Over in the UK, Vince Cable, the former LibDem Deputy leader who predicted the Great Recession and the need to break up and regulate the banks, is now responsible for business and tertiary education. In the tertiary sector he has a radical new idea for funding.
Some people still think of universities as fusty old ivory towers disconnected from the real world. That hasn’t been true for decades. Our current universities and tertiary institutions are business, they are structured and run to maximise their income in whatever funding framing the government of the day has in place. Predictably, the Nats latest proposed sausage machine funding model is a disaster.
By David Farrar, Keith Ng, Rob Salmond, and Tim Watkin. Many people are concerned about the quality of public affairs journalism in New […]
Two different headlines on national standards this morning paint an interesting picture. Tolley is a disgrace and her national standards are worse. Get rid of both of them.
This is based on a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
It is a hell of an effective way to present an economic argument.
Anne Tolley is on record. She told the Principals gathered at their annual conference that rather than run to the media that they need to talk to her directly.
Lets see some of those who have voiced their opposition to Nationals Standards so far…..
God knows what the National Standards are designed to do – it can’t be to lift achievement. Even the Minister says that is […]
There has been extensive coverage recently of universities’ tough new criteria to limit the number of students they will take next semester and […]
Roger Douglas has a private members bill to introduce bulk funding. It (hopefully) shouldn’t get through – National are unlikely to support it as they’ve already introduced by the back door.
John Key had a busy day playing rodeo-clown yesterday. Before having the Air Force fly him to Ohakune for the opening of 16 whole kilometres of cycleway Key had photo-op with children. It’s is a John Key favourite. The perfect distraction from lying in the House, the weak economy, and Anne Tolley. But the clown show doesn’t always go off without a hitch 🙂
The Minister of Education Anne Tolley, and the Government, is facing a fair amount of (growing) opposition to the implementation of her National Standards. Her message was essentially that schools need to get on with the job of putting the Standards in place and not to publicly criticize the policy. Unfortunately, the Minister herself is responsible for a fair degree of the criticism.
Tolley told principals they should stop talking to the media about national standards. Their criticisms are valid. She would rather silence the critics than fix the problems. A wise authority figure power talks softly and carries a big stick. An idiot with an ego problem yells loudly while carrying no stick. Threatening 500 pillars of local communities when you’ve got no power over them. That’s just dumb.
Tolley’s snookered herself. Either: Parliamentary Library republishes the paper with the few phrases that annoy her gone = Looks like Library has caved to her attacks. Tolley’s a bully. Has attacked the Library’s neutrality. Or they decide the phrases are substantively OK. Republish = Tolley looks like an idiot. Her National Standards further undermined.
John Key can flippantly deflect media scrutiny of his Government’s unkind cuts to early childhood education by referring to the snip he himself has voluntarily undertaken, but many early childhood services are having to make hard decisions about how to deal with it all. “Saving” $419m with education cuts means writing off potential gains of $5.5 BILLION.
Anne Tolley can’t stand to hear any criticism of National Standards, and she doesn’t want you to hear it either. She has had a critical Parliamentary Library research paper removed from the Parliamentary website. You can read it here.
John Key and the Nats are an anti-education government. Everywhere you look education is under attack. The Nats seem incapable of grasping the basic facts – trained, skilled committed teachers are the best way of creating good educational outcomes, and good educational outcomes are the best way of lifting society and the economy.
Just a few days ago I wrote about schools in Dunedin and Invercargill refusing to participate in National’s flawed, damaging “national standards” process. The boycott is spreading, with the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association refusing to participate in training, and warning of “further action”.
Good to see that the Greens presented to Parliament today a 37,000 signature petition expressing concern about the Government’s National Standards policy…
Several schools have spoken out against the imposition of national standards, and three have gone so far as to completely refuse to cooperate. This creates a dilemma for the Nats. How will they respond? Not, I hope, by following one moronic suggestion to cut funding to schools
I really like my children’s school – I think they work hard to keep those young minds engaged and bodies active. I know it’s a job that is pretty demanding, and hugely important. So when I hear that three-quarters of teachers are feeling unprepared and rushed as they work to implement National’s new national standards (according to a NZEI survey) I start to feel apprehensive.
