Abstract:
In New Zealand, as in other OECD countries, there are on-going concerns about the inequity of outcomes of state education. The New Zealand National Standards system is portrayed as an attempt to address the problem of the ‘one-in-five’ students, predominantly Māori and Pasifika, who leave school without levels of literacy and numeracy seen as necessary in order to be successful. National Standards is presented as an assessment-driven, policy response to this ‘long tail of underachievement’, which aims to raise teacher’ reporting, assessment and evaluative capabilities. It is argued that these improvements will provide the catalyst for improving student achievement. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which this publicised rationale for the National Standards policy is supported by the evidence. Critical Discourse Analysis is used to consider education policy texts and media texts, which can be considered public representations of discourse. This dissertation challenges the claims made about National Standards, and evaluates the extent to which the National Standards policy is likely to raise student achievement. It also challenges the claim that this policy will ensure that the negative consequences of national testing, seen in other countries, can be avoided in New Zealand. The findings indicate that National Standards is better described as an ‘assessment for accountability’ policy rather than an ‘assessment for learning’ policy and that accountability, not building capacity, is the main motivation behind this policy initiative.