Which leaves New Zealanders with the vexed question of what will happen when streaming is no more? Will their children emerge from the public education system with the skills and qualifications necessary to foot-it in the modern world? Or, will their education be limited to whatever the least engaged and least talented students allow their teachers to impart? If that is the outcome, then all the opponents of streaming will have achieved by its elimination is a society managed by traditionally-educated immigrants equipped with all the internationally recognised skills and qualifications that young, publicly-educated New Zealanders no longer possess.
Although driven by demands for equity, the abolition of streaming in the public secondary system will not make New Zealand a more equitable nation. No more than the students themselves, will parents be fooled by the randomised mixing of individuals of radically different abilities. The mums and dads of highly intelligent and powerfully motivated children will do everything within their power to ensure that their offspring are pushed and extended to the fullest extent of their powers. If they cannot get this from the public sector, then they will turn to private providers or themselves. The reformers’ push towards equity will not end in a narrowing of the class and racial divides, it will force them wider apart.
Māori middle-class parents will be as keen to see their offspring extended as middle-class Pākehā parents. Those who cannot afford the $30,000 per year fees of the leading private schools, will do all within their power to move their families into the zones of the most prestigious public schools, where the strong class bias of the “good schools’” catchments will lessen the impact of streaming’s abolition. Māori middle-class parents are well aware that as diversity quotas are achieved, and the need for positive discrimination declines, social advancement will increasingly depend on having the right credentials. Though they can hardly come out and say so, the drive towards racial equity – of which the abolition of streaming is part – is not in their own children’s interests.
There is, after all, a very powerful justification for streaming. Highly-complex, technologically-sophisticated civilisations, based on science, simply cannot do without the rigid hierarchies of competence that keep them functioning. The streaming process is, therefore, absolutely critical to the social and intellectual winnowing required to concentrate and develop talent. Streaming isn’t just about grouping the smartest students together, it’s about acculturating the smartest students to being smart. Streaming encourages students to value and accept their larger capabilities. In a non-streamed environment, the pressure is inevitably towards the mean – in every sense of the word.
The supposed downside of this meritocratic imperative is its negative impact upon those of lesser competence. New Zealanders, in particular, jibe at the very notion of hierarchies. They tell themselves that they are egalitarians, and fool themselves into thinking that egalitarianism means every person is the same as every other person – even when they know this isn’t true. (Just ask them if they would select an All Black team on that basis!)
New Zealanders have forgotten that their public education system was not conceived as an environment in which every student gets an “A”, but as a place where every kid capable of getting an “A” receives the professional instruction and educational resources he or she needs to be awarded an “A”. It should not matter whether you’re Māori or Pākehā, rich or poor, male or female, gay or straight: if you’ve got the talent, then you should be equipped to go as far as it can take you. And if getting “As” in academic disciplines isn’t your thing, then the education system’s job is to find out what is your thing – and develop it to the fullest extent.
That is what Charles Beeby and Peter Fraser meant when, together, they defined the education policy of the First Labour Government:
“The government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his powers.”
Apart from the relentless use of the masculine pronoun, the phrase that most sticks in the craw of twenty-first century educators is: “for which he is best fitted”. The PPTA’s argument is that the cultural logic of colonisation leads racist Pakeha teachers to the view that Māori and Pasifika are “best fitted” to be hewers of wood and drawers of water: a stereotype into which, for the rest of their time in secondary school, the system will do its best to squeeze them. Get rid of streaming, argues the Union, and this evil colonial project is made much more difficult.
Except, of course, transforming secondary school classes into random collections of students of every colour from every background is, itself, a pipe dream. Different races and different classes live in different places. Getting rid of streaming at Auckland Grammar will look quite different from getting rid of streaming at Northland College. And even if the Ministry of Education could magically produce perfectly random collections of students (much as the US Supreme Court tried to do by “bussing” kids from one side of town to the other) the Bell Curve would still not be denied – only those kids at either end of it.
It is a matter for considerable regret that the PPTA, in its determination to overcome the effects of colonisation, shows every sign of establishing a new regime where the “soft bigotry of low expectations” will only end up making the racist outcomes worse.
Chris Trotter is a political commentator who blogs at bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz.
4 comments:
A few days ago RNZ on the Panel interviewed an anti streaming advocate. Prompted me to send in the following:
Intrigued by the session about streaming in schools.
The education system over the decades has been plagued by those striving for career advancement. Advocating and successfully continuing the established practice is not the subject for papers intended to be noticed. And for those intent on career advancement interpreting the current govt desires and pandering to same has always been prudent.
