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?
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.
I have a suggestion.
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?
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.
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.
Paid Parental Leave, Charter schools, compulsory early childhood education for beneficiaries: for NAct it’s all about money, and they use ‘shonky’ figures to justify their ‘shonkey’ policies and vetos. This is ostrich and patriarchal behaviour, ignoring the evidence of the wider benefits to communities and society of good quality child care, education and Paid Parental Leave.
Teachers are terrible at national standards. Almost half of them get them wrong, on one standard 97% of teachers were wrong. This is an outrage! Teachers are terrible!! Right? Am I right? Or is there an alternative hypothesis…
Parata is trying to close schools based on data that is (as even the Ministry now admits) massively incorrect. The attack on the social fabric of Christchurch was already inexcusable. This latest fiasco makes it even worse.
The Christchurch Press as part of Fairfax released National Standards data, but had a number of articles with a curiously sensible line on it: “…the standards’ main effects will be to impose on schools a crude, misleading and unhelpful form of accountability and to focus attention on learning targets that are inappropriate for many children.”
Reprinted with permission from Dave Kennedy (bsprout) at Local Bodies. “While National Standards has cost around $60 million to force onto schools many programmes designed to address the causes of underachievement have been under resourced or cut altogether.”
So the first ‘ropey’ National Standards data is slipping out. It may not bear comparison, and not be moderated or indeed standardised, but Hekia Parata can now divulge the great wisdom that National’s StandardsTM provides.
No Right Turn on the waste and divisiveness of charter schools in the UK.
Brownlee and Parata announced school closures and explained the rationale. Now they’ve backed down and they’re trying to blame a Ministry mistake. This was the quickest U-turn in the history of politics. Update: And this morning it seems that closures and mergers are back on again – does anyone know what is going on?
Shearer has set out some bold new ideas for education. Key is clinging to failed national standards. Shearer’s views are well supported by the successful Finnish model, while Key’s are condemned by failures in the UK and USA. Does the evidence matter?
David Shearer’s education speech today was excellent in every way. Core Labour values, a sound understanding of the issues, significant concrete policy, and the promise of more to come. “Under Labour, the world’s best education will be available at your local school”.
A stinging report from the Ministry of Education condemns the proposed use of unqualified teachers in charter schools. The Nats won’t listen because the Nats don’t care about the quality of education, they only care about privatising it.
Decile ratings of schools are to be dropped from ERO reports because they are “confusing” and “unfair” and lead to “white flight”. Unlike, say, ropey national standards data. Uh huh.
How to explain National’s blatant inconsistency in not requiring national standards for charter schools? After further reflection, I think it makes sense after all…
As usual it is the kids who will suffer.
The right hand of National’s education policy doesn’t know what the far-right hand is up to…
A post (reprinted with permission) from bsprout at the Local Bodies blog…
School league tables are harmful to education. Tables based on “ropey data” are even worse. In this open letter 100 academics speak out against league tables.
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
It seems that Parata was fully briefed on teacher cuts after all, but she somehow “did not have enough time to mention it”. The government’s most recent humiliating bungle just got worse.
Competition is the wrong model for education, and National’s nonsense “league tables” are going to make it worse…
John Key wants to debate school league tables. Presumably he thinks that this will do the double whammy of getting middle class parents back on his side in the education debate, and distract from asset sales. But he’s not checked with his Minister, or the Ministry of Education, or presumably read any of the official advice about how damaging league tables would be.
Scott thoroughly fisks libertarian Damien Grant’s Herald on Sunday Column. And if teacher development is so important (as indeed it is) why have National cut it massively since they came to power, and are now dropping their budget plans to expand it. Money could be found from those tax cuts if they wanted…
While the public’s attention is focused on educational issues, use the platform to press for change on the Nats other damaging educational initiatives, national standards and charter schools.
The hysterical right are pretty pissed that the Nats have backed down on class sizes. Let them rant all they like – the Nats can’t afford to listen.
Public opinion is massively opposed to cutting teachers. When 50,000 people marched down Queen St the Nats dropped plans to mine conservation land. Time for another show of people power.
Hekia Parata has refused to front up to education groups against her bigger class sizes.
How did National get it so wrong on the cuts that would costs too many schools far too many teachers? Did the Nats do any consultation at all?
Here’s a petition against Hekia Parata’s class size increases. Show the government what a big mistake they’ve made. If Federated Farmers can spread it, so can you…
Financially troubled private school Wanganui Collegiate received a $3million grant in Budget 2012, 3 times the annual operating grant of the larger Wanganui City College. Since then it has been advertising its low class sizes and ability to reduce fees significantly. Private schools will no doubt be using the current outrage over increased class sizes for recruiting purposes, but they should not be doing it with taxpayers’ money.
National has no choice but to call off the education cuts. The sooner they do it the sooner it will stop killing them in the court of public opinion.
