7. Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Education: Does she understand and stand by all statements she has made on national standards?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) : Yes.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Does she stand by her statement that all that teachers who are using asTTle or progressive achievement tests need to do is “Keep doing what you’re doing, we don’t want to change, we’re happy for you to continue using those current assessment techniques.”; if so, can she explain exactly how those teachers will report against the new standards if they just keep doing what they are doing?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I am unaware of where the member has got that quote from, but certainly the intent of the national standards policy is that teachers are able to continue using the assessment tools—such as progressive achievement tests, asTTle, and the Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading—that they are currently using in schools. They will be required to report in plain English against the national standards to parents from this year.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I know this is unusual and you are not very happy when people do this, Mr Speaker, but I seek leave to table a Media Monitors transcript of Radio New Zealand from 24 January this year, to indicate to the Minister where she made that statement.

Mr SPEAKER: I have made a ruling that I will not put leave for recent media transcripts to be tabled in the House; I must stick with that ruling. The member has made his point: he has established where the statement was made.

Hon Trevor Mallard: How will teachers who keep on doing what they are doing, as the Minister indicated in a radio report in January that they could, translate that reporting to national standards without doing anything else?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I say to the member that throughout this country teachers are continuing to do what they are doing. They are telling me that when they unpack the national standards it is, in fact, business as usual. They will keep doing the assessment in their schools that they are currently doing. But a large number of schools are not using assessment techniques effectively, and teachers in those schools will have to make some changes.

Hon Trevor Mallard: If teachers just keep doing what they are doing, as the Minister says that they can, what additional information will be available to parents?

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you know what my point of order is about: the interjection from the Minister of Finance asking why you are not on the bus.

Mr SPEAKER: A point of order has been raised. It is fair that members should not be interjecting: “Why aren’t you on the bus?”, which refers to the Speaker. Members may wish that I was on the bus but, in fact, they must not do that.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: The national standards are a tool to identify children who are not progressing as they should be against reading, writing, and maths standards in schools. They will enable teachers to identify those children, and to provide good clear information to their parents so they can change what happens in the classroom and what happens in the home. Many teachers are, in fact, already doing this, but not all of them. In fact, the Education Review Office report from 2007 showed that almost half the schools were not doing this. There are two things I do not understand about national standards. The first is why, instead of trying to bully me in the House, Mr Mallard and the Labour Party—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I am on my feet and there will be silence. I realise that there is some tense feeling over this issue, but members must not be accused of bullying each other in the House, because I would not tolerate that. If the honourable Minister has not finished her answer, I will allow her to continue.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I will continue without that comment. Why Mr Mallard and the Labour Party are not getting behind the 150,000 children who are failing in our schools now, and why Mr Mallard and the Labour Party are not supporting parents—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I am on my feet and there will be no further comment. The mouth was operating and no sound was coming out. The Minister is answering questions, not asking questions. When I allowed her to continue she proceeded to ask why the Labour Party is not doing this and not doing that. That is not the role of the Minister; the Minister’s role is to answer questions.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: If you look at the primary question, you will see that it asks me what I understand—whether I understand and stand by all my statements. I am admitting to the member that there are a couple of things that I do not understand.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Mr SPEAKER: There will be silence. That is not a valid point of order, at all. The member is starting to debate the issues. The Hon Trevor Mallard has the right to ask this question and the Minister’s job is to answer it. Does the Hon Trevor Mallard have any further supplementary questions? [Interruption] No, I have ruled that she has finished answering the question.

Hon Chris Carter: He’s doing a runner; too embarrassed to stay.

Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. I am getting a little tired of some of the interjection. I have been pretty patient today but that member was right beside an open microphone when he made that interjection. I will not tolerate that further. I ask the Hon Trevor Mallard to ask a supplementary question, or the member may lose it.

Hon Trevor Mallard: What will she say to parents who now have high-quality reports using asTTle and who will in the future be given lower-quality reports using her national standards, which have much less information on them as to the next steps for their children?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Schools can provide parents with as much information as they like, as long as they report progress to parents against the national standards. That is a stupid question.

Louise Upston: What statements has she seen that suggest that national standards in literacy are needed?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have seen a newsletter from the member who asked the primary question in which he talks about a union bus tour that he went on in the deep south. The newsletter, sent out from a Labour Party address, reveals that he cannot spell even the word “Invercargill” correctly. I have a copy of the reading and writing national standards and I am prepared to provide them to the member so he can do some homework.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Will the Minister now tell the House what the added value is to parents who are already receiving a quality asTTle report of teachers being forced to prepare something based on her standards that is not as good?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Schools that are producing asTTle will continue to give parents as much information as they are giving them currently. However, one has only to talk to the hundreds of thousands of parents across the country who support the introduction of national standards to know that they want better information from their schools about how their children are doing. They are hungry for that information, and they back this Government, which is introducing national standards.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you understand that it was a relatively simple question about added value for a particular group of parents: those who are already getting asTTle. That question was not addressed or answered.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Right at the beginning of my answer I addressed that question. Schools can continue to give that group of parents that information.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: I will not have answers relitigated by way of points of order. The member asked what additional value would be made available to parents through the national standards programme beyond the normal reporting under asTTle. Maybe the Minister could just address that, because the question did not really contain any other statements. The question was about the additional information.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: In addition to the reporting against asTTle, parents will also receive reporting against the national standards. I thought that was self-explanatory.