education

Categories under education

Trev nails Tolley, other Lab MPs fail

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, February 24th, 2010 - 27 comments

Success for Opposition frontbenchers largely consists of embarrassing their opposite number by forcing them to answer questions they would rather not. Labour showed both how to do that and how not to do it in the House yesterday.

Farrar fudging ACE figures

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, February 24th, 2010 - 45 comments

A Price Waterhouse Coopers report has highlighted the huge returns from each dollar spent on Adult and Community Education (ACE). Farrar and other bloggers have attacked the conclusions of the report and the credibility of PWC, but the attack is bizarre…

Dimming down night classes

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 4 comments

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association have just launched a YouTube video protesting National’s hugely unpopular cuts to night classes.

Click through to check it out.

Stifling dissent

Written By: - Date published: 3:01 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 41 comments

The letter warning school boards not to speak out over national standards is an outrage, but John Key and his National Party have a long and dishonourable record of trying to shut down those who speak out to oppose them.

Financial literacy – Educate adults.

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 19th, 2010 - 21 comments

While measures to fix problems in investments are good, the best approach is increase financial literacy. However Anne Tolly has already shown she does not understand education. Her idiotic decisions to destroy adult community education has removed the best channel for promoting knowledge amongst current investors. This suggests that the government isn’t serious and we are seeing more PR than substantive measures.

Armstrong on Clueless Tolley

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, February 18th, 2010 - 19 comments

John Armstrong: “Anne Tolley’s reluctance to explain [national standards] left the distinct impression she was less than 100 per cent sure.” It was a bit more than an impression, and it was a bit less than 100%. Tolley clearly had no clue what she was talking about.

Our innumerate finance minister & friends

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 pm, February 16th, 2010 - 20 comments

Bill English claimed in the House today that the economy only grew by 0.9% a year in Labour’s last three years in power. Unfortunately for him the problem was his maths, not Labour’s economic policy. English can’t get simple percentages right, can we trust him with the nation’s finances?

National-style standards and Key’s teacher trap

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, February 15th, 2010 - 38 comments

When the Government came under fire over National Standards John Key was quick to raise the anti-union bogey. The old stereotypes are certainly still strong in National, but they have led Key into a trap. What might have worked for Muldoon or Maggie in the past won’t work now for a number of reasons.

Economically incompetent ACE cuts

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 35 comments

National love to tell us what we want to hear. Among their many pre-election policy lies they waxed lyrical about the value of education, before effectively cutting funding in the budget. On Adult and Community Education (ACE), Bill English was particularly supportive…

How did Nats know parents’ addresses?

Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, February 10th, 2010 - 31 comments

You’ll recall that last week National spent $200,000 of taxpayer dollars on a proganda drop defending its national standards. This was a targeted exercise – 350,000 of the pamphlets were produced, enough for the parents of each primary school pupil. So, how did they know what addresses to send them to? You can’t get information on […]

Policy roulette

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 8th, 2010 - 29 comments

I don’t recall the date or anything, but I remember the exact moment I decided to get politically active. Rob Muldoon was called by some brave journalist on the fact that National seemed to be ignoring all its election manifesto promises. Muldoon just grunted, and said that manifesto promises were dreamed up by advertisers, and […]

Shorter Lhaws

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, February 7th, 2010 - 71 comments

All teachers are feminist pinkos. And they’re badly dressed. And too nice to the kids. It wasn’t like that in my day. And didn’t I turn out just fine? That’s why we need national standards. Perhaps the most compelling argument against national standards I have read so far.

Unemployment: real action, not vague promises needed

Written By: - Date published: 4:41 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 43 comments

The Herald reports: “[Key] also raised the 15 per cent Maori unemployment rate, saying improving education outcomes for Maori children would help address that.” Improved education sounds good but: 1) how is Key going to actually lift Maori educational achievement? Not by cutting millions from the education budget like he did last year. Not by […]

A principal writes

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 6th, 2010 - 86 comments

School principal Pat Newman posted the following as a comment on Red Alert. It’s not a polished piece written with distribution in mind, but it’s from the heart, and well worth reproducing here (minor typos corrected). Pat added several further excellent comments, follow the link above. I speak as a principal of a Decile 2 […]

