Carter Chris: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Carter Chris: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:564] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 As I listened to the lacklustre new Minister of Education I wondered how that Minister would fare if the new 90-day rule applied to Government Ministers. That member Anne Tolley is the same new Minister of Education who was replayed on television last night telling teachers in the election campaign that the 90-day trial period does not apply to schools. We were told in the House yesterday that—what was it we were told I ask Mr Cosgrove—yes it does apply to schools with under 20 employees. That is about 800 schools and virtually every early childhood education centre in the country. 
Mrs Tolley the new Minister of Education has I venture to say already very little credibility in the job—just like the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. I have to say that when I looked at the legislation I wondered what it was for. It was supposed to be the great crusade for literacy. The bill acknowledges that the testing regimes—the assessment regimes—that will be used in New Zealand schools are already happening. The member may not know what NAGs are but most of the rest of us especially those of us who have been teachers know they are National Administration Guidelines. Point (ii)(b) of National Administration Guideline 1 which all schools are required to follow states that schools must give priority to student achievement in literacy and numeracy. National Administration Guidelines 1 and 2 state that schools must develop a programme of teaching literacy and numeracy in their schools and must set up assessment processes and that those processes must be explained and shown to students parents and the community. The schools are required to do those things and they are checked every 3 years when the Education Review Office visits the schools. 
What is the purpose of the bill? Is it a sort of fig leaf to cover up National’s election slogans that talked about the failure of New Zealand schools? Actually as I have said many times recently in the House New Zealand schools are extraordinarily successful. Indeed our students figure among the most successful in the world. I kept thinking about what the purpose of the bill was. I read it a second time and it became clear that this is actually an insidious and very dangerous bill. It is a Trojan Horse for right-wing policies in education. 
First of all it removes the ability for the Ministry of Education to use regulation to set up national standards. If the Minister publishes them in the  
Gazette 
 of course they cannot go to Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee. They cannot be examined to see how valid they are. This bill is about getting national standards by a dictatorial approach to education. It is about the standards not being scrutinised. Actually of course that is the process we are engaged in now. This bill is being rammed through. There is no ability for any of the stakeholder groups in education—the School Trustees Association the New Zealand Educational Institute the Post Primary Teachers Association the Principals Federation or the parents and the students themselves—to have an input into the bill because it is being rammed through in urgency. 
Secondly—and this is why the bill is very dangerous—it introduces the idea of national standards. I think that every member of this House who is interested in education will know that where national standards have been imposed—in places like the UK for example or recently in the United States under the Bush regime’s “No Child Left Behind” policy—they have been an absolute and utter failure. I know that some of my colleagues will be talking more this evening and tomorrow about the experiences of other countries and other education systems where national standards have been imposed. Of course teachers then teach to the test. They do not look at lifting students’ literacy and numeracy. Mrs Tolley has already totally discredited herself in her meetings with school principals. A principal rang me today to say that in his experience as a principal she must be the most inexperienced the most unsuitable person to be appointed as the Minister of Education. I would like to talk about what is happening in our schools. Is Mrs Tolley knowledgable at all about the programmes that are going on in schools? asTTle was mentioned. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Plays cricket! 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: That is true; she probably thinks it is a cricketer. There is the reading recovery programme in which New Zealand has been a world leader. There is Project Probe and there are the literacy and numeracy progressions which are part of a developing pilot programme going on in every New Zealand school. Those are successful programmes. Indeed as I said before the bill itself acknowledges them. So why is the Government implementing these national standards? 
I remind the House again that the bill is about a different agenda in education. It is about saying that we will have competition between schools. One of the hallmarks of New Zealand education has been the collaborative and collegial approach both within our schools and between schools. One of the programmes that I as Minister of Education was very proud of was the Extending High Standards in Schools programme whereby secondary and primary schools collaborated to share best practice. They were not competing but cooperating together to get the best learning outcomes for their students. We were also doing fantastic work in networking for specific areas such as information and communications technology. That was building on a long tradition in New Zealand education of schools working together. Between 1990 and 1999 the National Government introduced bulk funding. Schools became extraordinarily competitive. I know there are some members of this House who were proponents of bulk funding but I have to say that the vast bulk of the education sector was very opposed to it. 
Our school system—a world-class cutting-edge education system—is about collaboration innovation and looking for ways in which we can lift students’ learning outcomes. This bill does nothing to achieve those goals. In fact it is anti those goals. The bill is about competition league tables and comparing schools. We already know that the greatest teaching challenges for New Zealand education are in our low-decile schools with lower socio-economic groups and with Maori and Pacific students. The success of those students is the future of our country. Some 21 percent of young New Zealanders have Maori heritage. It is in their interests and our country’s interest to lift those students’ learning to the best of their potential. 
What will this bill do? It will create league tables comparing schools. It will compound the perception of winner schools and loser schools. Low-decile schools will have the worst outcomes because of this bill. High-decile schools will be the most successful. The Government has already indicated to the House that it will be “flexible” about enrolment zones. We know that is code for weakening them further. We saw what happened when zoning was removed; we saw the growth of perceived winner schools and we saw the decline of the neighbourhood school which was perceived as not successful. We do not want that to happen again. 
I do not have a lot of time left in this part of my contribution so I would like to just touch on the truancy issue. Truancy is an issue that mostly affects students who opt to truant. We want to get those students engaged. A very very small number of parents actively collaborate in making their children stay away from school. The parents of most truants are in fact desperate to get their kids back into school. In principle I am not opposed to an increase in penalties for parents who actively collaborate with and assist their children to truant. What I am concerned about is that good parents will be punished for the behaviour of their bad kids. So Labour will be introducing at least one amendment which clarifies that this legislation applies only to parents who actively collaborate to ensure that their children truant. We do not want good parents punished for the behaviour of their bad kids. Everyone in this House who is a parent knows that parents cannot always be responsible for what our children do. We want the best for them but we cannot always be responsible for what they do. We do not want good parents being punished. 
So I say to the House that this legislation will not receive the support of the Labour Party because we think it will do nothing to assist literacy and numeracy outcomes in our schools. In fact it will be a barrier to that ambition.