New Zealand has participated from the start. And from the start, our results have been successively poorer in all three areas almost every time. The only exceptions were a tiny improvement in science – and no change in reading – between 2006 and 2009.
Our 2022 results in reading and science are down by five and four points respectively from 2018. These falls are small and not statistically significant. But similar small falls have accumulated over time. In the 2022 results, our reading results stand 28 points lower than in 2000. In science, they are 26 points lower than in 2006. These falls each represent nearly one full year of schooling. So, in reading and science, our 15-year-olds in 2023 performed about as well as 14-year-olds would have in the first year of testing.
Mathematics is a lot worse. Our 2022 results for maths are down a whopping 15 points since 2018. That is equivalent to about six months of schooling lost in just four years. Since testing began in 2003, we have fallen by 44 points – equivalent to about one-and-a-half years of schooling.
We are not alone in experiencing falls in PISA. OECD averages are down in all three subjects too. But over time, we have slipped both relative to our own previous results and against the OECD averages.
We started well ahead of the pack in all three subjects. We remain ahead in reading and science, but not by nearly as much as we were. Relative to the OECD average, we have fallen by the equivalent of about a third of a year of schooling in reading and by about half a year in science since testing began. In mathematics, we started more than two-thirds of a year of schooling ahead of the OECD average, but now we sit only just above it.
In fact, our 2022 results may have over-estimated how well our 15-year-olds did in the tests. In October, the Ministry of Education reported that participation in the testing round was lower than in the past. Participation was higher in high-decile schools than in low-decile schools. That skewed the sample towards students likely to perform relatively well. Ministry analysts reported that our performance may have been overestimated by as much as ten points – about a third of a year of schooling. Fortunately, the actual overestimate is likely to be somewhat less alarming than that.
Why have our educational standards declined so badly over the last couple of decades?
For at least that long we have used ineffective methods of teaching literacy in our primary schools. Despite experts like Massey University’s Professor James Chapman trying to persuade the Ministry to use an approach based on the best scientific evidence, it has doubled down on failed methods. Other international reading data corroborate the PISA findings. And our own national monitoring data show that much higher proportions of children are behind curriculum expectations in Year 8 than in Year 4.
It is a similar story in mathematics. The numeracy project, introduced in the early 2000s, emphasised the learning of ‘strategies’ over basic mathematical knowledge. Again, this is counter to evidence showing that basic number facts, like times tables, need to be learned cold to support further learning. But again, the Ministry has failed to follow the evidence. Meanwhile Singapore has adopted a science-informed approach to teaching mathematics and is enjoying spectacular success.
In 2007, the Ministry published the current New Zealand Curriculum. It is woefully short on detail in core subjects like science. NCEA has not helped science either. Its fragmented approach to assessment has led, all too often, to a similarly fragmented approach to teaching. Key connections between concepts assessed by different achievement standards are frequently not made.
It might be argued that because we are still above the OECD average in all three subjects (albeit only slightly in science) there’s nothing to worry about. But that average has been falling too. In part, that is because other developed economies have adopted the same misguided approaches to teaching and curriculum. The Aussies, for example, have tracked similarly to us, for similar reasons. That other countries are also declining is no excuse for New Zealand. And our educational inequality – the gap between the highest and lowest performers in PISA – has historically been amongst the worst amongst participating nations.
Some countries have bucked the downward trend. About ten years ago, England adopted an evidence-based approach to teaching literacy, and a detailed, knowledge-rich curriculum. Their 2018 PISA scores in mathematics and reading ticked up relative to 2015. That gives us an indication of what we need to do to halt our educational decline.
There are hopeful signals from the incoming government. The new Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, has promised to train all primary teachers in structured literacy, an approach supported by evidence and advocated by experts like Professor Chapman. She has promised to introduce a new curriculum with clear expectations for the knowledge students are to be taught at each year level. These changes cannot come too soon.
Some in the education establishment will resist the changes. That is because they are in the grip of the same educational ideology that has led to our present malaise. But how we teach our young people should be determined by evidence, not by ideology or politics. No matter how New Zealanders voted in the recent election, and whatever other disagreements they may have with the new government, the new Minister deserves our support as she endeavours to turn around our twenty-year educational decline.
In the very first PISA round, Germans received a rude surprise. They had thought their education system to be outstanding, but PISA showed it to be mediocre. The effect was so profound that a new term, ‘PISA-shock’, entered the German lexicon. Those unwelcome PISA results set off a massive wave of school reform.
New Zealand has had no similar moment. Instead, we’ve been like the proverbial frog, slowly boiling alive. We can’t go on like this. The time for reform is now.
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
Our 2022 results in reading and science are down by five and four points respectively from 2018. These falls are small and not statistically significant. But similar small falls have accumulated over time. In the 2022 results, our reading results stand 28 points lower than in 2000. In science, they are 26 points lower than in 2006. These falls each represent nearly one full year of schooling. So, in reading and science, our 15-year-olds in 2023 performed about as well as 14-year-olds would have in the first year of testing.
Mathematics is a lot worse. Our 2022 results for maths are down a whopping 15 points since 2018. That is equivalent to about six months of schooling lost in just four years. Since testing began in 2003, we have fallen by 44 points – equivalent to about one-and-a-half years of schooling.
We are not alone in experiencing falls in PISA. OECD averages are down in all three subjects too. But over time, we have slipped both relative to our own previous results and against the OECD averages.
We started well ahead of the pack in all three subjects. We remain ahead in reading and science, but not by nearly as much as we were. Relative to the OECD average, we have fallen by the equivalent of about a third of a year of schooling in reading and by about half a year in science since testing began. In mathematics, we started more than two-thirds of a year of schooling ahead of the OECD average, but now we sit only just above it.
