An Auckland principal has slammed the National Party's new education policy, saying it is an insult to teachers.
Henderson Intermediate principal Wendy Esera expressed disappointment in the plan while appearing on AM on Friday.
"When I read [the policy] yesterday I was horrified," she told co-host Ryan Bridge.
"It's insulting. It implies that we are not already in schools teaching reading, teaching writing, teaching maths every day."
The 'Teaching the Basics Brilliantly' policy was announced by National leader Christopher Luxon on Thursday, imposing new requirements about the amount of time schools allocate to reading, writing and maths, as well as refocusing teacher training and professional development to the basics.
It's a response to what National said is an underperforming education system "with too many kids failing or not achieving their potential, or not being extended." Luxon points to a recent NCEA pilot which found two-thirds of students couldn't meet minimum writing standards.
However, Esera said the issue behind the poor pass rates is not what is taught but other factors, citing the disruption and truancy rate.
"Every single learner who comes into our classes is dealing with a whole heap of other stuff, not just the learning that's in front of them," Esera said.
She said the policy was like "National Standards take two".
National Standards was introduced by the National Government in 2010, aimed at informing parents about how well their child was doing in reading, writing and maths compared to their peers. It was scrapped in 2017 by then-Education Minister Chris Hipkins.
However, NZ Initiative senior fellow Dr Michael Johnston said National's new policy has big differences from National Standards.
"When National Standards were introduced last time around, teachers were not given any tools to make their judgements - they had to just make it up, more or less, out of what they saw in front of them," Dr Johnston told AM. "That resulted in massive unreliability in the data."
"I think the other really critical difference here is that the measurement is backed up with intention to reform the curriculum and reform the way these very key skills are taught.
The former Victoria University associate dean of education said the key aspect he thinks will make the biggest difference, if done right, is changing the way teachers are trained.
"It certainly isn't teachers' fault that they haven't been taught to teach reading, writing and numeracy in the most effective ways," Dr Johnston said.
"There's a wealth of evidence and research on how to teach reading and we are not doing it that way."
He said the current curriculum doesn't make clear how a child should be progressing and has very little information.
The New Zealand Curriculum is currently undergoing a refresh.
Dr Johnston said the draft copy of the new one he has seen is a "little bit better but not much".
