Secondary principals tell primary principals to grow up

Stuff reports:

Secondary Principals’ Association president Tom Parsons said parents had been asking for detailed information about their child’s learning for a long time.

“Primary schools will get there with national standards but they’re doing it begrudgingly.

“There’s a political agenda here and it’s doing the youth of New Zealand a disservice. They need to get real.”

I’m surprised this quote has not received more publicity.  The head of the secondary principals’ association has labelled the opposition to national standards as being about politics, not kids and explicitly says the opponents are doing New Zealand a disservice.

This is no surprise to me. I have been aware for some time that most secondary teachers think national standards are common sense and can’t work out what the fuss is. They’ve had NCEA for a decade with all the same issues over moderation.

But the real reason so many in the secondary sector support national standards is because they are sick of kids getting to secondary school unable to read, write or do maths. They are then the ones who have basically the impossible task of trying to educate a kid for whom it is almost too late. Identifying at an earlier stage that a student is well below the national standards for literacy and numeracy will allow intervention to happen while they are at primary school, rather than dumping an illiterate student into the secondary school system.