Will national standards fail autistic students?
The act requiring the new educational standards regime was passed through all its stages in Parliament in 24 hours just before Christmas 2008. It did not go to a select committee where the public, autism advocates, and those with lived experience, could make submissions. This was unfortunate as some of us could have pointed out the negative implications for our autistic students, most of whom do not fit this ‘one size all’ approach.
My concerns were, firstly, that our autistic students typically have strong strengths and weaknesses across curriculum areas, and limiting assessment to only two areas would give a negative and limited view of our children’s abilities. Secondly, we know that some schools only grudgingly accept our children, and they are quick to find an excuse to ask them to limit their attendance, or even leave. If these standards are to be translated into league tables, schools will not be keen on our ASD students who may not excel in the narrow curriculum areas to be reported on.
Under the new system, children from early in primary school will be assessed against some very narrow requirements. Temple Grandin has already warned of the negative effects on autistic children of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ regime in the US, which our new regime is based on. In her recent book As I see it (2008), she describes a parent’s frustration that in order to pass the standard, the child was denied playtimes or anything that interested her, as she did repetitive drills to learn the required material.
English autistic savant, Daniel Tammet, has written about his own education and describes the autistic student’s typically uneven learning profile in his books Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky. He personally found the physical process of writing very difficult from a coordination point of view, progressing slowly and with frequent errors. Although brilliant with pure numbers, when letters or symbols were introduced into maths, as in algebra, he became confused. An additional requirement of our numeracy testing will be that students show their workings. In Embracing the Wide Sky which includes discussion on intelligence and how the mind works, Daniel describes the visual and aural patterns by which he does his mathematical and linguistic learning, and such pattern thinking is typical of autistic thinking. But it does not fit the standards-required-template. Daniel also shows that knowledge is culturally constructed and what has significance for one culture (such as the strawberries used for counting in our numerical standards requirements) may be incomprehensible to other cultures.
Reporting of these standards to parents will be on Plunket type graph, showing parents and students in a clear visual way that those below the line are already educational failures from 5 years old. How many will be on the autistic spectrum and already finding school a negative experience? That is not the way to increase engagement, participation or achievement.
Unfortunately, this focus on such a limited view of literacy and numeracy in our standards has also meant cuts in other school support. School advisors in areas such as science, art and music have been made redundant, as have many early childhood advisors. Yet these are the experts who teach the teachers about teaching and learning. We also know that libraries can be a safe place at school for our children – but now school library advisors in the National Library have been cut. And these come on top of cuts to educational lifelines for our autistic adults such as night school classes (and large areas of New Zealand will have no night classes at all from next year) and cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance whereby our autistic adults on benefits can improve their lives by access to tertiary study.
The autism sector is right to be alarmed at the cumulative effects of all these negative political changes on the ability of autistic students to achieve their acadenic potential. The standards regime will be implementated from the beginning of the 2010 school year. For the sake of our autistic students, we must pay attention and report what happens.
Hilary wrote on December 10th, 2009 at 6:57 pm:
I would like to confirm that this post is my own opinion as a parent, a former school board member, and primarily as a researcher on autism. I have come to the conclusions mentioned after assessing the evidence as I see it. I am not writing as a member of any organisation.
Autism NZ was offered a meeting with the select committee after some lobbying, but that privilege was not given to others in the sector who had concerns. It is a now exactly a year since the Education Standards Act was passed through all its stages under urgency. Rather than dying down as an issue, it has remained controversial and the subject of much media comment, since then.
I repeat that parents and others need to remain vigilant about its implementation, which is due to start in the new school term.
Martin Sullivan wrote on December 10th, 2009 at 8:10 pm:
Thanks for your “born out of your parental experience” comments Hilary. My view is that the proposed national standards are going to be damaging for the majority of disabled students especially those who have impaired motor skills or are slower learners. As you point out they, as with autistics, will be labeled failures from the get go because they will be so narrowly tested on a limited range of skills.
I think the politicians need to listen to the experts on this. And the experts are not the psychologists, reading recovery experts and so on, but those with autism you quote who have spoken out on the dangers of such a narrowly focused testing regimes.
So thanks Hilary for sharing your thoughts on the vexed question of national standards and for drawing our attention to what those with the lived expertise have to say about the damaging effects such ’standards’ had on them and their pals.
I think its a real shame that our educators have been forced back into the business of labelling and failing students by their political masters (or mistresses) for ideological reasons rather than sound, scientific ones.
Kia kaha Hilary – keep up the good fight!
Giovanni wrote on December 10th, 2009 at 8:13 pm:
Thank you for this Hilary, and I think a big hear, hear is in order.
Joanna Curzon wrote on December 11th, 2009 at 10:47 am:
Here is a response to Hilary’s comments from Mary Chamberlain, Group Manager in the Ministry of Education:
I would like to address several concerns raised in this post regarding National Standards.
National Standards are descriptions of what students should know and be able to do in reading, writing and maths to be able to succeed in all areas of the New Zealand Curriculum.
Children will not be denied playtime or other interesting subjects and teachers will not be asked to narrow the curriculum. Progress against the standards will be assessed by teachers in a variety of ways, throughout the year. That assessment will show parents, teachers and students what they need to do next to support and extend the student’s learning.
Most students, including those with autism, will be able to show progress against, and achieve within, these standards. There is a very small group of students who are likely to learn long term within Level One of the New Zealand Curriculum whose progress will be assessed against the standards as part of their Individual Education Programme (IEP) processes.
National Standards are about supporting all children to make progress in reading, writing and maths. Research is clear that if standards are used to set clear goals with students; if students know what they need to do to achieve the goal; and, if their parents and teachers support them and provide useful feedback, then all students will achieve more.
Mary Chamberlain
Group Manager
Ministry of Education
Special Education: this one is for George. « Red Alert wrote on December 17th, 2009 at 7:02 pm:
[...] development, including in the virtual world. In the meantime, have a read of Hilary Stace’s comments on the possible impact on the national standards on children with autism. Interesting and worrying [...]
Hilary wrote on March 4th, 2010 at 4:25 pm:
An architect of No Child Left Behind and an advocate of charter (private voucher-type) schools now has major doubts. The data shows (as critics suggested it would) that NCLB narrows the taught curriculum and doesn’t raise standards and that charter schools take resources from the public system but aren’t any better quality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?hp=&pagewanted=all%3Cbr%20/%3E