PPTA is very interested in what will come out of the work on developing national standards on literacy and numeracy. We will be part of the reference group for this work, and we'll be making sure that it links well with current work on literacy and numeracy for NCEA. It's good to see that the government is not proposing national testing, because there is ample evidence from failed overseas experiments that this is a disaster for kids' learning. However, even this business of writing standards has some huge risks.
The New Zealand Assessment Academy, founded in February 2008, is a group of academics who really understand assessment - people like Terry Crooks, Alison Gilmore, and Cedric Hall. They've just published an excellent paper that teachers will want to check out. It's got eight key principles for the development of the national standards:
- Promote the educational progress of all students
- Optimise the positive impacts of the strategy on students' learning and educational experiences
- Minimise negative impacts on students' learning and educational experiences
- Make the standards evidence-based and achievable
- Ensure that teachers' professional expertise is utilised and enhanced
- Acknowledge that parents have a right to be well informed
- Adopt a solution that particularly suits New Zealand
- Value multiple sources of evidence
The paper is well worth reading in full. The Assessment Academy's website:
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Judie Alison
said:
|
Level of Education Standards The Ministry says that the standards have been 'backward mapped' from Level 2 NCEA - though I'm far from sure how they would have done that - which is something that only 60% of students currently achieve in Year 12. So yes, Peter is spot on, the MOE is setting a fairly high hoop for students to jump over in its Education Standards. On the other hand, secondary teachers might feel that it would be good if their primary colleagues understood better what students need to be able to do at primary school if they are to be able to succeed at secondary school. Maybe it will raise and focus primary teacher expectations of their students, and result in more students reaching secondary schools adequately equipped for secondary-level learning? We have been told for some time that Level 2 NCEA is the minimum students need to have to be able to cope with a Modern Apprenticeship, for example. If that's true, then both sectors do need to be taking responsibility for getting more students to that level, because the supply of jobs that you can get with less than that level of qualification is drying up rapidly. |
|
Peter Cecil Sumpter
said:
|
Assessment to standards = Is the level correct? We have been provided with sample questions which could be used assess to the new standards. In Mathematics, some of these came from the NEMP project. In every case, at year 4 and year 8, only 50% or fewer of New Zealand students were able to correctly respond to these sample questions. So are these standards going to be set so that half fail to meet the standard? I would really like to know what percentage of year 8 students the Ministry expects to reach these standards. So far no indication of the expected pass rate has been given. But if these questions are used it will be around 50%. |
|
Tejinder Ahuja
said:
|
etracy, literacy and numeracy. The ability of leadership is the ability to climb the tallest tree to peep into future and inform their community of the possible hurdles, needs and opportunities ahead. PPTA will deserve to be a real leader if we foresee etracy as one of the essential capabilities and developing standards that treat etracy at par with numeracy and literacy. For UE the minimum of 8 credits each in numeracy and literacy will be undervalued till coupled with minimum of 8 credits for etracy. I feel etracy has more weightage than the both others put together. Let assessing against national standards be inclusive. Tj |
|
Show/hide comment form
