Education Minister Chris Hipkins: streaming is incompatible with Treaty of Waitangi provisions.
Academic streaming in New 茄子视频app官网schools is still common, but according to recent听听it is also discriminatory and racist.
Also known as tracking, setting and ability grouping, streaming has been called a systemic barrier to M膩ori educational success in one major听听released in August.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins听, saying 鈥渟treaming does more harm than it does good鈥.
The criticism should come as no surprise. Decades of听听has shown streaming doesn鈥檛 lift achievement. While it may boost top streams a little, it usually听听the achievement of students in bottom streams.
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Low expectations and low confidence
Given the main听听is that it lets teachers fine-tune learning activities to make them realistic but challenging, why doesn鈥檛 customised learning benefit all students?
Essentially, low-stream students learn听听听via听. Students who start secondary school in a low stream have flatter learning curves than their top-stream peers. It becomes very difficult for them to catch up.
For example, we have听听low-stream year 9 students repetitively rounding numbers to the nearest hundred, while their top-stream peers grappled with challenging number pules. One head of mathematics reflected:
There was no real pathway for students in the bottom class to come out of that bottom class.
The messages low-stream students receive about who they are and what they鈥檙e capable of damage their听. Self-confidence is a strong predictor of听, so streaming can turn one test result into a听.
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Is streaming systemically racist?
M膩ori and Pasifika students are听听in low-stream classes and therefore experience the predictable and well-established harmful impacts of streaming.
Understanding the difference between intent and impact is crucial. In the United States, for example,听听has shown how 鈥渁bility grouping was used as a mechanism to resegregate schools鈥, keeping Black and white students separated within the same building, and subverting national schooling integration mandates.
It is the outcome rather than any intent to do deliberate harm that defines a practice as racist.
In New Zealand, leading M膩ori education scholars have long pointed to the听听between teacher expectations for M膩ori students and their educational attainment in mainstream secondary schools. M膩ori students achieve highly when their teachers ensure they are both culturally safe and academically challenged.
Of course, quality teaching improves students鈥 opportunities to excel academically. However, improving teaching for low-stream students may still have听听unless there is systemic change that creates pathways for them to advance to senior academic courses.
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What are the relevant policies?
The M膩ori education strategy听听was refreshed this year. Its original purpose was to influence policy to improve M膩ori educational success. And yet M膩ori are still experiencing the same systemic inequities over a decade since it was听.
Streaming seems inconsistent with one of the refreshed Ka Hikitia鈥檚 鈥渙utcome domains鈥: Te Tangata: M膩ori are free from racism, discrimination and stigma in education.
Streaming diminishes the听听of students in low streams because they don鈥檛 see themselves as academically able, expectations are often low, and the stigma of belonging to an 鈥渦nderclass鈥 can remain for life.
Ka Hikitia also stresses the importance of wh膩nau (family) in making informed decisions about education. But open conversations about streaming with wh膩nau are rare, and streaming processes and terms can be confusing.
Being in a low stream听听to many learning and employment pathways, but often students and wh膩nau don鈥檛 know this until it鈥檚 too late.
Furthermore, the听听(which became law in August this year, replacing the 1989 Education Act) includes a听听for school boards of trustees to 鈥渆nsure schools give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi by achieving equitable outcomes for M膩ori students鈥.
As Education Minister Hipkins observed, streaming would be 鈥渧ery incompatible and inconsistent鈥 with this requirement. In our opinion, the evidence is on his side.
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The system must respond
There are ways to continue with streaming but听听its worst effects. But the tendency to 鈥渓abel鈥 students as failures, in particular, seems almost impossible to mitigate.
For now, the decision on whether or not to stream in New 茄子视频app官网still sits with individual schools (unlike in Ontario, Canada, which banned streaming in July for being 鈥渄iscriminatory鈥 and 鈥渞acist鈥).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have been busier than ever juggling many competing demands. But if M膩ori are听听a widely accepted educational practice as discriminatory, those of us in the education system must not only be listening, but also be ready to implement evidence-based change.
This article was originally published on听
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