Citing one problem situation does not exclude others so I promised to do a brief look at some education stats from the perspective of Socio-Economics.
Up until a couple of years ago schools had a decile ranking (10 high, 1 low) based primarily on the average income in an address area. Schools now receive a Equity Index Number based on 37 socio-economic “risk-factors”. It is inverse to decile numbers so a high EQI means more students with significant risk factors – a low EQI means few. Each school gets an individual number and an amount of marginal funding is dependant on that.
So …
Attendance:
In Term 3 of 2024 (we have to wait until March 20 before we know about T4 2024)
So …
Attendance:
In Term 3 of 2024 (we have to wait until March 20 before we know about T4 2024)
- Overall full attendance was 51.3%
- In schools where there was fewest at risk-students full-attendance was 61.2%
- In schools with the most at risk students full-attendance was 35%.
Using University Entrance for Leavers as the highest common indicator of achievement (and one that includes Cambridge Schools) and breaking the EQIs into 10ths to match the old deciles.
In 2023
- The schools in the lowest EQI 10th had 70% of their students leave with UE (on average)
- The schools in the second lowest EQI = 67%
- The schools in the third lowest EQI = 52%The schools in the 3rd highest EQI 10th had 20% of their students leave with UE (on average)
- The schools in the 2nd highest EQI = 18%
- The schools in the 3rd highest EQI = 8%
“We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.”
For further reading this brilliant article by Kirsty Johnson in 2018 is insightful.
e.g. “One university took only a single decile one entrant – out of more than 2000 – into its engineering programme in five years. At the same time, it took more than 500 decile 10 students.”
And this recent article on the intake at Otago Medical School.
e.g. “Students from schools in the lowest socio-economic quintile were nearly absent from health professional programme admissions, comprising approximately 2% of students entering those programmes across time,” wrote the authors in the study, released in November.”
Alwyn Poole, a well-known figure in the New Zealand education system, he founded and was the head of Mt Hobson Middle School in Auckland for 18 years. This article was published HERE
7 comments:
This is interesting as I was watching some of the speakers from the ARC conference in the UK. And one speaker highlighted in the USA that people who went to better schools had advanced reading ages early on; did better at school; went onto higher education; had higher incomes and a great life expectancy of about 9 years !. That’s about the same difference between most New Zealanders and Maori. Perhaps the solution for our treaty ‘partners’ is to send your kids to school; every single day.
All we are dealing with here are tautologies - saying the same thing in different ways.
Low-SES parents do not value education as much as high-SES (whatever the cliches they may parrot) parents and do not set high expectations for their offspring. The offspring tend to follow in their parents' footsteps with regard to literacy, general education, career-specific education, etc. So you wouldn't expect many labourers' sons and daughters to be attending medical school.
The difference today is that while low-SES people could get jobs and earn enough to get by 50 years ago, now they can't. This is blamed on the education system by many but that is nonsense as education does not create vacancies in the labour market, certainly not for low-skilled workers.
I agree with Barend of what is now happening , however these are ideas sociologists have produced to give Progressive educationalists excuses for not expecting low SES ( Socio-Economic Status) children to better their status. Hence disincentives for teachers to even expect or attempt to teach disadvantaged children to achieve well.
This was not what traditional education advocated with effective teaching methods and other values like work ethic , perseverance , tolerance of difficulties in , good behaviour in the class room etc along with a belief in Universal Literacy -every primary school child reading at the correct level for their age.
There have been a great number of individuals , research projects and other groups who have reversed the evidence in a direct relationship between status and academic achievement. This includes Marva Collins in a Chicago ghetto school and in the research project in the poorest shire Clackmannanshire in Scotland. Both these examples used teaching reading with structured literacy ( phonics taught directly systematic and cumulatively ) which was also what NZ used in traditional teaching of reading and had us achieve in 1970 the highest rating in reading comprehension on international tests.
Now as the result of the introduction of Whole Language ( anti structured phonics ) last century , we have the worst reading scores in the English speaking world and the longest tail of underachievement in the developed world.
All academic subjects should be taught structurally . Scrap all these silly sociological labeling of schools and start teaching effectively in schools . Get rid of Progressivisms constructivism - child -led learning which is thoroughly destructive particularly for low SES children.
Low-SES kids are remarkably good learners. They learn how to break and enter, hijack cars and go joyriding, grow and process dope, and lots of other things they see the older members of their class doing. The problem isn't not wanting to learn but what they want to learn - skills that yield rapid gratuitous satisfaction (a 'kick' or 'high', be it induced or natural) and little responsibility or commitment. What you need is a cultural paradigm shift. And that's a big ask when there are no role models to emulate.
My mother taught in low decile NZ state schools for seven years and had every child in those years achieve in her classes at the correct level . Surveys of those in prisons today reveal a large proportion are illiterate and innumerate . They have failed to learn good literacy despite being ' good learners' . According to Kerry Hempenstall a Melbourne Tertiary Institute researcher , children who are failing academically develop a large number of psychological and social problems including aggression , being withdrawn , resistance to trying to keep learning , apathy, and many more. When my mother taught 1500 remedial reading students, privately using phonics , she observed many of these students lost these self - destructive psychological and anti social problems you list , Barend, once they started achieving. Dr. Hempenstall and other researchers also document this. happening.
I don't think good education alone can solve all the problems but
it can certainly prevent many occurring.
You can lead a horse to water etc. If kids through parental indifference, and peer pressure can't be bothered putting in some effort to get an education, what can be done? Huge resources are committed to these kids for what??
Plenty can be done to develop a work effort into children but you have to start when they are young and be consistent. Most of the students my mother had were very reluctant learners. My mother was skilled at teaching parents how to coerce their child into doing work. Damnable child psychological theory that wrongly states children are not to be pressured to do anything are to blamed for allowing children to continue to underachieve . A university lecturer made a point of visiting my mother to tell her she wasn't to force children to do any learning they didn't want to do. Her reply was 'so just leave a child years behind in reading and consequently destroy their chances of a literate future ?'
Stop blaming parents for iniquitous psychological theory through child centered ideology which pervades academia and has influenced child rearing and teaching .Traditional education which had everyone achieving didn't have any of this theoretical nonsense.
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