Principals should try to lift achievement not abolish standards

Radio NZ reports:

Principals from schools in the country’s poorest communities have united to call for an end to new NCEA reading, writing and maths tests.

They warn the online tests will create a generation of school-leavers with no qualifications and most will be Māori or Pacific.

After two rounds of reading, writing and maths tests last year, the failure rate for teens from low-income schools was through the roof.

Disgusting and disappointing.

A few years ago universities and employers were pointing out that students were gaining NCEA Level 1 without being literate or numerate to even basic levels. In other words, they couldn’t read, write or do simple maths.

So the Government put in place a literacy and numeracy requirement in order to get NCEA Level 1. And many students are failing these requirements because after 11 years of schooling they are still functionally illiterate and innumerate.

And the solution from these principals is not to come up with a plan to lift numeracy and literacy with their students, so they actually have good options going forward. Instead their response is to demand the literacy and numeracy requirements be abolished so that illiterate and innumerate students can still get their NCEA Level 1.