Dunne abandons charter schools
Peter Dunne is concerned about the use of unqualified teachers in charter schools. As well he should be – the Ministry of Education has issued a detailed warning against this daft policy.
Social issues
education
Stand up for kids
Stand up for kids is “a campaign for parents, families, teachers and other educators who all want the best for our children”. They are holding street marches in centers all round NZ today.
Punitive, anti-beneficiary Bill- opposition needed!
The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill second reading is first up on the provisional order paper for today. It is a further step in Paula Bennett & NAct’s vicious, punitive, bennie-bashing campaign. MPs are urged to vote against it!
Selling out our education
Profit-driven private sector cowboys are damaging the reputation of our education system. Naturally, National wants to make matters worse by subsidising foreign owners of profit-driven charter schools. Brilliant.
Novopay: debt collection
Apparently quite a few teachers got tempted from the fold and voted for John Key in 2008… it’s hard to imagine many of them wanting to do so after the Novopay debacle. But Novopay seem determined to make sure of it. Not content with failing to pay large numbers of teachers, it’s now persecuting those it overpaid, even when they give the money back.
$425,000 for scapegoat
That’s how much we’re paying for Lesley Longstone‘s being forced to resign on 19 December last year, hidden in the Christmas rush. At […]
Novopain protest Tuesday!
Nationwide protest against the Novopay fiasco tomorrow Tuesday (early!). Check here for details of a protest near you…
“Minister for Small Things”
Yesterday, David Cunliffe,on Peter Dunne’s Student Loan Amendment Bill, & the related inter-generational swindle, labelled Dunne as “Minister for Small Changes” & “for Small Things”. Dunne further showed his support of the “neoliberal” swindle, with a couple of tweets on non-residents buying NZ property, smearing the Greens as racist.
Pariah Parata
I’m starting to feel sorry for Hekia Parata. In his column yesterday Armstrong referred to her as “something of a pariah figure” in the education portfolio.
Back to basics
Looks like we’re in for another round of nonsense in mathematics education from a bunch of politicians who know more about their own prejudices than they do about teaching and learning.
Sorry seems to be the hardest word
Hekia Parata is in deep trouble. She has even resorted to grudgingly forcing the word “sorry” from her lips. But it isn’t even close to the apology that is needed…
Christchurch kids as political pawns
Looks like Parata has been shafted by Key – her written promises to Christchurch schools will not be honoured. Instead it seems that Christchurch kids are being used as pawns in National’s electoral maneuverings.
Parata and the Christchurch schools
As widely reported, Chirstchurch schools find out their fate today. The damaged Hekia Parata was the wrong person to front this process…
“There is Power in a Union”
Unions have been under concerted attack for several decades. Though weakened, they still produce results for workers. NZ Teachers’ Unions act on sound research, aiming to provide a quality and fair education system for all Kiwis. Global federations are campaigning against anti-worker corporates, like DHL.
NRT: Unconstitutional and dangerous
I/S at No Right turn writes on the Ombudsman’s report which finds some of the Nats’ plans for charter schools to be unconstitutional and dangerous.
Government report card: poverty, jobs, housing – FAIL!
The Salavation Army “State of the Nation” report is out today, and, as Metiria Turei says, it makes depressing reading. It describes a nation of increasing inequalities, with those on low incomes, and their children, being hit particularly hard.
Novopay going from bad to worse
Mr Fixit Steven Joyce has been handed the Novopay fiasco, and the first pay round under his watch is the worst yet. Teachers are currently owed almost $12 Million in missing wages. Is this a conspiracy, or just a good old fashioned cock up?
Key’s ‘big’ new policy
Action: Stop Charter Schools
The chance to submit your opposition to Charter Schools closes this Thursday 24 January. An easy submission form has been set up, or you can follow how to make your own more detailed submission.
Doubling down on Parata disaster
Protecting the incompetent Parata is a further sign that Key’s government is well in to sclerotic middle age.
