Delahunty Catherine: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Delahunty Catherine: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20403] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou e te Wharenui. We face an extraordinary spectacle in terms of education at the moment. It is depressing to have looked at the Budget estimates and heard the speeches saying that the Government absolutely prioritises education when in fact the Government has declared war on the education sector. 
There is a whakatauki that is commonly used and it has been used in an education document that I have here: “Nau te rourou naku te rourou ka ora ai te manuwhiri.”—“With your basket and my food basket the well-being of the people is assured.” If we take that and think about our children we see that there is no well-being in introducing a system of measurement into the compulsory sector and funding it through Vote Education to the tune of $66 million over 3 years when the sector has asked the Government to trial it when parents are signing petitions against it and when schools—20 percent of boards of trustees—have not been prepared to put it into their charters. 
The Minister instead of having a debate over the merits of learning is attacking a sector and declaring war on those academics boards teachers and parents. It is not a positive move for the children of this country to see this waste of resources in this Budget. Will more money be spent in pursuing these people? Will more money be spent on sacking boards and appointing commissioners—400 of them if we look at the schools that are not prepared to introduce national standards? 
It is really important to go back to look at what we are expecting from schools over the next couple of years. What we really need in the education sector is some collaboration some solidarity and some respect from the Government. It is not a political game when we start to label children as “losers” by age 6. That is what is implied by the model that is being resourced. When one talks to teachers as I do and parents who have received reports they have been really distressed by we hear of reports that have labelled their child as a loser. That is not an appropriate way to treat children. 
The Green Party has 10 major concerns about national standards and one of them is about the way in which children are being labelled. Many teachers are lifting children’s achievement—for example if English is a second language—and although those children may not reach the national standard they have actually been lifted in their literacy and numeracy. 
There is also a complete failure to understand how learning works because we have cut professional development to the arts to science and to anything except the narrow mechanistic definitions of “literacy” and “numeracy”. We have cut the funding for drama and science teachers but for many students those areas are the pathway into literacy and numeracy. If we recognised child-centred learning as the fundamental basis of the education system why would we do that—unless we wanted to create league tables? 
That is the failure that has happened in other countries. What we have had in the United States and in the UK is a privatisation of a quality public education system. That is where we will go if we create league tables. The media would really enjoy that but it will not help. 
One of the concerns is that national standards do not support the diversity of our children because guess what they do not all learn through just one definition of learning. They learn at different rates: some 6-year-olds are ready to read and some 6-year-olds are not ready to read and are learning in other ways. They are all valuable ways. We know that because asTTle and the progressive achievement test identified that issue. The tests that exist already are absolutely fine. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I have struck a nerve because people know that the implementation of national standards without the support of the education sector is causing mayhem out there in the sector. This will require a serious attempt by the Government to whitewash the issue in order to get those 400 schools to put it in their charters—and the schools do not want to. A lot of other schools have put it in their charters but with the most minimal references because it does not work. 
We know that assessing and reporting tools already exist. We know that refusing a trial is always an indication of ideology.