been all about for the new National Government—putting the boot into the people who did not vote for them. This week has been about putting the boot into the families who have just had their taxes increased. These who are going to be impacted on by many of the measures in this bill, have just had their taxes increased by the incoming National Government. They have just had their work rights stripped away and their job security stripped away, and they can now be sacked within 90 days, just like many of the teachers who will be expected to deliver on this.

I seek leave to table two documents at this stage. The first is a report entitled “Exacerbating inequality: the failed promise of the No Child Left Behind Act”.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I seek leave to table a second research report, which is entitled “Testing and Social Stratification in American Education”.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I will take one more call.

We are debating Part 2 of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. As the Minister of Education said, this provision is part of the National Government’s action plan. It is trying to identify underperforming schools and help them, but in discussion on the floor of this Chamber we have had identified the amount of funding that this Government will be providing to schools to assist them with the whole issue of standards. That amount is $18 million, which is just a tiny fraction of the current education budget. It will not provide any of the supposed turbocharge indicated by the Government. Some action plan it will provide!

We heard the Minister in the chair, the Hon Anne Tolley, say that 32,000 children are truant every day. I ask her what extra resource will be provided for a typical low-decile school, because it is the low-decile schools that will be most affected and will need extra resources to deal with the issues of truancy, numeracy, and literacy. I also ask her what resources will be provided for Māori schools and for children of Māori origin at schools, because our friends in the Māori Party have been asking for assistance in that respect. The explanatory note of the bill refers to the compliance costs. It advises that the Ministry of Education cannot calculate the compliance costs for schools, but it will supposedly take steps to minimise those costs. I suggest that this provision will simply mean another layer of red tape regulation that schools have to meet.

This bill is about a one-size-fits-all approach to schools. It will pit school against school. I have visited just about every one of the 35 schools in my electorate of Christchurch Central, and I can report that not one principal, not one teacher, not one parent, and not one board of trustees representative has ever raised with me the need for this kind of legislation. What many of those schools in Christchurch Central require—many of them being low to moderate decile schools—is more resources. That is what will address the issues still there in terms of literacy and numeracy. In fact, this bill is simply more right-wing dogma. It is a one-size-fits-all approach. It is picking up on the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, which is failed policy. The analysis has been that that policy has failed.

I want to also comment on suggestions that there was failure in education over the last 9 years, under the previous administration. That is offensive, I think, to all those children who did well under the last Government’s policies, who are still doing well, and who have made extraordinary achievements under those policies. It also, I think, provides offence to the many thousands of dedicated teachers who go beyond the call of duty every day to assist their pupils, and who do a darned good job, as many world league tables show.

As the Minister indicated, this bill is also about getting higher achievement. We all acknowledge that schools can do better, but I suggest to the Minister that what she needs to do is already in place. I took the previous Minister, the Hon Chris Carter, to see a decile 3 school in my electorate, Linwood High School. That school acknowledged that it had problems with literacy and numeracy, so a dedicated teacher at that school set up the LANE project—the Literacy and Numeracy Empowerment project. It has become an inspirational project for that school, and I suggest that it provides a model for the Minister of Education to look at, if she truly wants to address numeracy and literacy issues. The school has assessed every year 9 pupil coming into it, right across the board. It assesses the children’s family background, health, educational status, and the sorts of situations they come from. Many of the children come from one-parent homes. Many have very poor teeth, because they cannot get proper dental care. Some students were arriving at school having had no breakfast. The most extraordinary thing of all to be determined by the Literacy and Numeracy Empowerment project, which covers every year 9 pupil at Linwood High School, was that one in five of those children could not read.

I move, That the question be now put.