Key hates interest-free student loans, the only thing that has kept thousands more from leaving the country for higher wages, but says “it’s not politically sustainable to put interest back on student loans”. Why? “That is about the only thing that will get [young people] out of bed before 7 o’clock at night to vote”. Key’s willing to keep a policy he hates as long as you don’t vote.
The Nats abandoned their wastewatch.co.nz site a few years back after being unable to identify significant waste. They should have just waited a few years. Now, the examples are neverending.
Today’s case: Steven Joyce’s plan to publish the average incomes of graduates of different courses. A huge administrative task to tell us nothing.
Student loans will remain interest free, but the Nats are planning to rein them in “in a big way”. I guess that means that typical Nat slash-and-burn thinking will result in damaging restrictions to educational access in due course.
New Zealand schools achieve excellent results and are very cost effective. The Nats are determined to break this great system via the introduction of national standards. They’re ignoring the advice of their own experts, and all the international evidence. But will they be able to ignore the now self-evident failure of standards based testing in America, as Obama pulls the plug on No Child Left Behind?
The UN High Level Panel on Global Sustainability has delivered a report about creating a future that’s sustainable economically, socially and environmentally. Our government and political parties should be looking at it and measuring themselves against it.
Public education is the cornerstone of a good country and a buoyant economy. And New Zealanders have long enjoyed the benefits that come to them individually, to their families, their communities, their country, and the economy from having access to quality public education. But all this now seems under attack from a small group of Treasury officials.
Generating a false crisis to justify their ideological policies is a classic rightwing tactic. Key gravely pronounces the system is ‘broken’ and their policy is the solution. Education has been victim to this bullshit. But OECD stats show that we have the best value for money education in the world. How will National justify their ideological assault on teachers now?
Irony will be if Anne Tolley gets sacked over a portfolio she no longer holds. And if she’s fired, not for turning one of the world’s most successful education systems into an ideological warzone over performance pay but, for lying to Parliament about a principal turned ministry expert with a sleazy husband being suspended.
John Armstrong’s column today – not yet on website – is extraordinary. “Elements on the left cried wolf about National having a secret agenda” Armstrong’s faux outrage is generated by the fact that National’s charter schools policy was not part of any election mandate, and some people have pointed this out. Funny how people on the left are always “elements” – couldn’t possibly have a mind of their own.
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
National seem to be backing Charter Schools on the premise that if the teachers don’t want them, they must be good.
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
David Farrar is running National’s line that anything the teachers don’t want must be good for the education of our children…
Charter schools and national standards/league tables are part of the same process. It’s about siphoning off public funds, the best pupils, and the best teachers into ‘elite’ schools, and leaving everyone else behind. It’s about cutting money for ‘failing’ schools and ‘failing’ students. It ultimately means more lost potential and a poorer NZ, but one that serves the elite’s interests.
Once again, under National, we get to repeat an experiment that failed 20 years ago. All cooked up on the back of an envelope in a coalition deal. Education deserves much better.
The Nats’ education policy came out yesterday and, predictably, it’s ideologically driven nonsense that will damage children. Worst aspects, league tables (almost universally condemned by experts and experience) and a proposal for the Nats to specify a “personality test” to select teachers.
When people say ‘there’s no difference between the two big parties’ or ‘where are the policies’, it’s shorthand for ‘I haven’t been paying attention’. We had a great example of the contrast yesterday. National would subsidise expansion of dairy by selling our assets; Labour would get modern equipment to poor schoolkids by cutting sports subsidies to rich schools.
The number of people attending adult community education has fallen by 80% since National’s cuts in 2009. National’s cuts have saved only $24m (vs the $1.1b cost of the ‘fiscally neutral’ tax cuts) but have denied over a quarter of a million people the opportunity to broaden their horizons and acquire new skills. National is leaving a poorer society behind it.
National’s “Future Fund” asset-sale money will be spent on modernising schools we are told. Is the future they have in mind like Conservative Education Minister Michael Gove’s so-called “free schools” now being set up in Britain? It would be no surprise if our public assets were sold down by National to pay for private interests to get a stake in the school system here. We shouldn’t be under any illusions that the agenda is just short-term.
