Interesting links re National Standards

Here are some interesting links -

Invercargill principals boycott the training ; http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/3314013/Schools-boycott-m...

a rather satirical play on national standards : http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html#author

In 1999 Nick Smith was going to bring in testing in primary schools - but wait - he was going to trial it first! An Excellent article by Elspeth Mclean in yesterdays Otago Daily Times states ;

"he was prepared to pilot his tests in 10% of schools, something he called "a sensible response to
this difficult issue".The devil is in the detail and I am determined that we get
it right," he said in 1999." Not so sensible now are they!!?? heres the link ;

http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/92609/national039s-standards-l...


The Trade me auction for the curriculum is fascinating - such a plethora of questions ranging from "does this include GST?" and " is this a limited edition?" to a very pointed statement of " I can see why you're selling now. This item will depreciate markedly with the advent of national standards. Under a national standards
regime the UK fell from 8th in the world in maths in 2000 to 24th in
2007, and from 7th in reading to 17th"


and it's interesting that, as Kerry Hawkins said on Cue TV last night, education is the only profession where the professional practitioners are not actively consulted over major change.... so that leads me to the realisation that national Standards is not about our children, it is quite simply politics.

a sad indictement on our nation...