Bullying schools – again

• Anthony R0bins
• 12 years ago
• Categories: democracy under attack, national, schools
• Tags: bully state, hekia parata, schools, stifling dissent

Now the Nats want want editorial control over the school newsletter:

Minister to schools: keep politics out of newsletters

Education Minister Hekia Parata has told the School Trustees Association to keep politics out of school newsletters.

Or – what? What is the threat here? Cuts in funding, like last time?

Ms Parata gave the warning at the association’s annual conference on Friday in Wellington. A number of schools have sent out newsletters that included vocal opposition to some Government policies.

The minister’s warning comes weeks after she dropped a plan to increase class sizes for some school years in the face of widespread opposition from schools and parents.

Some of that opposition was expressed in school newsletters, and Ms Parata says that’s the wrong place for political agenda.

Schools are the wrong place for a political agenda all right. Yet that is what the Nats have got for them. And now they want to silence schools that speak up about it?

So add an entry to the ever growing list of National’s attempts to censor and bully schools – threats against principals and school boards who were exercising their rights to free speech, threats to sack dissenting boards, threats of withheld funding.   Nor are schools the only target of these heavy handed  bullying tactics.  The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.