摘要：The National Standards, one for Reading/Writing (Ministry of Education, 2009a)
and the other for Mathematics (Ministry of Education, 2009b), were released in
late October 2009 with much fanfare. They were launched by the Prime Minister
with the Minister of Education in attendance, although the teacher unions and
principals¡¯ organisations boycotted the event. It is fair to say that as a policy
initiative of the new National-led coalition government, the National Standards
have not received the professional support the politicians might have expected.
This is due, in part, to concern about the conceptual base of and justification for
National Standards. There appears to be much muddled thinking (or no
thinking at all) by those who framed the policy about some fundamental
aspects, particularly the underlying philosophical assumptions and problems
which need to be exposed in order to reach an informed view on whether the
National Standards are really up to standard.