Of course streaming is not now fashionable. Because selection by demonstrated ability seems inevitably to produce groupings which look as if race based. Streaming is therefore incorrectly branded as racist. So a myriad reasons are contrived to avoid. The greatest defect of streaming is the fate of those of a minority culture who land in a lower group. They pick up the language style, vocab, social, work, and property ethics of the majority; potentially a serious life handicap. However, if well taught, the group should perform at a higher level than if neglected at the bottoms of conventional classes. And the negative influences have less chance of contaminating the many.
The case for streaming is formidable. Students were failed to their level in the 1920s, effectively streaming. The teacher had a class of similar abilities and could teach all together. Remarkable levels of achievement were attained with huge classes, and less stress on the teacher. The able feel challenged among others all working near their potential. The future of NZ lies with the very able; not with simple souls good only at kapahaka and size dominated rugby.
A minimum level was required for entry to secondary school. Secondary teachers now complain of "students" totally unequipped to be there. Some primary students were not young. They may have been near shaving but they could at least manage basic reading, writing and arithmetic.
About 20 years ago, before zoning was reasonably enforced, many lower decile schools adopted a degree of streaming in an effort to enable at least some to achieve. The schools were thus able to retain and attract some more able students. With less flexibility to go out of zone, and local streaming not encouraged, whole suburbs now tend to change to a uniform and often seemingly race based type.
The modern large mixed several teacher classes are an artful way of adopting a form of streaming without conceding the fact. Also enables less able teachers, selected often largely for their pro te reo attitude, to coat tail off the able. But all in the big classes, including the teachers, are handicapped by the bedlam.
A central problem in education is our schizophrenic attitude to excellence. Of course, we’re all for it, aren’t we? But let’s look a little more closely, and see whether we really do believe in cultivating excellence.
Ask any educationist or politician: “Do you believe in élitism in education?” and you will probably receive an emphatic “No!”
Now ask a different question: “do you think that the education system should strive to ensure that each child reaches his or her potential?” The answer will be an equally emphatic “Of course I do!”
These two answers are mutually contradictory. To see why, let’s ask a third question:
“Do you accept that children have a wide range of academic potential?” The overwhelming majority of teachers would say “yes”.
So, if children are to realise their potential, this wide range of abilities must be translated into a wide range of outcomes. The result would be that some school pupils would reach far higher levels than others. These high achievers would be — an élite.
This is a short extract from a polemical blog I wrote on KiwiBlog:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2021/02/guest_post_something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_education_high_school_biology_in_new_zealand.html
Here we go again. Throw in the word "racist" to support your argument and hope that this will deter opposing views.
The first point I would make is that what union leaders say on any educational topic does not necessarily reflect the views of the rank and file classroom teachers.
A decision on streaming should focus on the needs of the pupils - not on ideology, There is something to be said for placing less academic pupils or pupils with Reading and Language problems in a class where a more structured and focused program can address their needs.
After all, we do want them to succeed, don't we?
Chris is quite right to emphasize the fact that parents want their children to be extended and challenged and that the teachers in their classrooms should be able to do this.
As aspect not mentioned in the article is the
general discipline and learning environment of the school.
Do all the class planning you like but if the learning is going to be obstructed or disrupted by the behaviour of some then parents will rightly wonder if their child's school is indeed a place of learning.
What can they do?
Well finally a political party has addressed this situation and states that it will support funded school choice.(I refer to ACT)
The ability of parents (not just the rich ones) to transfer their child from a failing school to a better one is long overdue.
At the same time the ability of the Ministry
ideologues should be curtailed. They have done
enough damage!
Denis, you are absolutely correct.
I am an experienced teacher, (Ardmore Trained), from the days when we had real education and not 'edutainment', I totally endorse your comments.
Today, the education unions have been taken over by the WOKE Brigade and they certainly do not represent the views of older more experienced teachers.
I look back to my own days as a pupil at Wairoa College when Maori students were in the top stream classes as much as non-Maori.
These Maori students who reached the upper stream classes went on to successful futures.
I would add that an illustrious whakapapa did not guarantee a higher level of intelligence, so some Maori students from lower down the hierarchy, who had a few clues and were prepared to study, made it into the top places in the class and the school as a whole.
You quite rightly acknowledge the need for 'order in the classroom' for learning to have a chance to succeed.
When the teaching is pitched to the level of a streamed class, there is a greater chance for having more students engaged in learning and the frustrated students can be placed at a level where they can succeed if they feel inclined. They will not be present to disrupt and take up the teacher's time with behaviour management issues, in an environment for which they are mis-matched.
Streaming has a lot of merit, there is nothing racist about it.
New Zealand used to be higher on international surveys for Literacy and Numeracy in the 1960-70 era. There has been a gradual downward trend since then. We have allowed the 'baby to be thrown out with the bath water'.
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