Job cuts and getting PLD right

Our last Blog post was over a month ago and was about ‘Allaying fears over the mandate’ of structured literacy coming in from next year. Since then we have had two pieces of news come through from the Ministry of Education. The first was changes to priorities for Regionally-Allocated PLD (announced 11 April) and the second was the job cuts at the Ministry (announced 17 April).

We are sitting on the fence as to whether these developments help allay fears, or add to them. We need to see details on the future plans for PLD overall and the specifics of the job cuts before we can opine further.

Focus needs to be on top brass at the Ministry

On the job cuts, we want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the stress and upset that the ‘cost savings’ exercise that the Ministry was instructed to undertake has had on Ministry staff over the past few months, and will continue to have for many over the weeks and months to come. We really feel for the affected staff. These are real people with families, mortgages and dreams that have been upended.

As an advocacy group that has been lobbying for improved educational outcomes for our children and professional learning and support for teachers, we have often pointed to serious shortcomings (as we see it) in the leadership, strategy, policy development and policy implementation of the Ministry.

To be clear, the focus of our criticisms of the Ministry are squarely directed at the top leadership of the Ministry and the overall educational ‘establishment’ that have been insular, self-serving, protective of the status quo and vested interests, and not up with the play on evidence-based practice. There have been obvious failures with the Curriculum refresh, NCEA change package, provision of PLD, the research strategy, and even property.

It’s hard to imagine that changes in how the Ministry advisors, costs and resources are allocated will bring the change needed without changes in operational and policy leadership.

While it is likely that resource allocation is part of this failure it’s most certainly not the main failure. Nor is the main failure at the political leadership level, although certainly there have been issues at those levels as well. The main failure we see is in the Ministry’s leadership, in strategy and policy development , in research, in advice and in operations.

If we want a high performing Ministry, it's time for a change at the top. Lower level job cuts will not lead to the sort of transformational change required in the sector. Strategy after strategy has failed.

Lots to get right (or wrong) in PLD rollout

On the developments with PLD, on 11 April the Ministry communicated to schools and PLD providers and facilitators that applications for the Term 1 Regionally Allocated Professional Learning and Development (RAPLD) funding have “been realigned to support the Government’s commitment to increasing literacy rates for all students and upskilling existing kaiako in teaching reading and writing or pānui and tuhituhi and the use of assessment for learning and aromatawai”.

They said that “no decisions have been made beyond this round of RAPLD and this work is underway. More information about what PLD will be available when, and how this can be accessed will be shared in early May”. And that schools should “wait for this information before making any Term 2 applications”.

We welcome this refocus in PLD priorities, even if the process of communicating the changes caught schools and PLD providers by surprise. This is a step in the right direction, but there was a worrying lack of guidance provided on what constitutes quality PLD provision based on research findings from the science of reading. Even just linking to the Reading League Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines would have been a big help, or some guidance similar to ours on ‘assessing evidence-based claims’ would not have been remiss.

The PLD facilitator search function on the Ministry PLD website is also not much help, with the old PLD priorities still there as a filter and no detail on the specialisation or qualifications of individual facilitators in providing PLD on Structured Literacy. We guess they are still working on those details - hopefully to be announced in early May as they indicated.

The urgency of those details becomes more and more pressing as more and more providers and facilitators with scant knowledge of the science of reading and structured literacy start to pepper their marketing materials and ‘programmes’ with those terms and make claims that they provide a whole-school approach to structured literacy, when this is in reality a bit of a stretch of the concept. It really is a case of ‘buyer beware’ at the moment.

But at the same time, while we are all craving those details we also want them to get the design of PLD provision and the rollout of PLD right and not rush things just because of a self imposed commitment to “ensure every child learns to read and write using structured literacy by making it a requirement at primary school from 2025 for Years 1 - 3”.

If necessary, we would prefer the Minister to delay or clarify the commitment to give the Ministry and sector more time to get the implementation details and supports right.

It would also make more sense to us to have the commitment apply for all years at the same time, rather than the staggered approach the Minister has set out. This is because there are efficiencies in delivering PLD school wide from the start and many schools have already undertaken at least some PLD for Years 1 - 3 and there is now a greater need in higher year levels (even into intermediate and high school).