Grateful citizens rejoiced this week at the passage of the VTM (Voluntary Taxation Mechanism) bill.
John Key promised to put Food in poorer Schools across New Zealand to help children to learn. What has he done about it? One cheap, but very well-publicised stunt. Will we see any substance? Or is this another promise like not raising GST, wages catching Australia, or capping not cutting the civil service?
One of the big stories last night was the anti-VSM protest at Auckland Uni. Was it the last one we will see in NZ? That would suit the Nats very nicely – sheep will be so much easier to fleece…
The guys at RSA Animate provide their illustative talents to a quite brilliant and wide ranging lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on the topic of education. In the space of just over 10 minutes, he ranges from it’s industrial beginnings to its doped out, standardised present and argues finally, that educationally we’re heading in exactly the wrong direction and suggests alternatives.
The government has been cutting funding to universities, and the effects are beginning to show.
The other night I resigned from the bot of my local school. My experience in the field of education is fairly varied, with time on both sides of the chalkface as it were. … the bot has been forced by the government, through the moe to include national standards, and I can’t in good conscience be a party to such foolishness.
John Armstrong wants Labour to come out radically different after the Cup. Having refused to cover Labour’s skills package or its mining policy, he’s suddenly interested in policy. He wants Labour to suddenly adopt league tables and forget the 39% tax rate. Armstrong genuinely doesn’t seem to get it. Parties of the Left don’t pick and swap policies on a whim.
RNZ had the news this morning that the schools most strongly opposing the nonsense of “national standards” – the Boards Taking Action Coalition – have decided to change their tactics.
The Tertiary Education Union has revealed that 350 jobs are for the chop at Canterbury University – 18% of the workforce. The Uni, hardly reassuringly, says its 100 to 500. The Nats blame the quake. That’s rubbish. These kind of cuts will permanently gut the Uni, leaving it in no position to be part of the recovery. National: the anti-education government.
Where National Standards is only the answer to “what keeps other countries from catching our education system?”
As National’s spending cuts come home to roost, tertiary managers are trying to save money by cutting professional development expenditure. Sandra Grey of the Tertiary Education Union’s guest post explains how this has an insidious effect in driving down the quality of our academics and encouraging them to leave the country.
More and more schools are standing up and saying No to national standards. Naturally, Tolley thinks it’s all about her.
Having decided to beat up on a few thousand of the most hard done by young people in the country, National is now refusing to acknowledge the problem of disconnected youth that has ballooned under their watch. There are enough young people who aren’t in education, training, or work to fill Eden Park, and Key is literally running from the issue.
A report in the Financial Times, that hotbed of socialism, says that PFI’s as PPP’s are known in Britain cost an extra 20 billion pounds in “extra borrowing costs” over the 53 billion pounds of the projects’ actual cost. Not only that, 4 billion pounds will go to consultants. Enough said. Another dumb idea from those who gave us collateralised debt instruments, self-correcting markets and “there is no alternative”.
About 600 Otago students turned out this morning to meet John Key in protest to the VSM bill. Good to see a strong show of support for student unions!
Why is it that the Ministry of Education has at least 20% of the school boards unwilling to put National’s standards into their charters. They are doing this despite the blatant bullying by the Anne Tolley as the minister. They can’t see what the standards would positively achieve for their kids. Perhaps Tolley needs some education?
Tolley’s running a nasty little smear through Cameron Slater. See, non-profit kindergartens have millions in the bank while saying they need more cash. It must be a rip-off, eh? Yeah. Nah. The kindergartens just have the cash they’ve been given for future operations. So, why is Tolley trying to make this an issue?
According to a recent report, disadvantaged NZ youth are at the “bottom of OECD league”. The report recommends various interventions in schools. The recommendations completely miss the point, because the problem is not in the schools, the problem is in society.
Yesterday, hundreds of parents protested cuts to early childhood education on Queen St and gave Phil Goff a 60,000 signature petition to take to Wellington. 1000 people in the Octagon called on the government to consider Kiwi jobs when awarding contracts. What is wrong with the priorities of this government that puts tax cuts ahead of kids and job?
