28

Build them

by Whaleoil on February 2, 2012

The teacher unions are now set to go to war over the possibility of League Tables. They lost the war over National Standards and so their solution is to now try and prevent the data being analysed:

NZEI president Ian Leckie said this week that schools were deeply concerned that information could be made public – it will be subject to Official Information Act requests – and aggregated into crude league tables that would unfairly label students, schools and their communities.

He said they were not moderated and there was huge variation in the ways schools were implementing them. “It would be a case of junk information in and junk information out,” Mr Leckie said.

Any national standards-based league table would simply reflect the school decile and serve to name and shame some of the very schools that were working hardest to raise student achievement.

He wanted an assurance that the date would be “protected” from publication.

“Otherwise the Government will find that come May 31, schools will be reluctant to hand their student achievement data over.”

I think Mr Leckie will find that the public embarrassment of a poor rating compared with schools that did hand over data will ensure that Boards of Trusttee will comply with their legal requirement to submit data.

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  • Hakimofphut

    Dont expect the likes of Dio or Kings to be involved. They  could lose out to some hick private school in Masterton. 
    After all the sons and daughter of the 1% dont normally punch above their weight in the brains area.

    • Thorn

      Who are the 1% below par brains group you refer to?

    • Brian Smaller

       My son and his fellows at his private school had a 100% NCEA pass rate for Level 1. My son got pass with Excellence and is doing university physics papers in the 6th form. When we looked at sstate schools in our area the three schools had NCEA Lvl 1 pass rates of about 30, 40 and 60%.

  • Thorn

    Thanks to  Mr Leckie’s blind-spots, the NZEI are learning the lesson of MUNZ – either be prepared to deal in good faith or be dealt to.

  • Scanner

    Mr Leckie needs a short sharp lesson in who actually pays the wages and provides the money for schools – clue – it isn’t the NZEI

  • STEVE AND MONIQUE

    What are the NZEI,and their members afraid of.Doing there jobs to a standard that it seems has been lacking in schools for some time,ie the basics of reading,and maths etc.Learn from the Wharfies,and look out because public sentiment at the moment does not seem to like Union shit-stirrers,and their tactics.Labour backing this move,or are the left going to remain quiet(again).

  • Gazzaw

    Leckie is stupidly playing King Canute. Parents want league tables. Parents = votes.

  • Paranormal

    Parents already compile their own league tables.  Leckie should be happy that official ones are being produced rather than what happens now - that is word of mouth.

  • http://bwwebblog.blogspot.com/ Bawaugh

    What gets measured gets done.

    If the Unions want a ban on publication then what do they have to hide. ?Still if the Government does not make up league tables then the media will. And I would prefer a government league table to a media one. 

  • Hakimofphut

    Just yesterday a US University admitted to supplying false numbers for the medias ‘league tables

    But of course there  were ‘soft’  scams as well.  Pay the students to resit the SATs, or juggle the enrolment times so  poorer quality students were enrolled after the  stats were compiled.
    Then there  the other rorts like gaming the acceptance rate by encouraging more students to apply so it looked like they were  more selective.

    league tables mean lies

    • Thorn

      This is old news to our useless lot. The NZEI are subject matter experts on cheating, lying and distorting information to avoid having to account for their failures. 

  • Kosh103

    Once again WO proving how little he knows or understands education.

    • Kthxbai

      Are you sure it’s you who doesn’t understand?  The big picture in particular. 

      Our literacy rates are a scandal, and the taxpaying public knows it.  No amount of insisting we have one of the best education systems in the world and that the teacher unions know best is going to fool anyone any longer.

      • Kosh103

        Actually our literacy rates are not a scandal. They are, in truth, some of the best in the world.

        The only fools are those being suckered in by the lies National are telling.

    • STEVE AND MONIQUE

      Education or the unions?.Why would the unions want to keep results private.Feel free to enlighten all with your knowledge.

      • Kosh103

        Becuse the results you see in the nice little tables are meaningless when all schools are compared.

        If you want anything close to an HONEST comparission, you would need to compare like with like, as opposed to looking for another way to demonize low decile schools and the children of the poor.

