The goals of Tomorrow’s Schools have not been achieved. Since 1989, the performance of New Zealand’s school system has deteriorated. The literacy, numeracy and disciplinary knowledge of our young people has undergone a slow but inexorable decline. Our educational inequality is amongst the worst in the OECD.
Arguably, the decline during the Tomorrow’s Schools era has occurred because the opportunities they afforded have not been sufficiently exploited. Certainly, Ministry interference with school autonomy hasn’t helped. Forcing schools to accept Modern Learning Environments is a case in point.
In any event, a return to centralisation is not the answer. It would be foolish to think that further empowering the Ministry can solve our educational problems.
The Ministry has grown to dwarf the Department it replaced. Yet, just about everything it does makes things worse. From literacy and numeracy, to curriculum, to teacher education, the Ministry has spectacularly failed to provide competent stewardship of education. A reform-minded Minister can spend years trying to harness the Ministry and get nowhere.
Instead, to make a real difference, Ministers should focus on creating conditions in which capable principals can take full advantage of the flexible Tomorrow’s Schools environment. Instead of looking to the Ministry to enact reform, they should concentrate on getting them out of the way.
Principals understand our educational problems better than anyone. Some of them have great ideas for improvement. They should be encouraged to act on them.
Already there are principals who, with the support of their Boards, are collaborating to design new teacher education programmes based on evidence rather than ideology. Others are leading the development of knowledge-rich curricula. Still others are opting out of the new Level 1 NCEA, scheduled for implementation in 2024, and leading the design of local qualifications.
These innovations offer real opportunities for reform. Not all of them will be successful, but some will. A Minister who wants real reform should encourage innovation with political and financial support. That support should come with requirements and resources to measure the effects of each initiative. The successful ones should be publicised and promoted.
The Ministry will never lead meaningful reform. A better approach would be to empower capable principals to go around them.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
In any event, a return to centralisation is not the answer. It would be foolish to think that further empowering the Ministry can solve our educational problems.
The Ministry has grown to dwarf the Department it replaced. Yet, just about everything it does makes things worse. From literacy and numeracy, to curriculum, to teacher education, the Ministry has spectacularly failed to provide competent stewardship of education. A reform-minded Minister can spend years trying to harness the Ministry and get nowhere.
Instead, to make a real difference, Ministers should focus on creating conditions in which capable principals can take full advantage of the flexible Tomorrow’s Schools environment. Instead of looking to the Ministry to enact reform, they should concentrate on getting them out of the way.
Principals understand our educational problems better than anyone. Some of them have great ideas for improvement. They should be encouraged to act on them.
Already there are principals who, with the support of their Boards, are collaborating to design new teacher education programmes based on evidence rather than ideology. Others are leading the development of knowledge-rich curricula. Still others are opting out of the new Level 1 NCEA, scheduled for implementation in 2024, and leading the design of local qualifications.
These innovations offer real opportunities for reform. Not all of them will be successful, but some will. A Minister who wants real reform should encourage innovation with political and financial support. That support should come with requirements and resources to measure the effects of each initiative. The successful ones should be publicised and promoted.
The Ministry will never lead meaningful reform. A better approach would be to empower capable principals to go around them.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
3 comments:
Fine and well when you have a Principal appointed on the basis of professional competence. Not fine and well when you are dealing with a political appointee devoted to woke goals in education. The more power is concentrated in a Principal's hands, the more subject the pupils and parents become to the ideological whims of that individual.
I do believe that is a good idea but I also think we need as much of society involved as possible in changing the disaster we have. I think therefore parents should also be targeted as well. The tyranny of so called professionalism, in primary teaching needs to be broken. Unfortunately, I have found teachers, particularly this century, because of the terrible Colleges of Education with their failing ideology, haven't a clue about the basics of effective teaching.
Consider the fairly straight forward task of teaching of the times tables by rote learning. No idea at all. When I have taught private students this simple skill, their class teacher is astounded ! I am shocked at the teachers' ignorance.
My solution would be to produce workbooks that are highly structured, complying with all the the right science of reinforcement,revision etc. These should be cheap and available for all teachers and parents. Asian countries have little shops on school premises selling books to help parents with their failing children.
In the 1960s and 1970s cheap quality phonic, spelling, maths and writing workbooks at primary level. were available at supermarkets which parents could buy with their groceries. I believe research has shown written work is better than computerized material.
The only principals recognised in NZ are the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi even if they can’t actually be specifically identified and agreed. These are the principles of education.
Eh boy?
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