In fact, our 2022 results may have over-estimated how well our 15-year-olds did in the tests. In October, the Ministry of Education reported that participation in the testing round was lower than in the past. Participation was higher in high-decile schools than in low-decile schools. That skewed the sample towards students likely to perform relatively well. Ministry analysts reported that our performance may have been overestimated by as much as ten points – about a third of a year of schooling. Fortunately, the actual overestimate is likely to be somewhat less alarming than that.
Why have our educational standards declined so badly over the last couple of decades?
For at least that long we have used ineffective methods of teaching literacy in our primary schools. Despite experts like Massey University’s Professor James Chapman trying to persuade the Ministry to use an approach based on the best scientific evidence, it has doubled down on failed methods. Other international reading data corroborate the PISA findings. And our own national monitoring data show that much higher proportions of children are behind curriculum expectations in Year 8 than in Year 4.
It is a similar story in mathematics. The numeracy project, introduced in the early 2000s, emphasised the learning of ‘strategies’ over basic mathematical knowledge. Again, this is counter to evidence showing that basic number facts, like times tables, need to be learned cold to support further learning. But again, the Ministry has failed to follow the evidence. Meanwhile Singapore has adopted a science-informed approach to teaching mathematics and is enjoying spectacular success.
In 2007, the Ministry published the current New Zealand Curriculum. It is woefully short on detail in core subjects like science. NCEA has not helped science either. Its fragmented approach to assessment has led, all too often, to a similarly fragmented approach to teaching. Key connections between concepts assessed by different achievement standards are frequently not made.
It might be argued that because we are still above the OECD average in all three subjects (albeit only slightly in science) there’s nothing to worry about. But that average has been falling too. In part, that is because other developed economies have adopted the same misguided approaches to teaching and curriculum. The Aussies, for example, have tracked similarly to us, for similar reasons. That other countries are also declining is no excuse for New Zealand. And our educational inequality – the gap between the highest and lowest performers in PISA – has historically been amongst the worst amongst participating nations.
Some countries have bucked the downward trend. About ten years ago, England adopted an evidence-based approach to teaching literacy, and a detailed, knowledge-rich curriculum. Their 2018 PISA scores in mathematics and reading ticked up relative to 2015. That gives us an indication of what we need to do to halt our educational decline.
There are hopeful signals from the incoming government. The new Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, has promised to train all primary teachers in structured literacy, an approach supported by evidence and advocated by experts like Professor Chapman. She has promised to introduce a new curriculum with clear expectations for the knowledge students are to be taught at each year level. These changes cannot come too soon.
Some in the education establishment will resist the changes. That is because they are in the grip of the same educational ideology that has led to our present malaise. But how we teach our young people should be determined by evidence, not by ideology or politics. No matter how New Zealanders voted in the recent election, and whatever other disagreements they may have with the new government, the new Minister deserves our support as she endeavours to turn around our twenty-year educational decline.
In the very first PISA round, Germans received a rude surprise. They had thought their education system to be outstanding, but PISA showed it to be mediocre. The effect was so profound that a new term, ‘PISA-shock’, entered the German lexicon. Those unwelcome PISA results set off a massive wave of school reform.
New Zealand has had no similar moment. Instead, we’ve been like the proverbial frog, slowly boiling alive. We can’t go on like this. The time for reform is now.
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:
When the misfits running our education establishment have been incompetent for so long it's fitting to harbour dark thoughts about them. Should this be seen like something out of 'Star Wars' with an intergalactic crime lord like Jabba the Hutt reveling in creating so many illiterates and in numerates.
The history of the decline in the basics including reading did not start this century but very many decades ago. Rudolph Flesch wrote his 'Why Johnny Can't Read' in 1955. Despite much research even in those days indicating phonics aka Structured Literacy was always better than the whole word method the International Reading Association (IRA) was set up specifically to counter Flesh.
Our Marie Clay was its president for a while. She was queen of the anti -phonics academic gang with her new fangled Whole Language fad. Her failing methods still dominate today in our schools and it is one hell of a job to oust them.
Phasing out phonics originally was not an innocent mistake but rather it seems a determined effort to make the population less literate and consequently society
less functional.
Our relentless tide of bad stats. could not have been achieved without imaging dark angels of ignorance working through dedicated fanatics wedded to their ideology which they perversely pursue regardless of the mountains of scientific research over tens of decades. No other area of educational research matches the quantity of research as that done into reading.
It is a war! Using reason alone and Pussy -footing around it won't work.
A major factor in falling standards must be the enormous waste of time lost in pursuing a fake non-language and learning bizarre savage chants and war dances. That time should be restored to learn basics like the wonderful English language, core science and mathematical concepts and creative art, music and dance as in all countries not handicapped by trying to preserve stagnant primitive practices.
Educational standards have slipped and slipped again and again. If the bulk of our current teachers and educationalists cannot grasp math and science concepts we are in deep water. If the issue is not taken seriously today there will not be a following generation of teachers. Dumbing down the curricula to suit the ability of teachers will send NZ to the lowest point on the PISA tables.
The need to teach the English language EXCLUSIVELY was never greater. Even if that means teaching remedial English to the teachers.
I recall a comment from an Auckland Grammar principal of years ago – John Graham. He made a name for himself as an All Black, captain also maybe, before his teaching career. There was the usual education debate going on about going back to basics. His call was for the system to go forward to basics. Some experts would have received his message but many others did not.
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