The only exception to not rush things from our point of view would be to follow through immediately on the Minister’s commitment to end the Reading Recovery and Early Literacy Support contract and “prioritise funding towards structured literacy intervention instead”. We will be deeply concerned if any announcements on PLD or literacy intervention supports feature Reading Recovery in whatever guise it claims to have changed to.

The disproven and damaging three-cueing approach and meaningless assessments like Running Records are still at the heart of Reading Recovery and Early Literacy Support and the leaders at the centre of the programme do not have the requisite training in the science of reading and structured literacy to credibly meet requirements for competency and expertise in these areas. There are just so many better alternatives to PLD and intervention support out there that should be funded, including allowing schools to train their own structured literacy intervention specialists and literacy leads. We don’t owe anything to Reading Recovery or the universities that support it.

We have provided our thoughts on what the Ministry needs to take into account in designing a structured literacy PLD accreditation scheme and how to most effectively and efficiently roll out PLD to the sector. We drew on submissions to our Draft Policy White Paper in formulating the advice (unfortunately we have not had time to summarise all the feedback and put out a final Policy Whitepaper but we still plan to do this). Key recommendations on rolling out PLD include:

• Leverage and enhance the existing 40 RTLB Clusters to act as focal points for coordinating and overseeing the rollout of PLD. Rename them “Teaching and Learning Support Hubs’. Train and use the existing Learning Support workforce (RTLit and some RTLB) as Structured Literacy coaches.

• Hub receives bulk funding from the Ministry for any external PLD and teaching resources required across all schools served by the Hub.

• A network of ‘Lead Schools’ assigned to each Hub. Provide for teacher release so that schools can run demonstration events for visiting staff from other schools and instructional coaching support to other schools.

• Bring the RTLit workforce into Hubs so there is an integrated and streamlined planning, reporting and management structure that connects in with National Learning and PLD priorities. Prioritise all 109 RTLit for IDA accredited plus Structured Literacy PLD (or equivalent) starting from second half of 2024, through 2025. Consider whether numbers of RTLit need to be increased.

• Consider numbers of RTLB, LSC and MoE Curriculum Advisors and Policy staff requiring Structured Literacy training. We would suggest up to half of RTLB and LSC and all MoE Curriculum and Lead Policy advisors. This upskilling can be accomplished over two years and free online courses may be suitable as a first step.

• Upskill Cluster Managers, RTLit and RTLB in Facilitation and Change Management if required. Maintain the management of Hubs by school boards (do not bring under Ministry management). Review the RTLB Funding Agreement in light of changes.

• Consider bringing LSCs into the Hubs. But at minimum consider how they can be integrated into the strategic planning and rollout of PLD and intervention support.

• Consider bringing in allied professionals (SLT, EdPysch and OT) into Hubs.

• Examine the function of MoE Special Education Advisors (SEA). There are a limited number of SEA employees nationwide. SEA perform duties similar to RTLB. Consider integrating SEAs into Hubs to bolster numbers within an already capable workforce.

• Consider how Leadership and Curriculum Advisors within MOE Regional Offices can work alongside Hubs and then school leaders serviced by those Hubs. Provide PLD to principals in Structured Literacy and change leadership before training teachers in SL.

• Split rollout of PLD into four groups across next 3 years and provide different levels of PLD based on role. Prioritise first up principals and leaders and specialist roles.

On the design of an accreditation scheme for providers/facilitators are recommendations include:

• Look to existing programme and teacher knowledge evaluation guidelines to form the basis of design of accreditation.

• Keep abreast of international initiatives such as the Evidence Advocacy Center looking to produce comprehensive licensure, accreditation and accountability standards based on the canon of evidence from the science of reading.

• Ensure providers demonstrate knowledge and expertise but keep the process as streamlined as possible.

• Develop a ‘modular’ accreditation scheme.

• Link to revised Teacher Registration Standards and Professional Growth Cycle.

• Develop a system to systematically review effectiveness of instructional programmes and PLD.

• Develop a way to measure the fidelity of implementation.

See this presentation for the full details.