We all know what a disaster America’s ‘No Child Left Behind’, the inspiration for the Nats’ National Standards has been. It seems Australia has gone down a very similar track and the results have been the same – teaching to the test, grade inflation, and institutional cheating as teachers and schools find themselves being judged solely on their students’ grades.
According to a new report: “New Zealand is a great place for children if their parents have a good income, live in a warm dry house and are well educated.” However if you’re not born into a privileged household, then death and disease “is worse than that of all but two [developed] countries, Mexico and Turkey.”
You’ve got to hand it to John Key. He’s so good at distraction he could be a rodeo clown. Yesterday, a classic case in point. Asked about his government’s cuts to early childhood education, Key talked about getting the cruelest cut instead. The journos were so surprised they forgot their questions. Mission accomplished. But we can still examine what the Nats are cutting.
Last year ACE, this year ECE. What has this government got against education? Once again it’s the big loser in a National budget. […]
We already know that National’s big economic plan this budget is a tax swap from working Kiwis to the rich that will not affect growth but will increase inequality. There’s some money for science and Kiwirail, which is good but only partially reverses the cuts that National imposed last year. The two big items in the budget that the Nats have control over (assuming no cuts to benefits or super) are education and health. The increases in these two sectors are the things to watch.
The Herald looks at the Exclusive Brethren’s state-funded, schools. The lengths the cult goes to in an effort to keep their children ignorant is astounding. Everything is censored. Books in school libraries have pages torn out and passages blacked out. Ignorance is strength. All conservative movements realise they need to restrict knowledge and debate to prevent change.
You might say that National’s new $50 a year graduate fee is a small thing. But it’s another discouragement for a young person who is looking at either going straight into low-skill, low-pay work or borrowing thousands to get some skills. The last thing we need to be doing is discouraging more people from going on to polytech or uni.
Last week, the Maori Party endlessly praised National for the meaningless DRIP. Yesterday, we got deathly silence as Trevor Mallard revealed that the Government is giving whare kura schools only $50,000 in base operating funding. Mainstream schools get $130,000. The Government is treating kids at Maori immersion schools as second-class citizens and the Maori Party is OK with it.
The Nats are getting ready to cut 20 Hours Free Early Childhood Education, after having promised during the election campaign not only to keep it but extend it. The Nats don’t have to lie. If they want to break their promises they should just say ‘we just wanted to get elected, so we said what you wanted to hear. We’re going to break our promises and cut ECE’.
Not content with raising the cost of living through a GST increase, the Nats are clearly planning another blow to young families. In a move that breaks yet another election promise, Bill English is preparing the ground for the axing of 20 hours free early childhood education.
Comment from an international expert reported in The Herald today reminded me that National Standards aren’t the only ideologically driven folly that Tolley is forcing down the throats of schools. She’s also doing her bit to contribute to a major health problem…
The most over-rated man in politics, Steven Joyce, has come up with a bright idea: let’s increase the fees for getting high skill degrees in areas where there are big skill shortages. This is typical short-term National thinking: save pennies now, and pay the big bucks later when heavily indebted and highly skilled graduates are forced to go overseas to pay off their debt in a reasonable time frame.
Before the election National promised that they would “Ensure that institutions have greater autonomy”. What does greater autonomy look like, National style? It looks like yet another National attack on democratic governance.
The Key Government is constantly promising us great results and actually do nothing that improves things for New Zealanders. English, Bennett, Brownlee, and Tolley are prime examples of this MO. While they promise great things and fail to deliver unemployment is rising, wages are falling, crime is up, and the government has no plan to move us forward.
Anne Tolley has promised that national standards have been introduced so that “every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school”.
The depths of arrogance and ignorance in that claim leave me at a loss for words…
Education Minister Anne Tolley has made an extraordinary promise: “New Zealand elected a Government that promised to introduce national standards so that every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school. That is what the country voted for.” We would all love to see National deliver, but they can’t, and they know that they can’t. It’s an empty promise.
