14 March 2001

The Education and Science Committee
Parliament Buildings
WELLINGTON

Submission on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

Introduction

This submission on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) is made by the Education Forum. The Forum comprises senior educators and members of business organisations concerned to promote quality analysis of education issues and to contribute to the development of sound education policies. The Forum's statement of principles and a list of its current members are provided as Appendices B and C in the Annex to this submission.

The main amendments to the Education Act proposed in the Bill are to:

• establish the New Zealand Education Council which is to replace the Teacher Registration Board and provide professional leadership. It will have a variety of powers;
  
  
• change school planning and reporting requirements;
  
  
• give new powers to the minister and secretary to intervene when schools are failing;
  
  
• remove the current discretion that schools have to exclude sexuality education from their health programmes; and
  
  
• increase the ability of the Crown to assist tertiary institutions and manage fiscal risk.

This submission focuses only on the proposed New Zealand Education Council (hereinafter the Council), the school planning and reporting requirements and the proposed interventions for responding to poorly performing schools.

Previous reports and submissions by the Education Forum on relevant issues

The Forum has taken a close interest in the important issues of teaching and teacher education. It published a report (xvi and 262 pp) by Dr Geoffrey Partington in 1997 on teacher education and training in New Zealand.[1] The following year it made a substantial submission (xix and 125 PP) on the previous government's Green Paper Quality Teachers for Quality Learning - A Review of Teacher Education which included proposals for a professional body for teachers.[2] Last year it made a comprehensive submission (x and 118 PP) on the minister of education's consultation document entitled Proposals for establishing an Education Council - A new professional forum for teaching. [3]

The Forum's submission on last year's consultation document is included as the Annex to this submission.

The lack of analytical basis for the proposed measures

Apart from the 1997 Green Paper we know of no analysis or review by the Ministry of Education of relevant issues, including those raised by the Forum in its various recent publications, about teaching generally or about a professional body in particular. We do have a copy of the ministry's summary of responses to last year's consultation document, but that is a survey of the numbers of responses supporting or opposing particular views or proposals. It did not set out to analyse the issues. Moreover, its structure follows that of the consultation document, and the author(s) may have had difficulty in coping with a comprehensive analytical submission such as that made by the Forum.

The Forum's submissions on the Green Paper and on the consultation document appear to have had no effect on policy. We would note in this regard that the ministry tends not to engage in public debate about the more academic areas of its portfolio and, having determined its policy, it is, in our experience, virtually deaf to all criticisms and only open to changes at the margin. The same lack of engagement and response was encountered with the Forum's submissions, mostly prepared with the assistance of international experts in the relevant fields, on the new curriculum framework, the new curriculum statements, the qualifications framework, assessment at the primary level, and, most recently, the NCEA.

The present situation is, therefore, that issues vital to schooling in New Zealand are being addressed in a Bill for which a written and publicly available analytical basis is lacking. We think this seriously underrates the vital importance of the issues at stake. It also poses very serious risks of policy failure. The Committee may wish to defer consideration of the relevant parts of the Bill and give instructions for the necessary work to be undertaken by independent experts before further action is taken.

The Bill's proposals for a New Zealand Education Council

The aim of the Bill is to enhance the quality of teaching (eg by providing professional leadership, encouraging best teaching practice, setting standards for teacher registration and teaching qualifications) and the safety of students (eg via a code of ethics, setting and extending teacher registration requirements, investigating and acting on complaints of teacher misconduct and incompetence, and police vetting). It seeks to put last year's proposals into legislative effect with only minor changes (eg some changes to the composition of the Council). Thus the Forum's analysis of the issues in its submission on the consultation document also largely applies to the relevant provisions of the Bill.

The main points in the Forum submission and which also apply to the Bill are:

• There is no identification and analysis of the problems the Council is intended to address. The problems are assumed but not analysed. For example, it is assumed that the teaching profession lacks "vibrancy", but what is meant by that term and what causes the lack are not addressed.
  
  
• The government already intervenes in teacher education in numerous ways, and it is not clear that there are any countervailing advantages to the problems caused thereby. It would be wise to review the government's objectives for teacher education and the effectiveness of existing interventions before embarking on further ones.
  
