Assumptions about Assumptions

Over the last week I have been thinking about the assumptions that sit behind much of the information currently being promulgated about the national standards. So here is a list of my assumptions about these assumptions

Assumption 1 - National Standards Flyer (sent to 350,000 NZ families)
'National standards will ensure primary and intermediate schools regularly assess their students' progress in reading, writing and maths...' - this appears to assume that prior to National Standards primary and intermediate schools were not regularly assessing their students. There is clear evidence to show that this is not true. What a shame the writer of this brochure didn't make it clear that this is actually about 'all' schools regularly assessing.

Assumption 2 - National Standards Flyer (sent to 350,000 NZ families)
'National Standards will identify kids who are slipping behind'
This statement appears to assume that schools, prior to the National Standards, were unable to identify kids who are behind. As far as I know this has never been the case. We know which students are under achieving - the problem is having the resources, knowledge and skills to do something about it with high student/teacher ratios in classrooms, limited resources to employ teacher aides and many students behaving in ways that impact on learning.

Assumption 3 - Anne Tolley's Address at the Train the Trainers Workshop
'We all know the variance in student achievement is within schools not between schools.'
This statement is referring to research based on secondary schools. It assumes that the same pattern is found in primary and intermediate schools. Some leading educational academics believe that the variance between student achievement is within secondary schools but between primary schools.

On a final note if you were one of the 350,000 families that received the National Standards flyer do check out the kitchen in the background - not one your average kiwi family could afford!