Parata fleeing education mess
Parata can believe whatever brings her comfort of course, but the fact is that this National government has made, as usual, a mess of education.
hekia parata
Heck Yeah! Hekia Parata to Leave Parliament
Hekia Parata is to leave Parliament next year. The bad news is that she is probably going to stay on as education minister till then.
More charter school hypocrisy
Turns out the Education Minister overrode Ministry advice to protect National’s pet charter schools from being evaluated on their actual outcomes. Plus a bonus side order of hypocrisy on class sizes.
Imperator Fish: In the Beehive today
This post was put up at Imperator Fish on Sunday evening. It looks like Hekia Parata was following Scott’s script today. 🙂
Sure we need a better class of wingnut commenter, as is frequently suggested here. However surely it is more important that we get a better quality of government minister than ones who think that evidence based policies means only the evidence about how well their party is doing in the polls?
Local Bodies: Teaching Profession Rejects Parata’s Plans
Classroom teachers, the New Zealand Educational Institute, the New Zealand Principal’s Federation and education academics have all strongly rejected the Government’s proposed $359 million Investment into Education Success (IES). All believe that this substantial amount of money will not produce the results that the Education Minister claims and would be better spent elsewhere.
Polity: Looking behind the Kohanga finger pointing
The news this morning has all kinds of finger pointing between Hekia Parata, Derek Fox, John Key, the Kohanga Reo trust board, and others.
Why are so many people pointing fingers all over the place? Because everyone involved has screwed up one way or another.
Parata and the media
National – idiots on education
Hekia Parata seems to have noticed that we have a problem with trades education and apprenticeships in NZ. It’s a problem that is the making of National governments past and present, and they will need to completely rethink their blinkered approach to education in order to fix it.
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…
Doubling down on Parata disaster
Protecting the incompetent Parata is a further sign that Key’s government is well in to sclerotic middle age.
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.
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.
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?
Parata bungling inexcusable
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.
Bullying schools – again
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? Â The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
Parata was briefed on teacher cuts
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.
Class sizes vox pop
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.
Coward
Hekia Parata has refused to front up to education groups against her bigger class sizes.
Class sizes: show National you care
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…
Parata to change careers?
Hekia Parata this week became the fourth minister in three months to see her career reduced to tatters. Looks like she’s planning a change.
Sacking ‘only’ 400 teachers ‘good news’ say Nats
National has copped a hell of a backlash for increasing class sizes. The internal polls are said to be diabolical. There are a million parents of school-age kids out there, and they’re pissed off. Now, they’ve flipp-flopped and dipped into the emergency money. They won’t say how many teachers they’re cutting but it’s at least 400, probably 1,000.
Class size backdown
Is the government coming to its senses on the matter of reducing class sizes? That would be a rare pleasure indeed…
An Open Email to Hekia Parata
An email from a concerned Principal about what Hekia Parata’s changes – principly class size – will do to our children’s futures. And the address Emeritus Professor Ivan Snook gave to graduating teachers last week.
Back to school for Parata
Parata on The Nation: “what we’ve had is a five-fold increase in the number of teachers while we’ve only had a 2% increase in students”. There are 52,500 teachers. Is Parata really saying there were only 10,500 a decade ago? The minister needs remedial maths, methinks. This is the tragedy: our kids’ education being toyed with by nincompoops and dullards with a dumbarse ideological agenda.
Nats to cut 500 teachers
If there was any doubt that National has an anti-teacher, anti-education agenda, it’s gone. Increasing class sizes will ‘save’ $43m a year by reducing the number of teachers that would otherwise be required by 500. National standards will be used for performance pay. It’s a cut to the frontline, a cut to our kids’ learning. And Parata’s comments suggest more to come.
Nat Civil War: Nothing to see here
Every time Simon Lusk’s name gets mentioned, Whaleoil (which is only Cameron Slater and has nothing to do with Lusk </sarcasm>) responds with a vitriolic and revealing tirade. In the latest, Whaleoil insists there are no National factions, before insulting and demeaning each of the factions except Collins’, and accidentally confirming the leadership tussle is on.
All in the family
A couple of months after Hekia Parata was promoted to Education Minister, her sister has been promoted to a very senior position in the Ministry of Education. It seems a lot of the Parata clan are experiencing good fortune lately – her husband got a sweet gig ‘explaining’ asset sales to iwi, and several relatives got jobs in her ministerial office.
Nats clueless on privatisation consequences
If electricity assets were part privatised, future governments couldn’t make the kind of reforms that National made earlier this year because of the need to consider private investors’ rights. Pretty simple, eh? Tell that to Hekia Parata. Bill English has his head in the sand on the effect of falling markets and can’t guarantee Kiwi ownership.
Parata’s conflict of interest
Hekia Parata is our Minister of Energy. She is also a shareholder in Contact Energy. Whether the shareholding is large or small, it’s a conflict of interest. Her decisions can affect the value of her shareholding. The slackness displayed by Key’s ministers towards these shareholding conflicts, starting with his own Tranzrail shares, is not good enough.
Caption contest
Par for the course for women
With the Government’s most useless Minister, Pansy Wong, gone under a cloud of corruption and replaced by a new MP who has been labeled by some as a future Nat leader, we might have hoped that the Women’s Affairs portfolio would get some decent treatment and we would see a real commitment to closing the pay gap. Well, we can stop hoping.
3 time loser wins
In a surprise to no-one, John Key has appointed 3 time election loser Hekia Parata to replace the latest of his corrupt ministers to walk the plank – Pansy Wong. I’m hoping Parata will be less of a disgrace than Wong. It wouldn’t be hard, she would just have to actually try to answer questions in the House and actually do something about the wage gaps.
Assessing Labour’s Mana result
Labour can be reasonably pleased with the Mana result. The majority is small but that does not mean anything for the wider party. To win Labour had to overcome 1) a weak candidate 2) a ferocious Key-centred National campaign 3) a threat to its left 4) a media narrative that damned it thrice over, and 5) a very low turn-out.
Who’s disrespecting whom?
Mana locals rallied loudly against Key and Parata today. Key says “we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect”. Nah. McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful. Key could’ve shown respect by taking time to defend his record: wages down, no jobs, rising crime, service cuts. He didn’t. No respect.