I think we should be less concerned about league tables and more concerned about what the "data" does to kids - and teachers. "Does not meet the standard" is not a very nice label for a six year old. Nor does it tell a parent (or the kid for that matter) what may be wrong (if anything) or why.
Does the State have the right to set a "standard" that 25% - 40% of kids may never reach, and then label them as not meeting the standard? Should we start sewing yellow stars on their shirts?
The whole thrust of the new curriculum (and educational thinking over the last 50 years) is an attempt to meet the variety of needs that present themselves in school. The effect the standards will have is to standardise what we teach, not raise achievement, or encourage us to meet the diverse needs of children in our school. As someone wiser than me said, the quickest way to make a non-reader is to say, "You aren't very good at reading," make them all anxious about it, so they give up. Six is the perfect age to do this if you want to create non-readers.
Good teachers - excellent teachers - particularly of 5 year-olds - feel oppressed by the whole notion of National Standards. Anne Tolley needs to hear their voices and see the standards as a constraint on good teaching, not a tool for raising achievement.
BTW - Who in National has ever been a teacher? Wasn't Brownlee a woodwork teacher once? He'd know about measuring achievement, wouldn't he? Didn't Anne Tolley run motels? Don't both Key and English send their own children to private schools? Does this say anything about their faith in public education?
Don't we need National Standards for politicians?
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