Tolley Anne: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tolley Anne: Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12914. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 If that speech by David Cunliffe had been made at a job interview I would have said “No thanks.” [ 
Interruption 
] In fact he is; he is quite a nice guy I suppose. But I stand here as the Minister of Education in a Government that is serious about raising student achievement. We are serious about making sure that our children leave school with the skills that they need in this modern 21st century. 
I start today by taking us back in time: not too far back; just to the start of the previous Labour Government. Shortly before that time the then National Government had commissioned research from a team of researchers from the school of education at the University of Auckland. They looked at two communities in South Auckland Mangere and Otara and their research was called  
Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara 
. They were looking to see how they could intervene: at the sorts of interventions that would be needed in schools in order to lift achievement by Maori and Pasifika children particularly but also by children who were living in a low socio-economic environment. I refer to the third report; there were three reports out of this research. The third and final report which was published in 2004—so in the time of the previous Labour Government—looked at three things: school governance reporting to parents and perceptions of Pasifika student achievement. I will pay particular attention to the conclusions that the researchers came to on reporting to parents. 
The researchers say in the executive summary: “The development of a partnership between schools and their communities formed a central tenet of the reforms of education administration”—that is Tomorrow’s Schools—“… This partnership was to be based on the free flow of information between schools and their communities.” The study examined described and explained the reporting practices of schools in Mangere and Otara. It “sought to answer the research questions ‘To what extent did the reporting practices involve parents/whanau as educational partners with the school?’ ”—does this not have a ring of familiarity to it—“and ‘What difficulties were experienced by school personnel and parents/whanau when changing their reporting practices in the directions required by the new regulations?’ ”. The first part of the study found that “student achievement was likely to be evaluated against implicit individual or class-based referenced standards. As a consequence parents of under-achieving children were frequently misled about their children’s achievement levels.” 
The study published a very famous story called “Lita’s Story” which was an amalgam of the stories that the researchers had heard in Mangere and Otara. It was basically about Lita who arrived at middle school 3 years behind her peers in her reading comprehension and about 1 year behind them in her reading accuracy. But neither Lita nor her parents or family knew about this. They did not know about it because first despite the fact that Lita loved her primary school—she felt safe and secure there she loved her teachers and her parents were supportive of the school and attended all the events—the teachers at her school had treated Lita as an individual starting with what she could do and carefully taking her on to the next level when they believed that she was ready. Apart from the reading assessment that the school did when Lita was 6 it really did not know how her achievement compared with national standards because it did not have the tools needed to make those comparisons and some teachers did not think that they were necessary anyway. Second the school had a policy of not saying anything that was negative in school reports. This meant that the teachers described only what Lita could do and do well. As a consequence of that neither Lita nor her parents had any idea of how she compared with other children throughout New Zealand of the same age. 
Why do I bring up that research? What happened to Lita in the story? She went on to high school and she failed. She left school without any qualification and this National-led Government has heard the same story over and over from parents. The previous Labour Government had that research. It knew that one in five children was failing in our education system that 150000 children were being failed by the education system and what did it do about that? That Government ignored the research. It had strategies and initiatives that piled up on teachers’ and principals’ desks but it did not address the key issues that the research had shown needed to be addressed for kids —not what teachers needed but what kids needed. What do kids need? They need honesty. They need their parents to know what they are doing well in what they are not doing well in and how their parents and their teachers will change the experience of those kids in the education system. That is what the research had shown that the kids needed. And did the previous Labour Government give that to them? No. For 9 years it sat on research like that and now the Labour members have the gall to stand up against us when this Government says we have talked about the tail of underachievement for too many years. 
Too many parents have told us that they wanted to know about how their children were doing and they have said that if they had known that their children were falling behind they would have taken some action and given them some help. Too many kids like Lita have left school without the qualifications that they need and they are now on the dole without any qualifications and without hope of employment. This Government said it would not stand for that any more. We said we would have national standards that are aligned to National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 and we would have that as a goal for every single child in New Zealand. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: You don’t trust teachers. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: You see the Labour members keep talking about the teachers. This issue is about the children. I ask those members to focus on the children. The education system is there for the children and 50 percent of Maori children leave New Zealand schools without NCEA level 2—50 percent; that is half of them—and that has happened under the previous Labour Government’s watch I say to the Labour members who are sitting over there and shaking their heads. It happened under their Government’s watch. 
This Government has said it will not have that. Children deserve more than that and students deserve better than that so this Government has implemented national standards that mean that children will learn to read write and do maths. And we have done more than that. We know that the teachers are the ones who need to deliver this education. So we are redesigning in the announcements that we made yesterday the support that will go into schools. We are redesigning the professional development that will go into schools so that it is targeted. There will also be new interventions. The sector has said that reading recovery works well for kids in years 1 and 2 but it has asked about what happens after that. There is no reading recovery for kids in year 3 so we need to give some help to those children as they go into years 3 and 4. We know that in maths there are five different points where children have to learn some basics or otherwise they cannot progress. We have said we should put some resources into that. 
We have heard all the excuses from the Labour members sitting opposite about why they did not do things like focusing on fundamental skills for children like Lita. Those skills are reading writing and doing maths. Children cannot do science if they cannot read. They cannot play sports if they cannot count. They cannot do any of those things out there in the wider world if they cannot achieve a basic level of literacy and numeracy. This Government is focused on that fundamental goal. Our responsibility as a Government is to make sure that every single child in this country receives an excellent education.