PM Christopher Luxon says ‘shocking’ student achievement results prompted hurry-up job on maths curriculum change

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he rushed through plans to fast-track changes to the maths curriculum after seeing “appalling” results last week that showed four out of five Year 8 students were behind in their learning.

The move to introduce structural maths for year 0-8 students from term one in 2025 – a year earlier than planned – was the big announcement in Luxon’s speech to the National Party conference on Sunday.

Luxon revealed afterwards that the announcement was pulled together in a few days, prompted by the new achievement data from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study (CIPS) which showed just 22% of Year 8 students in New Zealand had reached the benchmark for mathematics.

He said it amounted to “a crisis” and the data had prompted him to call in the Secretary of Education and the ministry’s executive team to meet with himself and Education Minister Erica Stanford last week to respond to it.

“There’s no way to describe those results as anything other than a total system failure.”

That study showed 22% were at or above the curriculum level, 15% were less than one year below the level and a whopping 63% were more than one year below it.

Among Māori students, 12% were where they should be, 10% were less than a year behind and 77% were more than a year behind.

Luxon – who has frequently said education was a big priority for him – said it would make it harder to hit National’s target for 80% of students to be at or above their curriculum levels by 2030.

“Having said that, we’re not changing the target. It just means we’ve got to be more committed ... we don’t have time to muck around here.”

In response to the announcement, Labour leader Chris Hipkins – a former Education Minister – said the Year 8 students of today started school when national standards was in place “and we are still playing catch up”.

“I’m pleased to see Christopher Luxon has committed to bringing forward Labour’s curriculum changes and is paying for teacher training and development. He should take the handbrake off school property builds and get rid of his government’s terrible charter schools bill too.”

The Government’s action plan for the quarter includes more moves on truancy and decisions on the school property inquiry it called as a result of cost overruns and delays in delivering school buildings.

Stanford said the maths move would be accompanied by $20 million for extra professional development for teachers to help ensure they were ready in time, as well as twice-yearly testing.

She said the problem with the old curriculum was that it was too vague and did not include specific benchmarks for when students were supposed to have mastered different maths skills. The new maths curriculum would be more prescriptive, and testing would ensure parents and teachers knew who were falling behind.

The party’s conference in Manukau wrapped up after Luxon’s speech, which also touched on National’s moves in the law and order and economic areas.

Luxon delivered an unapologetic defence of law and order moves such as three strikes, sentencing changes, and youth offender boot camps.

He said he had no compunction about those changes and took aim at critics suggesting a tough approach on sentencing or boot camps might not have the impact desired.

“New Zealanders have a right to feel safe. And that right trumps any interest in giving violent and repeat offenders an early release just so they can continue to prey on our communities.”

Luxon said afterwards that he believed the party was “in good heart and energised”.

The party has set a goal of returning to the mid-40s in the polls by 2026 after sitting at 38% since the election – but Luxon was not keen to talk about whether that was realistic.

He said there had been good renewal in the party in the last few years and he was focused on delivering on what it was elected to do.

Stanford: Unions ‘completely out of touch’

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast today, Stanford said the unions hitting back against the new curriculum were “completely out of touch”.

Stanford said the data they received two weeks ago was the first of its kind and showed the “dismal state” of maths education in New Zealand.

She claimed every high school she visits, she hears complaints that the Year 9 students have to be retaught their times tables.

“Unions can have their heads in the sand, but I am going to move on and implement our new plan.”

Stanford said we compared poorly to counterparts in the Western world and refused to believe it was because we “simply could not do math”.

She said the key to success was both the teachers and the curriculum.

“No more of this ‘your kid turns up to school and decides what they want to learn’.”

Key on Treaty Principles Bill, economic angst and race relations

Former Prime Minister Sir John Key told Hosking the tense political climate was a mix of economic angst and specific race relations issues.

“If you walk around most parts of New Zealand, particularly Auckland, you can just feel how dire the economy is at the moment.”

Key said that regarding race relations, we just need to take the temperature down a bit on all sides, a message he reiterated at National’s conference at the weekend.

“When you have your Budget day dominated by a race protest and you’ve got iwi leaders walking out of meetings with the Prime Minister,” he said.

“And things like the Treaty Principles Bill have wound people up. I actually don’t support that legislation.”

The former PM told Hosking David Seymour’s Treaty Policies Bill was a bad act.

“If you write down the principles, if you think they’re going to stay like that, you’re dreaming.

“For the most part, race relations in New Zealand have been pretty good.”

When asked about Hipkins’ criticism of Tomorrow’s Schools, Key said they were from the 1990s and if it was such a problem, they would have fixed it.

“I reckon what would be driving this would be the enormous truancy rates under the previous government.”