education

Categories under education

David Seymour Chooses School Lunches Provider With Questionable Record: Listeria, Horse Meat & Poor Quality

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, October 25th, 2024 - 27 comments

David Seymour said the new school lunches are the best food he’s ever eaten – but how true is it? And what has he chosen for our tamariki in the school lunch program?

Free School lunches have a profound beneficial effect on learning

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, September 13th, 2024 - 23 comments

This is what David Seymour was told. But he and the Government still chose to push through significant cuts to the scheme.

Guess who needs help with his literacy and numeracy?

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, September 5th, 2024 - 76 comments

Remember when Christopher Luxon told the National Party that we had a maths teaching crisis? Experts have concluded that the statement is misleading. And an OIA dump suggests that behind the scenes there is an attempt to radically rewrite the existing curriculum.

Luxon is numerically illiterate

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, August 7th, 2024 - 5 comments

National has been caught out yet again using dubious analysis of data to justify policy.

Another Minister lauds their own incompetence

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, August 5th, 2024 - 32 comments

Another minister is lauding themselves falsely. David Seymour bragged about school attendance at the start of term three, and claiming the credit for that happening. The problem is that it was worse than the attendance for the start of term two. It was a worse school attendance after he tried to improve attendance. Is he competent as a minister?

The Big Budget Backflip *

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, June 3rd, 2024 - 10 comments

* or is it?

Charter schools are back

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, May 16th, 2024 - 69 comments

Following on from the decision to cut $103 million a year from the school lunch programme the Government has announced the return of chartered schools at a cost of $153 million over four years.

Let them eat cake

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, March 5th, 2024 - 73 comments

David Seymour has stated that funding for free school lunches will be cut by up to half.

Aotearoa the way you want it?

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, November 26th, 2023 - 47 comments

The new Government’s policies give the impression they were formulated by members of a Workingman’s club in the 1970s and negotiated over a few beers.

Highlights quoted out of the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, November 25th, 2023 - 73 comments

Some of the more unusual policies from the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.

Why does National not trust teachers to teach?

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, September 10th, 2023 - 34 comments

National has proposed to direct teachers how and what they should teach to improve literacy standards.

Education policy and the compulsory teaching of subjects

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, August 22nd, 2023 - 26 comments

The brains trust of Labour’s leadership have recently released a policy providing for the compulsory teaching of financial literacy in schools. Tacking to the centre and seeking votes from the pro business part of the electorate is an interesting approach to campaigning.  Time will tell if it is the correct approach.

Nanny state National wants to ban cell phones at schools

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, August 10th, 2023 - 62 comments

luxon sheep

National has this propensity of announcing policies that scratch conservative itches, cost nothing and hog media attention. Yesterday we had a classic example of this as they announced that cell phones would be banned at schools.

Why a change of Government would be a bad thing – school lunches

Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, July 14th, 2023 - 63 comments

Act has declared its class prejudice by advocating for the cancellation of the free lunch in schools programme even though the benefits are clear and recognised and the programme helps poor kids’ nutrition and education.

New curriculum: science to be taught in the context of the great challenges of our time

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 5th, 2023 - 211 comments

“science would be taught through five contexts – the Earth system, biodiversity, food, energy and water, infectious diseases”

Dumber

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, June 18th, 2023 - 34 comments

New Zealand is not an intellectual or innovation powerhouse but the rapid decline of our entire tertiary education is a tragedy.

The real reason New Zealand’s literacy standards are tanking *

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 27th, 2023 - 42 comments

* the answer is National Standards, the effects of which are still being felt.

National’s relentless negativity

Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, November 5th, 2022 - 86 comments

National’s recent press releases show that its approach to politics will be relentlessly negative, with no idea of what it will do as an alternative or how it will fund changes.

National’s policies don’t add up

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, May 31st, 2022 - 48 comments

In 21 tweets Clint Smith has set out why National’s tax cut policies and its rhetoric are absurd and how the media is doing us a disservice by not asking the hard questions like what will be cut and how the promised tax cuts will be paid for.

What Can Be Saved?

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2022 - 157 comments

The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?

And what have they done anyway?

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, February 2nd, 2022 - 107 comments

With Ardern getting a good-old media beat-down, remember here’s how to change a country for good like no one else but Labour can.

The Mandate To Say Goodbye

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, November 17th, 2021 - 210 comments

In the next two weeks we will find out how many teachers in New Zealand are immune to facts, were happy to enforce vaccinations upon their children for multiple diseases over multiple decades but not themselves, and after decades enforcing state rules in daily attendance and behaviours of young people at school could not themselves be subject to that same force of state.

Mad Tuesday

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 pm, October 22nd, 2021 - 15 comments

NZ Government is jumping at the deep end by re-opening schools on Tuesday.

Reality has a left wing bias

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, May 20th, 2021 - 54 comments

Fresh from a claim that the Ministry of Education is trying to persuade kids not to eat home made lunches, David Seymour has taken aim at a new target, a radical education policy that intends to teach our kids about racism and inequality and what has happened in the country’s past.

The Problem with Personification in Politics

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 19th, 2021 - 12 comments

It is a grave mistake to treat Ministries as if they are real persons.

Einstein versus Trump*

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 18th, 2021 - 10 comments

Einstein tried to explain complex things and understand reality; Trump tried to explain it away and distort reality.

Sugar is evil

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, March 6th, 2021 - 20 comments

With the recent High Court trial brought by three academics highlighting the undeserved attacks on their reputations by entities associated with the food industry now having concluded it is time for the Government to think about banning sugary drinks from schools.  And a sugar tax.

Paora Goldsmith, Māori history and identity politics

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, February 4th, 2021 - 73 comments

Paora Goldsmith thinks that learning about Māori history is engaging in identity politics.

NZ election 2020: Labour win is a watershed moment in the country’s history

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 am, October 20th, 2020 - 47 comments

The 2020 election was more than just a victory for Labour and more than a crushing defeat for the National Party (New Zealand’s main centre-right political party). This result marks a significant watershed in New Zealand politics which will likely have implications long after this parliamentary term.

Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government: Style over substance or a guiding light for progressive politics?

Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, August 10th, 2020 - 33 comments

Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.

The return of John Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, August 7th, 2020 - 110 comments

In a sign of desperation National has trotted out John Key to campaign that the country’s success in containing Covid should be put to risk because of a misguided perception that it would be good for the economy.