- high levels of exibility for school leaders supports the growth and capability of
teachers within their schools and profession to raise student achievement.
(Education Workforce Advisory Group Report)
Secretary to the Treasury, Gabriel Makhlouf, waded into the debate on the
quality of teacher writing forDominion Poston 27 March 2012 making the fol-
lowing statement:
High quality teachers produce better-performing students who go into the workforce and
make a significant contribution to economic growth. If we lift student achievement to match
the top performing OECD countries, we could raise GDP by 3 to 15% by 2070.... So is the
performance and value-for-money of taxpayer-funded services; education is the third lar-
gest area of government expenditure, and we need get the best results from this investment.
Treasury’s vision is higher living standards for New Zealanders. Education is a key eco-
nomic lever. It’s also a critical way to give disadvantaged children a better chance in life.Reviewing international surveys of student achievement Makhlouffinds that the
NZ’s system does‘fair to good’but as he indicates far too many students are failing
and NZ has more low-scoring students than other high-performing countries. He
puts the argument very simply:
Education spending has increased by 20% for every pupil in the past 10 years, yet our
performance by international comparisons remains stagnant. So what do we need to do? We
need to invest in quality teaching.Makhlouf also suggests that while class size matters the quality of teaching matters
more. Even if the measurement of the quality of teaching is not straightforward
there is‘pretty good understanding of the kinds of skills and competencies that
characterise good teaching’. In this regard he makes some interesting claims on the
basis of an OECD report:
We have variable teacher assessment, and poor linkages between assessments, professional
and school development. There appears to be no formalised career path to support our good
teachers to stay in the classroom.At the same time he acknowledges,‘Different students respond to different teaching
styles, and student achievement is influenced by factors beyond the school gate’,
and‘assessing the quality of teaching is not just about student test scores’.
Two research papers have been influential in the NZ context:‘Initial Teacher
Education Outcomes: Standards for Graduating Teachers’(Aitken et al. 2013 ) and
‘Learning to Practice’(Timperley 2013 ). Both were seen as attempts to guide and
inform policy. The former proposed‘standards’, or the graduate profile, that is
expectations of graduate teachers on entry to the profession including:‘what they
should be able to do, and the knowledge, competencies, dispositions, ethical
principles, and commitment to social justice that they should possess’.
Both Aitken et al. ( 2013 ) and Timperley ( 2013 ) adopt an inquiry-oriented model
for graduate teaching called the‘Teaching for Better Learning’model including
standards structured around a series of inquiries‘designed to establish learning pri-
orities and teaching strategies, examine the enactment of strategies and their impact,
determine professional learning priorities, and critique the education system’.
10 I. Menter et al.