The true state of the nation’s education reform plans
- 7 days ago
- 5 min read
by Rebecca Thomas
Today, Christopher Luxon addressed the nation.
He spoke of progress.
Of momentum.
Of certainty.
He spoke to an Auckland business audience about the state of the nation and the road ahead — and education reform was positioned as one of this Government’s defining achievements.
Fixing the basics.
Raising standards.
Preparing young people for the future.
For parents listening in, that language may have sounded reassuring.
But there is another account of the state of education in this country — one that cannot be reduced to an economic talking point.
It is not neat, I’m afraid.
It is not linear or basic.
And it does not fit inside the language of productivity or workforce readiness.
It lives elsewhere.
It lives in classrooms where teachers are holding the emotional weight of our children while navigating reform after reform delivered without trust.
It lives in staffrooms where the word consultation has begun to feel deeply hollow.
It lives in communities where families are being asked — again — to absorb the consequences of decisions made far from them.
This piece is written from that place.
A profession worn down, not resistant
Let’s begin with what has been quietly breaking for some time.
The relationship between educators, the Ministry, and the Minister has been deeply damaged. Not just slightly strained. Not tense or inflamed by unions. Broken.
Not because teachers oppose improvement.
Not because we are afraid of accountability.
But because over the past two years we have been repeatedly sidelined, spoken over, dismissed, and publicly characterised as obstacles rather than experts.
Educators have watched decisions 'announced' before conversations occurred.
We have seen misleading claims made about data and progress, repeated often enough to sound like truth.
We have been publicly labelled 'disrespectful' and 'disgusting' by the very person entrusted to hold the education portfolio with care.
We have raised concerns only to be told we are ideological, emotional, or self-interested.
We have seen our professionalism questioned in the media while our daily labour — complex, relational, and deeply human — continues unseen.
This is not the frustration of people who refuse to change.
It is the exhaustion of people who have been ignored.
Trust, once lost, does not return quickly.
And it does not return through speeches.
The warning sign we could not ignore
When Te Tiriti obligations were erased from the Education Act, it made headlines.
But for many educators, especially those working in Māori communities, that moment was not shocking — it was confirming.
It signalled how easily foundational commitments could be removed when they were deemed inconvenient.
How quickly partnership could be reframed as excess.
How casually equity could be set aside in the pursuit of “simplicity.”
That decision told us something important about whose voices mattered — and whose did not.
We have been here before — and we know the cost
In the name of fixing the basics, this Government is steering education back toward a national, standardised system of measurement and comparison.
We are told this is necessary.
That it will lift outcomes.
That it will restore confidence.
But educators remember the last time National Standards were imposed.
We remember classrooms narrowed to what could be measured.
We remember children learning, frighteningly early, whether they were “above,” “at,” or “below” — labels that followed them year after year, regardless of growth.
We remember Māori and Pasifika children being over-represented in the lowest categories, not because they were incapable, but because the system refused to see them in context.
National Standards did not raise equity.
They entrenched it.
They created public failure for children already carrying social and economic disadvantage.
They stripped learning of joy, breadth, and dignity.
And when the data proved inconsistent, unreliable, and deeply harmful, the policy was eventually abandoned.
That history matters.
Because returning to standardisation is not neutral.
It is not a clean slate.
It is a known risk — and it is marginalised children who pay first.
NCEA was not perfect — but it was protective
Which brings us to NCEA.
The Prime Minister claims students were too focused on “just getting the qualification.” That they were not developing the knowledge or skills required for future study or work.
But the purpose of secondary education has always been to support students to leave school with a qualification — one that reflects their learning, their strengths, and their pathways.
What is missing from the public narrative is this:
The Government knows these changes will cause harm.
Buried in its own Cabinet paper on replacing NCEA is a stark admission:
“Achievement rates are likely to decline… especially for Māori, Pacific and disabled learners and learners facing more socio-economic barriers.”— Cabinet Paper, 2025
Read that again.
This is not an outsider’s critique.
This is not ideological resistance.
This is the Government’s own acknowledgement that its reforms will hurt those already underserved — and that it is proceeding anyway.
Officials explicitly note that Māori, Pacific, disabled learners, and students facing socio-economic barriers are more likely to be affected because they currently engage in project-based learning, unit standards, and flexible pathways — precisely the practices this reform will restrict.
This is not an unintended consequence.
It is a known one.
And this is the moment where reform stops being about standards and starts being about values.
Because we would never accept a health policy that knowingly increased death rates for Māori and Pacific communities "in the short term.”
We would never accept a transport policy that knowingly injured disabled people first while promising long-term efficiency.
Yet in education, we are being asked to accept precisely that logic.
Support after harm is not equity.
It is damage control.
For many young people — including my own children — NCEA was not a loophole.
It was a lifeline.
I wrote about that in depth here, because this part matters deeply: Why I signed the NCEA petition.
NCEA allowed neurodivergent learners to build confidence rather than shame.
It allowed practical, creative, and vocational pathways to carry equal dignity.
It allowed children to leave school feeling capable — not 'sorted'.
That protection is now being dismantled.
Reform without care is not progress
We are told consultation is open.
That a new qualification will be clearer.
That grading out of 100 and higher literacy and numeracy thresholds will lift standards.
And we are told this will be good for children.
But the first cohort affected by these changes are students who started high school this year — children with no choice, no comparison point, and no buffer if the system fails them.
This is not careful reform.
It is accelerated change imposed on those least able to absorb risk.
And we are told that if we want the best for our children, we must trust this Government.
The same Government that destabilised the profession.
That amplified racially charged curriculum narratives.
That reduced decades of educational research to a single imported ideology — because it fitted a political story.
The story educators are living
What concerns educators is not change itself — but change designed to reassure markets before it protects children.
When education is spoken about primarily in the language of efficiency, comparison, and economic output, something essential is lost.
Learning becomes transactional.
Children become data.
And care becomes invisible.
This is why the official story being told about education reform feels so disconnected from the reality in schools.
Because what is happening in classrooms cannot be reduced to a soundbite for an Auckland business audience — and it should never have to be.
Educators are not resisting progress.
We are resisting harm.
And this resistance is not loud because it wants attention —it is steady because it remembers. And memory, in moments like this, is a form of protection.
Comments