Climate Change & Poverty
The wildfires in Australia are an immediate cause for concern. Such events will be more common as average temperatures rise. Joseph Stigliz warns of an urgent need for structural change to respond to economic decline, climate change, poverty and inequality.
John Key’s Summer
While John Key spends the summer in Hawaii, he will need to make some decisions about the future of his cabinet. Parata’s future is poised in the balance, and he is looking to move Tim Groser on later next year.
NZ falling in education under Nats
Parata won’t quit, Key won’t sack her
Parata isn’t the most corrupt minister Key has but she’s definitely the most incompetent. Now, the Secretary of Education has been paid out to take the fall for Hekia’s incompetence and that of her sister, Apryll, Deputy Secretary Performance and Change. Parata has maintained her reputation for nepotism being an appalling people manager. But she won’t go, and Key won’t make her.
Longstone resignation
Can’t say that I blame Longstone for bailing, she was working for a Minister who is clearly well out of her depth. Another fail for Hekia Parata, she’s the one that should be going.
Another Parata f*ck-up
What I like about Hekia Parata is that’s she’s proof that image doesn’t always triumph over substance. The Nats thought that as a good-looking Maori woman she ticked all their PR boxes. But, she’s been a PR disaster because she’s arrogant and ignorant. She keeps on making bad, poorly worked-through calls. And the whole government gets dragged through the muck with her.
Our polytechnics are under threat
This year the government departed with a tradition of working closely with polytechnics to establish how best to spend taxpayers’ money and instead made our public institutions compete for taxpayers’ dollars to provide foundation courses. Institutions won money if they were the most competitive in terms of price, though all successful competitors had to meet minimum quality requirements – a true market approach to pricing. So, why is this problematic?
A solution to the Novopay fiasco
I have a suggestion.
One step too far
The minister for tertiary education, Stephen Joyce, may think he’s above the law but we don’t. He has told the New Zealand Herald “he would step in to force change at Auckland University” if necessary. What change does he want to force? He wants to determine what the university teaches. This threat shows the minister has little regard for New Zealand’s Education Act.
Too much stupid; too little time
I don’t really have time to write something, but there’s just too much stupid this morning to let it pass. Nathan Guy heads today’s list, but Craig Foss, Tariana Turia, Bill English and Hekia Parata also need mention.
Which Parata to believe?
Hekia Parata September dressed up plans for school closured and mergers in high-sounding language and pushed them hard. Hekia Parata November says that some of those plans were crazy. Which Hekia Parata should we believe?
Opposition Party statements; what the MSM doesn’t report
The MSM quickly picked up a press release on the failure of the Southern Cross Cable. Others that are ignored: Bennett has either lied or is incompetent; Nat-linked appointment to TVNZ board; Hone’s ‘feed the kids’ Bill; Joyce’s education agenda; John Key as a “bumbling Marxist”.
A lesson for the Secretary of Education
Buried in Audrey Young’s puff piece on Secretary of Education Lesley Longstone is an interesting insight into Longstone’s thinking on poverty and education. Longstone tries to downplay the link. Ignorance, or overt right-wing agenda?
World class education
The Secretary for Education has drawn the wrong conclusions from data on educational performance, and a bunch of commentators (including a particularly egregious anonymous editorial in The Herald) have been quick to follow. We certainly have a world class education system. The fact that not every child can take advantage of it is our real failing and our shame.
Government failing on jobs, education
A TV3 poll shows that 49% to 46% of people believe National is failing to build its promised “brighter future”. The two big weaknesses: jobs and education. By nearly 2 to 1 margins, people believe that National is failing to provide full employment (it says something that this isn’t actually a National Party goal) and failing to provide the best education system possible.
Charter schools shoot themselves in both feet
Evidence of the supposed success of charter schools in New York is doing the rounds. Unfortunately for the right-wing ideologues, charter schools shoot themselves in both feet when they use “relaxed” assessment standards and other methods of artificially “boosting” their results.