As Long as We Beat Up New Zealand

We haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to New Zealand. We wrote on the idiotic rectangle question, which was idiotically repeated. Then, when bashing ACARA’s dissembling on their ludicrous draft mathematics curriculum, we took a peek at the NZ primary curriculum and, in particular, the NZ treatment of fractions: in brief, the curriculum seemed weak, disorganised and confused, comparable but significantly worse than Australia’s (then and now). There’s also the whole Maori perversion of science thing, of course, which is Dark Emu-ish and hilarious and nuts, but which we figured was a few too many steps from home base. That’s been about it. Now, however, New Zealand may be worth a close look.

Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s new, conservative Prime Minister, gave the keynote address at last month’s National Party Conference. Luxon touched on many areas, of course, but the very strong focus of his speech was on education and, in particular, on the plan to immediately overhaul New Zealand’s “shocking” primary mathematics curriculum. Luxon gave warm credit to Erica Stanford, his crusading Minister for Education, who leapt into her role last year by announcing that the Government would ban mobile phones in schools and would mandate that primary schools devote an hour per day to teaching each of the three Rs.

Luxon’s speech can be viewed here (transcript here), and we’ve excerpted the education part below. In brief, the new big mathsy calls are:

• A year-by-year (sic) “knowledge-rich” curriculum, to begin in 2025;

• The provision of “student workbooks” and “detailed teacher guides” aligned to the new curriculum;

• The funding of “targeted professional development” for primary and middle year teachers, with a focus on “the basics”;

• The prerequisite of NCEA Level 2 maths, “the old form 6 maths”, for all new trainee-teachers;

• Twice-yearly assessment for “maths” in primary schools.

• For students who are “really far behind”, the provision of “targeted support in small groups using structured maths”.

Talk is cheap, of course, and we’ll have to wait and see what all this means. Notably, Luxon referred in his speech to demanding a “knowledge rich maths curriculum”, to bring New Zealand “in line with countries across the OECD like Singapore and Australia”. That is a strikingly odd pairing: imagine someone singing “like Amy Winehouse and Florence Foster Jenkins“. So, maybe Luxon and Stanford don’t quite know what they’re wishing for. But there is still reason to hope.

A man is best judged by his enemies and, reassuringly, Luxon and Stanford have a lot of enemies. Various groups have been arguing that the reforms are being rushed and that, in any case, the education data is not as grim as is being portrayed by the government. In any any case, maths ed academic Lisa Darragh has argued that maths ed is “more than just test scores”. Maths ed academics Jodie Hunter, and David Pomeroy and Darragh have claimed that “structured mathematics” is not a thing. New Zealand ITE group TEFANZ has argued that the NCEA 2 requirement is irrelevant for primary school teachers, that “Evidence from Ireland and Australia suggests that this kind of change does not increase the quality of mathematics teaching”. And on and on.

From across the Tasman, it can be difficult to understand exactly what is going on and there is probably some merit in the criticism. But perhaps it is not that difficult and maybe not that much merit. Is, for example, “structured mathematics” less a thing than whatever play-inquiry twaddle Darragh and her colleagues prefer? Hardly, and Ashman gave Darragh and her nonsense a deserved whack. Then, although we are not settled on the NCEA 2 requirement, is there really “evidence from Ireland and Australia” backing TEFANZ’s stance? None was offered and we doubt that any such evidence exists. In the main, the criticism of the reforms seems like the standard whining from the standard groups, whose members are justifiably scared that in the future they will not so easily be able to wallow in their mediocrity.

Last week, Erica Stanford took part in a long interview on her education reforms. It was very good, with the interviewer confronting Stanford with the various criticisms in a firm but non-badgering manner. At one point there was played a clip of a former president of the New Zealand Principals Federation, who was critical that Luxon-Stanford were not being sufficiently consensual:

“One of the things that is really important for governments to remember is that any change that is imposed upon a profession is never going to win the day. You will not win the hearts and minds of teachers.”

Maybe, although it’s not helpful that this message was delivered with the vibes of the hippie in Futurama. But in any case, Luxon and Stanford clearly have a different strategy. To quote (possibly) Theodore Roosevelt,

“If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”