  
• The problems of teacher supply are not analysed, and the proposals for the Council are likely to be counter-productive. Far from raising the morale, status and attractiveness of the teaching profession, they are likely to isolate school teaching as an educational backwater.
  
  
• Professionalism is promoted, but its characteristics aren't identified nor is the application of this concept to teaching considered. The proposed Council, as a Crown Entity accountable to the minister, will not be a professional body in any real sense (professional bodies are accountable to their clients - in this case to parents as agents of their children - not to the government) and would impose another layer of bureaucracy between schools and parents.
  
  
• The proposed composition of the Council would inevitably lead to compromises reflecting interests - often conflicting - which will not necessarily be those of school students.
  
  
• There is a lack of clarity on the division of responsibility between the Council and individual schools for dealing with poor teacher performance.
  
  
• The proposed Council is presented as a 'silver bullet' solution to all sorts of unidentified problems, but it hangs in the air unattached to any solid piece of analysis that might give it support. This is the 'salvation by structures' approach - the legislative equivalent of solving problems by forming a committee but with the added dangers of statutory powers.
  
  
• Teacher status and morale are of vital concern, but they raise issues such as flexible entry to the profession, pay and conditions, and a policy environment in which schools, parents and students are allowed to make important decisions without interference by an oppressive bureaucracy which treats teachers, including experienced principals, as untrustworthy. The proposed Council is likely to become a costly bureaucracy and to make teaching an increasingly unusual profession.
  
  
• There are references in the Bill to "standards" and "quality", but it is not clear what is meant by these terms in the various contexts in which they are used. There is a significant danger that unhelpful requirements will be imposed by the Council. A danger of failing to identify the nature and causes of present problems, including low standards and poor quality, is that those responsible for the problems may be put in a position of being able to perpetuate them - that the arsonists will be put in charge of the fire brigade.
  
  
• A basic problem with the approach adopted by the Consultation Document and now by the Bill it that important issues of teacher quality and morale and teaching standards are taken out of their wider context and treated in isolation from other vital issues including:

  - teacher contracts
  - the increasingly diffuse expectations on schools
  - curriculum, assessment and qualifications
  - the supply side of schooling and parental choice
  - the existing controls over schooling.

The Forum's submission on the Consultation Document concluded that it was so full of wishful thinking as to be beyond rescue. It recommended that the proposals not proceed and that basic questions be first addressed about the state of schooling, the problems and their causes. Only after such an investigation could sensible conclusions be drawn about the extent to which a professional body might provide answers, what functions it should have, and how it might be constituted. We reiterate this conclusion and recommendation in respect of the relevant provisions of the Bill.

School planning and reporting - the issue of accountability

We are not aware of any public consultation on the other proposals, and any ministry analysis of the problems they are intended to address is not available. In respect of the proposals for school planning and reporting we anticipate an increase in paper shuffling but no improvement in school performance. Schools will tend to set low targets which they can comfortably meet and thus report success, or the targets will be so amorphous as to mean whatever the school intends them to mean.

The purpose of accountability mechanisms, including planning and reporting, is to align the interests of agents with those of the people to whom they are accountable (their principals). If issues of school accountability are to be effectively resolved the following issues need to be addressed:

• the identity and interests of those to whom schools (as agents) are accountable;
  
  
• the matters for which schools, as the agents, are to be held accountable;
  
  
• the incentives on schools to do what those to whom they are accountable require and the disincentives to discourage them from acting contrary to those requirements; and
  
  
• the information those to whom schools are accountable need to monitor schools' performance.

A major weakness in the present system is lack of clarity about the identity of the person or persons to whom schools are accountable. Accountability to parents is very weak. Parents have little real influence via boards of trustees and are in any case far more interested as 'consumers' of education on behalf of their children than as school governors for which few are well equipped. Influence by 'exit' (ie removing their children) is also weak and even weaker now with tighter zoning and the scrapping of the TIE scheme. Thus there are few incentives and disincentives (apart from the goodwill and conscientiousness of individual teachers and trustees) to ensure schools act in conformity to parental wishes. In any case parental wishes vary. Further, there is very little objective, nationally or internationally bench marked, information available to parents about their children's performance. Where such information is provided it is done voluntarily.

