Another Minister lauds their own incompetence

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, August 5th, 2024 - 32 comments
Categories: act, david seymour, education, schools, Social issues - Tags: , , , ,

I what we have come to expect from this government, another minister is lauding their lack of competence. In this case David Seymour, who has been bragging about school attendance at the start of term three, and claiming the credit for that happening.

The problem is that it was behind the attendance for the start of term two. It was a worse school attendance after David Seymour tried to improve attendance. Questions should be asked about his competence as a minister.

Radio NZ has a excellent article on it “Minister David Seymour celebrates school attendance statistics despite drop in rates“. Well worth reading.

There are several points to note. David Seymour announced a “Attendance Action Plan” back in April to combat ongoing truancy, as a primary part of the governments quarter-two action plan. Increasing attendance was also a large part of Act’s policy and the direct reason for putting Seymour in as Associate Education Minister.

However that then-opposition policy was pretty much a classic opposition raising the alarm rant at low-hanging fruit. That is why they cherry-picked their statistics for the period when the country was still just coming out of lockdowns.

But Seymour was still pushing those outdated statistics in April this year on Checkpoint . This position was described as:-

Seymour pointed to New Zealand’s attendance rates having fallen from 69.5 percent in term 2015, to 39.9 percent in term two 2022.

Educators and policy makers have previously pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as having had a long-term effect on attendance, with sickness one of the reasons for non-attendance, but Seymour pointed to rates in England of 75.1 percent in 2022, 70.3 percent in the United States, and 49.9 percent in Australia.

Yeah, you have to unpick that more than a little. But it shows up as cheery-picking and lying by omission. Hardly what a Minister of the Crown should be doing. More the actions of a rabble-rousing numbskull.

Term two 2022 was just after the end of last lock-down in Auckland where a third of New Zealands population lives. The ‘red’ lockdown levels didn’t really lift in Auckland until March 2022. At the time the Omicron was raging through most of the newly reopened country, and the vaccination program was still rolling out amongst the bulk of the population.

As far as I am aware, England, United States, and Austraila didn’t have any lockdowns in 2022. They were more advanced in their vaccination campaigns. But also previously had much larger outbreaks earlier – which had also raised population resistance with their much higher associated deaths and hospital stays. We were still in the throes of vaccinations and at our very low peaks of covid-19 infections. So David Seymour was (as is usual for him and Act) simply lying by cherry-picking non-comparable data points.

Term two 2022 was terrible for schools. That was around the time that most of the teachers I know in Auckland got their first or second dose of Covid-19 with the Omicron strain. It was pretty much just after when last major wave of infection peaked in March/April 2022 (see Policy Commons). Any sensible and responsible teacher or parent or child was self-isolating at the slightest sniffle. Yet that was the time that David Seymour chose as a comparison.

So this is just part of David Seymour’s persistent habit of cheerily cherry-picking numbers. If you’re cynical politician or just the outright stupid, and fail to look at context, this is the most effective way to lie. Every hypocrite loves a way to argue that they are correct by numbers, even when they overlook all the reasons why the number was skewed, because it gives them plausible deniability. It is amongst the most irritating traits of nut-bars and trolls.

Which is probably why Russell Palmer at RNZ scathingly wrote (my italics)

Associate Education Minister David Seymour is celebrating attendance statistics, despite it having dropped compared to the same period last term.

“It has been a promising start to term three with attendance up from the last two weeks of term two, with an overall attendance rate of 83.9 per cent. The best day was the first Tuesday of the term with 86.2 percent attendance,” Seymour said in a media release on Monday.

He called it a “bright start” to term three attendance.

The final two weeks of last term had an attendance rate of 80.8 percent. The overall average attendance rate for term 2 was 82.9 percent.

Seymour said it showed “that when the government takes education seriously, so do New Zealanders”.

However, the data shows the 83.9 percent rate for the first two weeks this term was down by nearly 2 percentage points compared to the 85.8 percent in the first two weeks of term 2 – the most comparable period.

Indeed. The first weeks in a term usually have good results compared to the tail of a term. A 3.1% increase would probably have to be regarded as pretty poor result for that particular comparison. Being down 1.9% from the start of the previous term is likely to indicate a early failure in the government and David Seymour’s ability to actually lift school attendance rates.

Looking at the actual results longer term, there is nothing remarkable about the numbers after the new policy. It is in fact easy to argue that so far the “Attendance Action Plan” is making attendance worse – not better.

BTW: If you want to have a look at the long term aggregate levels at terms (and to cherry pick your own data points like David Seymour), have a look at the student regular attendance series from 2011 to 2024 (Excel) from the Education Counts Attendance page.

32 comments on “Another Minister lauds their own incompetence ”

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  1. lprent 1
    5 August 2024 at 4:41 pm

    Note that this not a post about Covid-19, the recent pandemic, or vaccinations. That isn’t the topic of my post.

