Perspective with Ryan Bridge: We owe Kiwi schoolkids an apology

We owe our kids an apology.

School students of all ages in this country have been used as guinea pigs in failed experiments that have been demonstrably bad for their learning.

We've had two announcements from the Government this week that prove this.

First, the latest NCEA maths results from low decile schools. They improved by around 70 percent. 19.8 percent passed the co-requisite test last year. In June it was 34 percent.

This is, obviously, excellent news. Well done to those students for putting in the hard work.

The begging question is why and how on earth did this happen? I asked both Erica Stanford and Chris Hipkins, the former Education Minister, this question.

Both agreed it was a more relentless focus on the basics. Both agreed that teachers have been teaching too much 'fluffy' other stuff to students and their results in core subjects have been declining as a result.

Both politicians blamed the other party for changing where the focus goes.

And that's politics. But it's the students who've missed out. They're the ones who won't get those years back. They're the ones who've missed out. They're the ones who will pay the price in future for missing out on a basic education.

And two, the open plan, barn-yard style classrooms - the home of distracted learning.

The Government today announced they won't build any new ones. Which, again, is welcome news. But the question is - why any were built in the first place?

The Key government built some and Labour carried on.

All of this on the advice of boffins at the Ministry of Education who've clearly never stepped foot in an actual classroom. Now, the Minister says they've done some actual research and realised they're a terrible idea.

This is how Erica Stanford politely described how schools are coping with these classes at present:

"There are schools who still have them and they operate in them the best they possibly can. They have trained their teachers to work in them, they've got really good acoustics. They're teaching children at different levels, some on chairs, some on the floor to reduce the noise, and they're doing the best they can."

I know, totally ridiculous.

The reality is, we can't solely blame out kids for their failure to learn.

We can also blame ill-informed or ideologically-driven experiments by the Ministry of Education, the unions and politicians.

Whether it's the Ministry in Wellington, the unions or politicians, we can't solely blame our kids for their failure to learn.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We owe our kids. In apology, I reckon for using
them as guinea pigs and education. Let me explain my
thinking on this. We've had two announcements from the government
this week, and both I think prove a case that
we've wasted crucial time on failed experiments. First, the NCAA
maths results that we talked about the other day for

(00:20):
low decile schools in particular, these are our poorest kids.
They improved by around seventy percent, so jumping from nineteen
point eight percent passing the corequisite test last year and
June it was thirty four percent. This is obviously excellent news,
well done to the students, but the begging question is why,

(00:40):
how on earth did this happen? How did we turn
the numbers around so quickly, and how did we let
them get so bad in the first place. I asked
Erica Stamford this question this week. Hipkin's the same thing,
and both of them uniquely agreed that teachers have been
teaching too much fluffy other to students, and their results

(01:02):
in core subjects have been declining as a result. In
other words, the kids weren't failing because they weren't trying.
They were failing because they weren't being taught properly. Second thing,
this open plan classroom announcement today in a home of
distracted learning, stupid idea. Government announced they're not going to

(01:24):
build any new ones. Good welcome news, but again the
question is why were we building them in the first place.
The Key government built some labor carried on. I'm not
saying this is a particular party, it's just governments of
all stripes. All of this on the advice of boffins
at the Ministry of Education, by the way, who clearly

(01:44):
have never stepped foot in an actual classroom. Now the
minister says they've done some actual research and realize terrible idea.
Listen to Erica Stanford politely describe how schools are coping
right now with these classrooms, these barnyard classrooms.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
There are schools who still have them, and they operate
in them the best they possibly can. They've trained their
teachers to work in them. They've got really good acoustics.
They're teaching children at different levels, so some up and chairs,
some on the floor to reduce the noise, and are
doing the best they can.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Kids sitting on the floor to learn because of acoustic
issues in a classroom is the dumbest thing I think
I've heard from our education system. Well second dumbest behind
teaching them fluff. I mean, and they're on the floor
and you're teaching them the wrong stuff. It's a recipe
for disaster. So the reality is we can't solely blame

(02:37):
our kids for their failure to learn. We can also
blame some pretty ill informed and ideologically driven experiments by
the Ministry of Education. You have to save the unions
and clearly some politicians for more from Heather duplessy Ellen Drive.
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