Colin James has written  an interesting piece on two examples of the impact of a rushed law making process- the Emissions Trading Scheme and National Standards. The ETS has been discussed at length this week, but the concerns raised by our leading, and indeed world leading, educational assessment experts should be sounding the loudest of alarm bells. The fact that one of those experts was John Hattie, the person who John Key pointed to as his mentor on these issues makes it all the worse. To quote from Colin James

if teachers teach to rigid standards the risk is that standards and the testing that goes with them become counterproductive. Kids get trapped into failure. The focus is on what teachers teach instead of what kids learn. “The international record,” the four academics said, “is damning.” Other education experts say this is particularly so of the United States’ “no child left behind” project which actually condemned disadvantaged children to being left behind.

The thing here is there was nothing to justify rushing the national standards law through Parliament last year under urgency. If there had been a proper select committee consideration the views of Messers Hattie, Crooks, Flockton and Thrupp could have had the consideration they deserved. Instead we have another version of this government’s view as expressed by Bill English last week ”  bad advice is advice we disagree with, good advice is advice we agree with”. Parents and children deserve better than a rushed process and a government that only hears what it wants to hear.