    I am completely uninterested in dealing with people who don't understand the theory and history of vaccinations and pandemics. Don't raise these on my post.

    If you go off-topic on this post in those directions, then if I am nice I will send your comment to OpenMike. If it is too stupid or objectionable to me, then I will use it as an excuse to cull the herd.

  2. Psycho Milt 2
    5 August 2024 at 5:45 pm

    I've watched this constant harping on about "truancy" in disbelief. Do these idiots really imagine this is something they're going to shift with a few "tough on [insert target group here]" policies? Apparently they do. What a thing to stake your reputation on.

    Sure, it's possible they'll get lucky and absence rates will fall due to less illness around or improved economic conditions meaning fewer kids working to help pay the rent (not that govt's doing anything to improve economic conditions), but the alternatives – no improvement or actual worsening – are at least as likely, if not more so.

    • lprent 2.1
      5 August 2024 at 6:57 pm

      Hell I was a chronic truant out of sheer boredom. If I was in class, I was truant because I would typically be reading something else and keeping one ear open on the tedious pace the class worked at. If I was not in class I would be reading at a library (school, local, uni), or catching up on sleep because I was working somewhere (after turning 15 I did a lot of evening and night shifts) or playing with something that I shouldn't have in a workshop or playing billiards.

      Somehow I passed everything, including later a couple of degrees, self learning programming, and working until I was 65.

      Most of the truants I know were the geeks at school. Or they were hyperactive. They really needed to improve the quality of what they teach.

      But truancy as a measure is just a blunt instrument. Unlike Seymour, teachers generally know their students. Some work well sitting in a classroom playing social dominance games. Many do well studying on their own. Only a few actually need to chased to go to school…

      • srylands 2.1.1
        6 August 2024 at 6:25 pm

        By reciting an anedote about yourself, you are being as cherry picking as David Seymour.

        There is a wide literature showing the relationship between truancy and poor education outcomes.

        • roblogic 2.1.1.1
          6 August 2024 at 6:55 pm

          There is even more literature showing the relationship between dying in a pandemic and poor education outcomes

        • lprent 2.1.1.2
          7 August 2024 at 9:14 am

          I don't think that lying with aggregate numbers compares, in any way, with stating an example from personal experience.

          It takes a deliberate effort to find the stats, and then to selectively pick only the ones that reinforce an untruth, when compared to the overall trends and context.

          You appear to not understand why cherry-picking statistics is such a fraudulent characteristic. It is also particularly repugnant in a Minister of the Crown, because typically someone lying to others and probably to themselves in this manner will also later be noted for their poor decisions.

    • roblogic 2.2
      6 August 2024 at 6:43 pm

      This is the RW mindset. A bit of good old Puritan flagellation of the poor to motivate them.

      Their "prosperity = virtue" narrative justifies all kinds of selfishness and greed.

      Forcing sick kids to go to school has the added bonus of causing more mayhem in the education sector, thus annoying the hated Teacher's Union and making it easier for slimy Seymour to justify his $153m slush fund for charter schools.

      Lines up with the Atlas network philosophy of divesting and privatisation of education (probably motivated by a fair amount of racism as well).

      School privatization was—and still is—a means to school segregation. Is privatization basically a racist act?

  3. Mac1 3
    5 August 2024 at 5:53 pm

    Question Time Tuesday 6 August should see these questions raised?

  4. SPC 4
    5 August 2024 at 5:55 pm

    Allowing landlords to remove tenants whenever they want will cause problems (children having problems getting to school and then between schools).

    MW jobs 25 cent an hour increases, no FPA, leading older children to work to pay rent (casual on-call).

  5. Obtrectator 5
    5 August 2024 at 6:07 pm

    Stand by for an announcement that the chocolate ration will soon be "increased" to 20 grammes ….

  6. adam 6
    5 August 2024 at 7:07 pm

    Seeing as the right go with feelings…

    I feel that lying with statistics as a politician should come with consequences.

    I feel a pillory seems fair.

    And I feel we should all then be able to bring our own rotten vegetables and fruit to remind the politician these are the consequences.

  7. Mike the Lefty 7
    5 August 2024 at 8:02 pm

    We have already had a glimpse of what the political right want in our education system – children educated just enough to do the bidding of their masters and not to have their own mind or ask difficult questions, like those commie lefties would allow them to do.

    One thing you NEVER hear with the political right is the term "knowledge economy".

    • thinker 7.1
      6 August 2024 at 7:04 am

      I've thought the same for a while. Not just in this country, but worldwide.

      Children of the rich and powerful going to quality education from private schools and the young of the bottom 90% getting just enough education to work for the top 10%, little in the way of a broader mind development, so they are happy to stay in their places because not only do they know no better but they don't even think that things could be different.