In practice schools will feel at least equally accountable to education bureaucrats (the ministry, ERO, NZQA) who make the rules, run the system (including defining the curriculum), inspect, and require returns to be made. With so much central direction schools have little real discretion and can, often with considerable justification, blame 'Wellington' for failure to deliver what parents expect. They cannot be held accountable for matters over which they have little or no control.

In our view the problems in schooling will not be addressed until the direction of accountability is changed. Schools need to be clearly accountable to parents as agents for their children. This requires, inter alia, substantial freedom for schools to deliver the sort of education required (including control over staffing and curriculum), provision of quality information on school and individual child performance, and substantial freedom for parents to choose between state and independent schools. Until this is done we doubt if changes to planning and reporting requirements will be more than window-dressing, though they may be very time consuming for those who produce the plans and reports and for those in the ministry who peruse them.

Dealing with school failures

School failure is bound to happen under any system, and we welcome the fact that this issue is addressed in the Bill. However, it is important to establish a policy environment in which it is less likely to happen and in which accountability mechanisms are such that corrective action is likely to be taken early rather than late. It is also important to note that because some schools will fail it is not necessary to heavily regulate all schools. A danger of heavy regulation and poor accountability mechanisms is that they may hide failure: zoning may lock children into bad schools and prevent serious falls in enrolment; employment arrangements may allow the continued employment of poorly performing teachers; and the lack of quality performance information may obscure poor teaching and learning.

The Bill proposes certain measures that may be taken in response to poorly performing schools. We support the proposed measures but suggest they should be part of a range of options. Other measures that should also be considered include allowing a successful school to take over one that is failing and contracting out school management.

A preferred approach to school improvement

An effective approach to raising school performance and to the issue of school failure requires a serious examination of the environment in which schools function and the incentives they face, including the disincentive effects of the extensive government controls which restrict schools' ability to innovate and adapt to the particular needs of their students.

What makes for effective schooling is well documented in the relevant literature and includes strong educational leadership, setting high and widely accepted expectations, regular assessment against those expectations, collegiality among staff, and good communication within the school and between schools and parents. There is nothing surprising here - similar characteristics are to be found in many successful organisations outside education.
What is surprising is the continued actions of governments to ensure that the freedoms which allow these characteristics to develop and accountability to be effective are severely curtailed. Successful schools operate in spite of government controls and not because of them. Standards cannot be raised by new structures alone or imposed by legislation. As argued above, it is generally the case that schools will improve their performance the more they can be held directly accountable to parents. As also noted, this requires the ability of parents to choose between schools and much less accountability by schools to education bureaucrats and much more freedom in essential matters including staffing, finance, property, curriculum, and student enrolment. Several of the Bill's provisions are likely to make matters worse.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Education Forum sees little point in proceeding with legislation on the Council, school planning and reporting, and interventions into failing schools until a coherent and sound public policy analysis has been undertaken of the problems within schooling, their causes and possible remedies. There is no reason to think that an education council constructed on the lines proposed will resolve anything and some reason to think it will exacerbate problems. Legislation without a firm analytical basis is likely to lead to inappropriate institutions, poorly specified objectives and regulatory failure.

It is recommended that the relevant provisions of the Bill do not proceed and that the Committee commission work along the lines suggested.

John Morris
jmorris@ags.school.nz
Chairman
Education Forum

ANNEX
Education Forum's submission, Policy Directions for the Establishment of an Education Council, on the Government's consultation document: Proposals for Establishing an Education Council; a new professional forum for teaching, was attached as an Annex to this submission document. That submission can be found on the Education Forum's website at www.educationforum.org.nz.

1. Geoffrey Partington (1997), Teacher Education and Training in New Zealand, Education Forum, Auckland, November.

2. Education Forum (1998), Policy Directions for Teacher Education and Training in New Zealand - A submission on the government Green Paper "Quality Teachers for Quality Learning - A Review of Teacher Education", Education Forum, Auckland, July.

3. Education Forum (2000), Policy Directions for the Establishment of an Education Council - Submission on the Government's Consultation Document "Proposals for Establishing an Education Council: A New Professional Forum for Teaching", Education Forum, Auckland, August.