Changing our secondary schools / Bali Haque.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part 1. Looking for quality -- Part 2. Educational reform in New Zealand: What goes wrong? -- Part 3. Problems with the Ministry of Education, the PPTA and principals -- Part 4. Future pathways -- --

Part 1. Looking for quality -- -- 1. How good are we? -- Introduction -- Are PISA data valid? -- School decile and NCEA achievement data -- Concluding comments -- -- 2. More about the deciles -- Calculating deciles -- Deciles are not averages -- Decile and school funding -- School decile and school population -- School decile and school ethnicity -- Concluding comments -- -- 3. Do schooling and teaching matter? -- Cultural capital -- Cultural capital and New Zealand Māori -- The impact of cultural capital and socioeconomic status on achievement -- In-school and between school differences in achievement -- Socioeconomics or schools and teachers? -- Concluding comments -- -- 4. School effectiveness -- The school effectivemess movement -- Effective school research methodologies -- OECD PISA effectiveness judgements -- The ERO perspective on quality -- Using proven teaching strategies -- a different perspective on quality -- Shifting the focus to the quality of the teacher -- Teaching as inquiry -- Concluding comments -- -- 5. Measuring quality in schools -- Introduction -- NCEA data -- ERO and differentiated reviews -- Are low-decile schools underperforming? Problems with the ERO review process -- Concluding comments -- -- Part 2. Educational reform in New Zealand -- what goes wrong? -- -- 6. Tomorrow's Schools -- Introduction -- Background -- Has the Tomorrow's Schools reform achieved it's objectives? -- The reform process -- Concluding comments -- -- 7. NCEA -- Background -- Rolling out the new achievement standards -- Policy and implementation issues -- NCEA -- the reform process -- Concluding comments -- -- 8. The New Zealand curriculum 2007 -- Background -- Did NZC achieve it's purpose? -- The reform process -- Concluding comments -- -- 9. National Standards -- Background -- Have the new literacy and numeracy standards achieved the desired objectives? -- The reform process -- Concluding comments -- -- Part 3. Problems with the Ministry of Education, the PPTA and principals -- -- 10. The Ministry of Education -- Introduction -- Poor policy development -- Poor implementation -- Leadership issues -- Poor support for teaching and teachers -- Concluding comments -- -- 11. The Post Primary Teachers' Association -- Introduction -- Teacher competence -- Teacher pay and performance -- Teacher workload -- Teachers who spend too much time not teaching -- Concluding comments -- -- 12. Secondary school principals -- Two principals' organisations -- Principals are overwhelmed by their jobs -- Principlas behave badly in a competitive environment Concluding comments -- -- Part 4. Future pathways -- 13.Socioeconomic status matters -- address economic and social disparities -- -- 14. Find new tools to measure school effectiveness -- Publishing league tables -- Publishing useful and valid achievement data -- Concluding comments -- -- 15. Focus on teacher support and professional development -- Introduction -- Attracting the top tier to teaching -- Concluding comments -- -- 16. Improve the selection and training of school leaders -- Introduction -- Principal appointments and performance management -- Concluding comments -- -- 17. Ensure that reform is well planned, implemented, evaluated and supported -- Improving the quality of policy advice -- The governmentust change the way schools are structured and reduce their number -- The school deciel system -- Bulk funding of teachers' salaries and resourcing -- Concluding comments -- End note.

"This is a powerful critique of two decades of educational reform in New Zealand, from an educator who was deeply involved. It is also a provocative call for action. Bali Haque has been both a secondary school principal required to implement reform and a senior public servant in the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) tasked with pushing through changes. The book analyses four major reforms since 1989: Tomorrow's Schools, the NCEA, the revised New Zealand Curriculum and the National Standards. It explores the role of the Ministry of Education, the PPTA, and secondary school principals, and asks some fundamental questions about how we define and measure school and teacher quality and the extent to which schools and teachers can be expected to overcome socioeconomic disadvantage in homes. It examines how well ERO makes decisions about school quality, how useful our decile system is, and the extent to which NCEA results provide any useful measure of school quality. In a final "future pathways" section, the author sets out his proposals to address the problems and concerns raised throughout the book. With clearly defined topics and summaries in each chapter, this is an accessible and absorbing read. It will be of interest to principals, teachers, Board of Trustees members, parents, public servants and politicians"--Back cover.