      At best, it's Dickensian. Give it more time, it's HG Wells' Time Machine, Morlocks vs Eloi.

      • Obtrectator 7.1.1
        6 August 2024 at 9:00 am

        …. or all those Deltas and Epsilons in Brave New World.

        I’ve been saying for some time now that a cowed and ignorant populace is what the 1% are steering for, pretty much world-wide.

        • Mike the Lefty 7.1.1.1
          6 August 2024 at 9:13 am

          And we are also getting a glimpse of the results in Britain. Manipulators on the hard right can snap their fingers and their gangs of dumbass thugs go out onto the streets and go after anyone who isn't British and white. No questions asked, no brains engaged as to why we are doing this, despite the fact that the perpetrator of the Southport child murders wasn't an immigrant. A decade of Tory rule coming to fruition.

          • roblogic 7.1.1.1.1
            6 August 2024 at 7:44 pm

            The propaganda is working as planned. Turning the working class against itself is a great way to shift the blame away from Thatcherism and Tory austerity and the bankster class impoverishing a once great nation.

      • Descendant Of Smith 7.1.2
        6 August 2024 at 6:59 pm

        Don't forget uncongested four lane toll roads for the rich to drive on while the poor take the back roads.

    • srylands 7.2
      6 August 2024 at 6:30 pm

      Surely you are not arguing that the Government is setting out to reduce education achievement? The decline of achievement over the last 20 years has been a disaster. Hopefully charter schools will flourish to the point that they cannot be reversed by a change of government.

      BTW this government is dominated by the National Party, which is from the political left, not the right.

      • Descendant Of Smith 7.2.1
        6 August 2024 at 6:57 pm

        “The decline of achievement over the last 20 years has been a disaster.”

        Ignore the fact that we've stopped putting kids with intellectual and developmental issues into institutions and into mainstream education, that we have had mass immigration of students and families with english as a second language, that transience due to rent difficulties had enormously increased, that poverty and the open sale of alcohol has created educational disparity and afs kids, that we've stopped teaching woodwork and metal work and tech drawing to those that are more kinesthetic, that we've privatised much of education into shit private sector money making ventures, that we removed community courses in schools that enabled parents who may have had the same difficulties as children to have another go so they could learn alongside their children – nah we're just not teaching maths properly rote tables that will fix it.

        Simple solutions for simple minds.

        Simple minds that seem to make up their own bullshit figures and completely ignore research.

        A major study has found no change in children's average maths achievement but the gap between rich and poor has grown for Year 8s.

        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/494038/major-study-finds-no-change-in-children-s-average-maths-achievement

        Oh and then COVID had an impact.

        • After several cycles of stable performance, Aotearoa New Zealand’s mean mathematics score dropped 15 points, from 494 in 2018 to 479 in 2022. The OECD mean also dropped by 15 points over the same time period, meaning Aotearoa New Zealand’s me an score continues to be higher. Given the decline in maths scores was seen worldwide at an unprecedented rate, COVID-19 is a likely contributor.
        • Seven in 10 (71%) of learners performed at the baseline level of proficiency or higher (Level 2), meaning they can demonstrate some of the skills required for effective participation in society. This was a decrease from 78% in 2018. Ten percent performed at the highest proficiency Levels 5 and 6.
        • Boys continue to outperform girls in mathematics. Boys also reported higher teacher support and that their teachers fostered reasoning and encouraged mathematical thinking more often.
        • Socio-economically advantaged learners scored higher, on average, than disadvantaged students, and also reported greater exposure to maths tasks and familiarity with maths concepts. Disadvantaged students’ mean scores declined between 2018 and 2022, while advantaged students’ mean scores did not significantly change, resulting in a widened socio-economic gap in maths performance.

        https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/pisa-2022-mathematics-achievement-and-experiences-of-15-year-olds

        https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1240595.pdf

        Students from low socio-economic backgrounds in New Zealand face many disadvantages when it comes to education, and, despite government initiatives, the disparity between the poor and the well-off continues to grow in this country. New Zealand is among several countries where income inequalities are large and the impact of socio-economic background on learning outcomes is also large (OECD, 2010). The literature in New Zealand, and overseas, regarding the effects of poverty on education is varied and extensive.

        You like this government have it arse about face. You thinking fixing maths in this way will lift achievement, will lift you out of poverty.

        In fact giving stability and a quality of life i.e. reducing poverty will lift educational achievement.

      • Incognito 7.2.2
        6 August 2024 at 7:18 pm

        BTW this government is dominated by the National Party […]

        Actually, it isn’t.

        […] which is from the political left, not the right.

        Actually, it isn’t.

        You’re still the same troll whose degenerating cognitive abilities point to an evolutionary dead-end, which is just as well.

