The story is this - at the moment, 15 percent of Year 12 students fail NCEA Level 2. But modelling suggests that once Erica Stanford replaces NCEA with her new secondary school qualification, that figure could jump to nearly 30 percent of students. And that's in the best-case scenario. In the worst-case scenario, nearly 45 percent of Year 12 students could fail.
Now, the way this story is written, you're supposed to be alarmed because Erica Stanford is forcing a curriculum change on students that will supposedly cause them to fail. But I would argue that you should be far more alarmed that so many of our kids are not learning well enough to meet a more rigorous standard of assessment.
The fact that so many students could fail is, frankly, proof of exactly why we need to get rid of NCEA. Too many of our kids are not learning properly.
And the evidence is almost everywhere you care to look. Yes, look at this modelling, but also look at what's been happening with the PISA rankings for nearly 20 years, during which New Zealand's performance has been in consistent decline.
This year, only 38 percent of Year 12 students passed the reading co-requisite. Only 35 percent passed the writing co-requisite. Only 33 percent passed the numeracy co-requisite.
That is not good enough.
University lecturers have publicly complained that students arriving at tertiary education are unprepared and lack the basic skills needed to succeed at university.
And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why. Secondary school students are drifting through NCEA, piecing together random credits to gain a qualification that does not necessarily demonstrate mastery of the fundamental skills you would expect them to have learned at school.
The problem with students failing a more demanding assessment is not that the assessment is too hard. The problem is that they are not learning enough.
No one should apologise, least of all Erica Stanford, for raising standards. Especially when it comes to our kids.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
If I was really wealthy I would borrow your article Heather and put it in all front page newspapers. It is a concern that there are more students struggling to achieve suitable qualification standards. These standards will not be reached by lowering the bar.
Dumbing down suits the leftists and socialists - the uneducated and ignorant do not question the politics of oppression, envy and declining wellbeing.
Back in ancient history I completed an RAF Apprenticeship. Exam pass marks were 80%, fail just one of the staged exams and you were out. Several friends disappeared just after our exams. Would all these leftie Education Union wallahs want their aircraft serviced by incompetents? Dumbing down does no-one any favours and Hipkins wants to revert to what he left us with. It is bad enough that we have a current PM who cannot do basic calculus when it comes to vote splitting to keep the coalition together. To put Hipkins back in - he who empties wallets and who wants our kids to end up like him, defies logic.
Anon1031 raises an interesting issue: assessment of prescribed cognitive and practical skills for purposes of qualifying for a specific trade or profession, and assessment of more general cognitive and practical skills not immediately related to any specific career.
Whether training someone to be a carpenter or an airline pilot, we want to ensure that that person can do the things associated with that calling, such as making a dovetail joint or landing a passenger jet safely after one of the engines has failed. Percentages associated with conventional schooling mean little. What would a 70% mark imply - that the trainee pilot can get the plane down 7 times out of every 10? This is one situation where 99% is 'Fail'. This kind of assessment - to determine whether the student or trainee can do a specific job or not - is called 'criterion refenced assessment'. The person being assessed either can (Pass) or can't (Fail). (Some systems enable the assessor to grade passes, but we won't go into that here.)
Percentages mean a great deal when in the domain of 'general education' not associated with career-specific training. Anon1041 mentions calculus. Unlike making a dovetail joint, calculus is not something you "can do" or "can't do". So we hit candidates with many questions of varying difficulty and give them a score (e.g. a percentage) or a grade (e.g. a B+). This kind of assessment is called 'norm-referenced assessment'.
The problem with the early NCEA approach is that it applied criterion-referencing to ALL subjects. Criterion-referencing is exactly what you want for vocational training and works well for some 'academic' fields such as chemistry laboratory procedures (e.g. you can, or can't, carry out a titration). But for general academic subjects we want to know where the candidate sits in relation to the whole population.
Later on, the NCEA went back to norm-referencing for academic subjects, and later still, to external exams (i.e. assessments not conducted by school personnel such as teachers but by 'outsiders').
There is always lots of talk about 'standards'. How hard or easy criterion-referenced assessments are depends on the demands being placed on the person being assessed. As for norm-referenced assessments, we again have the issue that it depends on the difficulty level of the questions or tasks.
One size does not fit all when we are talking about assessment. Assessment is a means to an end. Look at the end first, then decide whether the assessment methods used are appropriate to achieving that end.
Bruce, it's been well proven that none of the MSM editors or owners have allowed material like this to be published, no matter what money is offered.
For at least 10 years, there is no way they would compromise their morals , or jeopardize their PIJF funding.
PS to above
Woops, I got a bit ahead of myself there. The NCEA did not go back to norm-referencing but to a norm-referencing mindset by having Achievement Standards with graded passes.
I have just learned that the PAT ( Progresive Achievement Tests) that measure achievement in things like reading comprehension at school levels up to year 10 , can now be done orally using a computer . No reading required it seems . I knew University students struggled to read texts and could only read articles, but not needing to be able to read at all ? This indicates to me how bad the decline in the basics has become . It is not honest to have semi - illiterates and innumerates gain credits for certificates for doing hobby subjects like being a barista , microwave cooking , photography or cardboard box folding .They also most likely had a reader -writer assistant help them do the written work.
In the old days only half of students gained School Cert. However I know there were more jobs back then but an employer also knew a student who left school at 15 , would have reasonable literacy and numeracy skills even if they hadn't passed School Cert . At present this is not the case .
Here is a word of encouragement . My mother who taught 1500 reading failure students to read , including hundreds of dyslexics ,and also taught illiterate adults . If you are the victim of the iniquitous Whole Language reading method , it is highly likely you could easily become literate with an intensive structured phonic programme Cognitive science indicates we still have this ability even at more advanced years. My mother's oldest student was a 57 year old . He learned to read the bible to his elderly mother who was going deaf. Gaynor
"Secondary students". There lies the problem!
If children attending secondary school were treated as pupils and supplied with knowledge the fall off in achievement could be halted.
Of course first you would need teachers instead of indoctrinaters.
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