        Oh and the results are not private. Any parent is free to look at their child’s information. Hell any child has the right to look at their info. All data is sent to the Govt already. So why is it so important to you (who I suspect have children who do not go to a low socioeconomic school) to know how a school which has any number of behaviour and learning impared children is doing compared to your own childrens?

    • STEVE AND MONIQUE

      Thanks for an Honest reply.Our child is only 2.2years old,and as parents we would like to think that we will do all we can to get our child the education he deserves.If this means We compare schools results etc to achieve this then so be it.Would it be fair to say all schools have learning or behaviour impaired pupils..We also live in a small town,and have limited schools to choose from,so we will want to see eveything we can to make an educated decision to which school he goes to.I appreciate that I am still learning how the school system works etc,But I find it disturbing that the NZEI,is looking to block information,good or bad that may play a part in our process to make a decision to send our child to the best school we can.And as for living in a higher socioeconomic group.sadly no.I hope that when he finally does get to school he will not have to put up with industrial action,strikes,etc,because every time one of us have to stay home it places one hell of a strain on the bank account.Cheers once again for your honest reply/ 

      • Kosh103

        What you have to understand is NZEI is not trying to block information, they are trying to prevent the perversion of the information.

        If we end up with tables that compare Decile 10 schools with Decile 1, then you will see the poorest schools trashed by both the media and the right wing.

        And on the point of learning impared and behaviour issues,  I assure you that most of your “rich area” schools have nothing compared with the “poor area” schools. To compare schools with zero regard for the community or the school culture is disgusting, and politicaly drive. And it comes as no suprise to me that it is a National Govt that is wanting to do this.

    • STEVE AND MONIQUE

      I have  a feeling this would impact more on cities schools, then small town NZ.Sorry but politics and the media,will have no sway with us.Politics is politics,and the media,well enough said. As far as poor areas/rich areas,we seem to be one big happy family so to speak,So guess we dont have to many high decile schools in our town.Bottom line is we want the best for our child,and will make an (unbiased) decision based on facts,and results.Any information that has merit will be happily taken. 

      • PauliePaul

        Kosh, are you capable of independent thought at all or do you simply taken everything the union tells you and then regurgitate it?

      • Kosh103

        The problem is, going off things like league tables, you will not get the facts.
         
        You are better off going into the schools and talking to the teachers, rather than relying on National to give you a truthful picture.

      • Kosh103

        I see pauliepaul is someone who is clueless about education.

      • PauliePaul

        Kosh, my question to you was a genuine one.  Not intended as an insult.  You mind me much on my many friends and colleagues that are in the union.I ask them the same question.

        “I see pauliepaul is someone who is clueless about education.”

        I am a school principal completing a Masters in Educational Leadership under Vivian Robertson and on a national educational council…so I know a little…unless all knowledge outside of the unionist worldview is to be discounted.

  • Phronesis

    Always amusing when the reporter demonstrates how poor their own education was by relying on a spell checker to proof read their writing. 

  • Eds59_9

    What parents should be asking is which school will do the best for my child? To answer this you need to look at which schools add the most value to the children who come in the door. This means you need to know at what level they arrive at 5 and then leave at 11 (primary we are talking here). It just may be that the lower decile school that achieves a National standard pass rate of 40% will do more for your bright middle class child than the higher decile school that achieves a 90% pass rate. This is because the lower decile school could well be adding more total progress to the group of students who attend than the higher one. But this is a very hard concept for our upper class to accept and the fear is league tables will reinforce the myth that higher decile means better school. We see comments above that clearly reinforce this (Brian)

  • Lcmortensen

    Not that many people notice, but NCEA data by school is already freely available on the NZQA website. (http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/studying-in-new-zealand/secondary-school-and-ncea/secondary-school-statistics/) 

  • http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/ bsprout

    I can’t believe you guys are all sucked in by a succession of Tui Adverts that pose as education policy. We have an education system that is ranked in the top five in the world and rather than attack the real causes of educational underachievement, like poverty, the government has decided to attack an education system that is hardly broken. My son has just gone through the public system scoring excellences for NCEA and topping international assessments. http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/more-tui-announcements-for-education.html

    • PauliePaul

      Tell us about your education policy BS….do everything possible along with my union mates to protect the status quo?! Water down NS so that they are meaningless?! Restrict info to parents so that your union members keep control of schools?!