      • mpledger 7.2.3
        6 August 2024 at 11:29 pm

        The problem with using TIMMS and PISA data for making comparisons between countries is that they don't test what is in each countries curriculum but what they think should be in every countries curriculum. So that put's NZ at a disadvantage because our curriculum tries to develop higher levels skills and not the rote learning of facts that is prevalent in other education systems.

        Our curriculum is more student-led learning. And that is why our kids were world leading in "creative thinking" in Pisa (5th country overall). Teaching creative thinking is hard to do and time-consuming but it's what we want for a knowledge economy. But it means some other parts of the curriculum have to take a back seat – typically the lower levels skills that get tested in multiple choice tests like PISA/TIMMS.

        And since all the results of the PISA/TIMMS exams are so politically charged in every country that takes them, I suspect there are more than a few countries putting their thumbs on the scales.

        What is really a much better comparison is how local kids are performing on PAT (NZ based) tests over time. From some older data I saw, kids were performing pretty much as they ever had.

        • Descendant Of Smith 7.2.3.1
          7 August 2024 at 12:28 am

          Meanwhile the kids of the wealthy will be learning about arts and opera, and visiting different countries and learning in quite different ways as they always have done.

          How the rich teach their kids.

          The first thing the new generation learns is how to respect the learning process itself.
          Nobody hates school here. They love it. One of the fastest ways to lose a kid’s interest is to bore them with trivial, repetitive tasks. And their parents know this – so the first thing they do for their kids is build an environment where learning is actually fun. The kids still have to learn the basics. But they don’t have to do it in the same boring way that hasn’t changed in hundreds of years.

          These kids don’t get bothered with grades. In fact, in many highly educated countries like Finland and Japan grates don’t even exist for the younger generation.

          They develop high-functioning individuals, not factory workers.

          In most classrooms, pupils speak more than the teacher. They are there to learn how to function in society and as human beings, not to be benchmarked against each other. The focus is on developing character and helping the kids find how they fit in the world. The parents are interested in what their kid is good at, not how good is their kid overall.

          One of the biggest flaws of traditional education is the lack of any sort of critical thinking development. There is nothing to think about. All you have to do is memorise.
          Well not for these kids. They have nothing to memorise. If they need any kind of information, they are free to look it up on the spot.

          https://www.alux.com/rich-educate-their-kids/#:~:text=Teamwork,solve%20if%20they%20work%20alone.

          And yeah I know it is an advertisement but it reflects the truth of the matter.

        • thinker 7.2.3.2
          7 August 2024 at 7:07 am

          So…

          The government is wrong to make changes, then.

          If it ain't broke…

          • thinker 7.2.3.2.1
            7 August 2024 at 7:21 am

            Sorry, had eye surgery and misread the piece.

            Yes, there's no reason why state kids can't get the same curriculum as the rich, even if they do want to their kids educated in gated communities.

      • lprent 7.2.4
        7 August 2024 at 9:49 am

        The decline of achievement over the last 20 years has been a disaster.

        Not according to actual statistics when they aren't cherry-picked by lying fools who seem to live in the early part of the 20th century – and who still seem to judge education by the ability to rote learn like a parrot.

        Not when I look at the people coming out of the education system. The overall level of education coming out into tertiary education or the workspace vastly exceeds what I saw 5 decades ago, or 2 decades ago. They have a wider breadth of base knowledge, better fundamentals to build from, and have the skills to find an assimilate knowledge rapidly and deeply.

        Hopefully charter schools will flourish to the point that they cannot be reversed by a change of government.

        Curiously I have never met anyone in the workspaces that I have frequented which are seriously innovative and engineering orientated, who actually went through charter schools.

        The failure rate of what charter schools have been setup in NZ, usually lavishly state funded, doesn't induce any confidence in them. The subsequent dumping of their students to change schools, often frequently, doesn't seem to have helped their ability to be productive in the economy.

        But this could be sampling error because my main exposure to the young happens in workplaces that require high levels of STEM skills and an ability to think. But I suspect that charter schools show a major inability to help gain those skills in a way that suits the modern knowledge economy.

  8. georgecom 8
    6 August 2024 at 2:30 pm

    parr for the course actually, appoint an ACT mp as the minister and results will trend down/go backward.

    • srylands 8.1
      6 August 2024 at 6:32 pm

      Can you point to any education achievement indicators that did not decline during the tenure of the last government?

  9. Kat 9
    6 August 2024 at 7:45 pm

    David Seymour is either related to Trump, shares the same dangerous DNA or is just a plain stupid little nincompoop.

    How the hell this country has descended into MAGA style politics is a puzzle. Deserves a Royal Inquiry.

    • thinker 9.1
      7 August 2024 at 7:09 am

      I think more like trump and Seymour are related to the Koch Bros.

      “Koch addicts”

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