Auckland University’s Professor Peter O’Connor calls it neoliberal “shock-and-awe.”
These are serious charges. History teaches us that haste in education leads to disaster.
Consider the cautionary tale of Charlemagne. In the ninth century, he rashly insisted that monks learn to read and write properly. The result? Mass literacy, the preservation of classical texts, and eventually the Renaissance. Europe is still recovering.
Or take Prussia’s reckless decision in 1763 to mandate compulsory schooling. Within a century, German children could read, calculate, and think systematically. The consequences were far-reaching and not all of them pleasant.
New Zealand, by contrast, has pursued a more measured path. For roughly two decades, we conducted our own educational experiment. Participation was compulsory. There was no control group. Withdrawal was not permitted. Results were studiously ignored.
When international assessments showed sustained decline, they were sensibly dismissed as culturally biased. When domestic data revealed troubling gaps, this was contextualised appropriately. Achievement fell, but intentions remained impeccable.
Against this backdrop, Stanford’s insistence on structured literacy and explicit teaching appears reckless. Why require children to decode words when they might infer meaning from pictures? Why insist on times tables when fingers remain perfectly serviceable? Why sequence knowledge when learning is a journey best undertaken without maps?
Most troubling is the lack of consultation. Education systems work best when those who built them decide whether they are working. That such figures now counsel patience should not be read cynically. It is merely prudent.
Better to proceed carefully. Perhaps pilot reading in select schools. Monitor results for another decade. Convene a working group. Refresh the framework. Embed it in draft guidance. Then, if results remain concerning, consider consulting on a roadmap toward implementation.
Some argue that delay costs another cohort their futures. This is emotive – and dangerously impatient. After all, the system has been failing children steadily for years. Interrupting that trajectory so abruptly risks confusion.
Besides, if teaching children to read and do mathematics turns out to be a mistake, we can always reverse course.
New Zealand has long experience retreating from standards. It is one of our few remaining areas of genuine expertise.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was sourced HERE
Or take Prussia’s reckless decision in 1763 to mandate compulsory schooling. Within a century, German children could read, calculate, and think systematically. The consequences were far-reaching and not all of them pleasant.
New Zealand, by contrast, has pursued a more measured path. For roughly two decades, we conducted our own educational experiment. Participation was compulsory. There was no control group. Withdrawal was not permitted. Results were studiously ignored.
When international assessments showed sustained decline, they were sensibly dismissed as culturally biased. When domestic data revealed troubling gaps, this was contextualised appropriately. Achievement fell, but intentions remained impeccable.
Against this backdrop, Stanford’s insistence on structured literacy and explicit teaching appears reckless. Why require children to decode words when they might infer meaning from pictures? Why insist on times tables when fingers remain perfectly serviceable? Why sequence knowledge when learning is a journey best undertaken without maps?
Most troubling is the lack of consultation. Education systems work best when those who built them decide whether they are working. That such figures now counsel patience should not be read cynically. It is merely prudent.
Better to proceed carefully. Perhaps pilot reading in select schools. Monitor results for another decade. Convene a working group. Refresh the framework. Embed it in draft guidance. Then, if results remain concerning, consider consulting on a roadmap toward implementation.
Some argue that delay costs another cohort their futures. This is emotive – and dangerously impatient. After all, the system has been failing children steadily for years. Interrupting that trajectory so abruptly risks confusion.
Besides, if teaching children to read and do mathematics turns out to be a mistake, we can always reverse course.
New Zealand has long experience retreating from standards. It is one of our few remaining areas of genuine expertise.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was sourced HERE
4 comments:
This post is going to need to be labelled satire so the left can understand that they’re being mocked.
I am third generation NZ educationalist and a self acclaimed expert on NZ literacy history.
The indications that, in particular, our literacy standards were dropping have been there for decades , way before a few decades ago .
I do detect you are writing Roger with tongue in cheek.
The decline for me began in about 1950, with the introduction of socialist John Dewey and his progressivist ideas. Fabian socialism dictated changes were to occur gradually. Dewey was an ideologue and his main agenda was never education but using education as a vehicle to promote socialism/ progressivism. Traditional education, that progressivism replaced , placed considerable emphasis on effective methods in teaching the basics. All those traditional methods are now strongly supported by cognitive and neuro science and research.
Marie Clay admitted she was more interested in introducing developmental psychology into NZ than teaching reading - a true progressive's stance.
Clay's Whole Langusge Reading Recovery (RR)was the jewel in the crown of the entire progressivist educational movement and with the revealing, particularly in the last few decades, by intensive statistical research , neuroscience findings and mountains of other educational research that RR is actually damaging to children, progressivism ideology has taken a fatal blow .
Academics like O'Connor , as have multitudes of other academics , will have likely built up their careers on the ideology and are fighting
back for dear life. They have had it all their own way for more than half a century.
What would you do if you discovered something was harming your own child's entire future? Gradually remove the source or remove it as fast as possible ? Gaynor
The most urgent reason for ensuring that Labour does not form the next government is to remove the possibility of Willow Jean Prime becoming the next Minister of Education.
Roger, do not worry too much. It may be that a very perceptive NZ voting public will put the Labour Party back in charge. Then we can breathe a sigh of relief and continue on our very comfortable downhill trajectory until we have a 100% vote in perpetuity for our diligent multi-cultural Labour candidates. If there is anyone left in the country to vote.
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