National Standards Data
Hekia Parata has announced:
Education Minister Hekia Parata says National Standards data reported for the first time has set a baseline of Years 1-8 learner achievement.
The data shows that 76 per cent reached or exceeded the national standard for reading, 72 per cent of learners for mathematics, and 68 per cent for writing.
“Of particular interest is the consistency of the achievement trends in writing, reading, mathematics by ethnicity and gender with other system ‘health check’ studies such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).
“So although we are only in the early stages it is exciting that this first set of data is consistent with other international and national information, and that a significant number of children are reaching or exceeding the National Standard in each of the three areas.
“I want to acknowledge and thank parents, teachers, principals, boards for all that they do that makes this possible.”
What this implies is that most schools are behaving responsibly and moderating consistently against the national standards. What will be great is we can now monitor over time what proportion of students are achieving the national standard for numeracy and literacy for their age.
The demographic breakdown for at or above the national standard for maths is:
- Boys 72%
- Girls 73%
- Maori 63%
- Pasifika 57%
For reading:
- Boys 72%
- Girls 80%
- Maori 65%
- Pasifika 58%
For writing:
- Boys 61%
- Girls 75%
- Maori 58%
- Pasifika 54%
The deficit between boys and girls when it comes to reading and writing remains concerning.
It would be interesting to have data on Asian students also.
That data on individual schools will be out next week. It will be interesting, but I won’t be reading too much into it. The trend information from schools is what I think will be more important. So long as the national standards do not get scrapped by a Labour/Green Government, we will very clearly see which schools are improving over time, and which ones are not.