learning matters (nz)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
End of the Golden Weather
It’s that time of year again, the kids are back at school, the roads have filled up with traffic and the weather is so wonderful we wish we were still on holiday. And the media run their usual stories of school donation abuses, league tables and how to get your child ahead.
Don’t get me wrong. I welcome any debate about education and how to do the best for our children. However I wish we were able to get past the banal generalities that the papers and glossies throw at us.
Take school donations. The discussion around the exact legality of various school expenses, including the school donation, diverts the discussion away from the more meaningful debate about what we as a community want to spend on our children’s education.
At a national level, through the Government, how much of our taxes do we want put into providing the best possible teachers and resources? At a local level, how much time and personal resources will we put into meeting the specific needs of our own children and their friends?
More importantly, what outcomes do we want for our children and our neighbours’ children?
And league tables. These divert us into superficial comparisons of schools and debates over the validity of achievement data or one assessment type over another.
I am a strong advocate of accountability and the use of data to monitor performance. But let’s have the whole debate, not just half of it. We must first decide what our goals are, then our strategy … and then monitor our progress towards them.
School A should not aim to be better than schools B or C. All our schools should aim to do the best for their students – in and beyond the classroom. The progress of other schools helps to benchmark a school’s own goals and progress, but it does not define them.
All schools must focus on developing and implementing strategies that deliver the highest quality teaching in the classroom, and so ensuring students attaining personal excellence.
Now at the start of the academic year, and as co-curricular activities get underway (some are already well started), let’s focus on the goals of our children, the strategies for achieving those, and the resources that we will personally and collectively provide to support the attainment of those goals.
Don’t get me wrong. I welcome any debate about education and how to do the best for our children. However I wish we were able to get past the banal generalities that the papers and glossies throw at us.
Take school donations. The discussion around the exact legality of various school expenses, including the school donation, diverts the discussion away from the more meaningful debate about what we as a community want to spend on our children’s education.
At a national level, through the Government, how much of our taxes do we want put into providing the best possible teachers and resources? At a local level, how much time and personal resources will we put into meeting the specific needs of our own children and their friends?
More importantly, what outcomes do we want for our children and our neighbours’ children?
And league tables. These divert us into superficial comparisons of schools and debates over the validity of achievement data or one assessment type over another.
I am a strong advocate of accountability and the use of data to monitor performance. But let’s have the whole debate, not just half of it. We must first decide what our goals are, then our strategy … and then monitor our progress towards them.
School A should not aim to be better than schools B or C. All our schools should aim to do the best for their students – in and beyond the classroom. The progress of other schools helps to benchmark a school’s own goals and progress, but it does not define them.
All schools must focus on developing and implementing strategies that deliver the highest quality teaching in the classroom, and so ensuring students attaining personal excellence.
Now at the start of the academic year, and as co-curricular activities get underway (some are already well started), let’s focus on the goals of our children, the strategies for achieving those, and the resources that we will personally and collectively provide to support the attainment of those goals.
Labels: education, learning, new zealand, performance management
posted by learning matters (nz) at 5:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home