Tax Working Groupthink

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, February 5th, 2010 - 29 comments

The Tax Working Group’s summary presentation at their December seminar came from a senior partner from one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, Price Waterhouse. One scenario for the preferred ultimate outcome aligned income, trustee and company tax at 27%, paid for by increasing GST to 15%. At the top: Big change The graph tops […]

Translating Tories: “Creeping political correctness in our schools”

Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 16 comments

I wasn’t expecting to do another in this series so soon, but then I’m much too polite to decline a clear invitation like this. John Key says that parents should not have to put up with “creeping political correctness in our schools”. So what does “creeping political correctness in our schools” mean? Its tempting to […]

Tolley keeps empty schools open

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, February 4th, 2010 - 17 comments

Well, there can’t be any doubt now, Anne Tolley is this government’s worst minister. A failure that stands out among failures. She had an Auckland university pay to take her on a chopper ride because she didn’t understand what was meant by getting a “helicopter view of the sector”. She complained to her advisors about […]

Do little still do nothing

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 32 comments

Welcome back, John Armstrong. In your piece today you wrote about John Key’s emergency efforts to cover for Anne Tolley’s disasterious handling of national standards: “It is effectively the first of what is likely to be a series of initiatives this year to bury the overstated claims that he has been a “do little” prime […]

Speak up, Pita. We can’t hear you

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 20 comments

TVNZ reports: “Associate Education Minister Pita Sharples has labelled the National Standards policy as damaging to Maori but later refused to comment after being shut down by the Prime Minister.” Well, Pita, points for having your heart in the right place but how much longer will you put up with the indignity of being gagged […]

Minimum standards

Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, January 28th, 2010 - 20 comments

Colin, I missed you

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, January 28th, 2010 - 44 comments

Colin Espiner’s back with his first blog of the year. It’s so much fun having him back. In his first outing, he comes up with four suggestions for government action in the year ahead. Since the government doesn’t seem to have any other ideas, let’s look at two of them: End interest-free student loans Yeah, […]

On intellectual failure & economic crisis

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, January 27th, 2010 - 56 comments

Before they were swept along by the latest incarnation of US Right anti-intellectualism, National used to have some smart people. One of the last to go was Simon Upton. You might not always or even often agree with the man but at least he is informed and has the capacity to engage in serious debate […]

Key admits mistake: Tolley and Groser shuffled out

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 pm, January 26th, 2010 - 44 comments

Today John Key admitted his mistake in two Ministerial portfolio appointments, as two long overdue changes were announced. 1) Chopper Tolley has rightfully been shuffled out of the Tertiary Education portfolio, which goes to Steven Joyce. Tolley’s record has been appalling, most infamously taking a chopper ride to get a “helicopter view” of the AUT […]

Between a rock and a hard place

Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, January 18th, 2010 - 14 comments

At the end of the month the new kindergarten year begins. Reading this article in the SSTimes from yesterday reminded me of just how hard the question of childcare is for many parents: The Kiwi tradition of sending pre-schoolers to kindy is losing favour, as growing numbers of parents seek all-day care for their children.The […]

Tilly the Cat’s Christmas Lesson

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 19th, 2009 - 3 comments

Not related to anything in particular, Peter Giddens has written a sweet little Christmas story that I thought it would be fun to share: Tilly the Cat’s Christmas Lesson . . . Tilly was a very bossy cat. She was in charge of the whole house, or so she thought. The people in the house […]

Trial needed for national standards

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 18th, 2009 - 105 comments

Anne Tolley should have the sense to listen to the teachers, the principals and the eduction experts. She should trial her national standards in primary schools to get information on the outcomes before introducing them nationally. The teachers want national standards tested in a trial, like other education innovations are before they are introduced nationally. […]

The stamp of democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, December 17th, 2009 - 120 comments

Another disgraceful Herald editorial recently: Teachers must learn to obey Govt’s orders Three years ago, when the National Party announced its plan to make all primary schools test pupils’ ability in reading, writing and mathematics, teachers were scornful. … The union, in league with the Principals Federation, says the standards are being rushed … Mrs […]

Wee gripes: Another Tolley lie

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 10 comments

Minister of Education Anne Tolley is obviously feeling the heat of the reaction to her inexplicably daft decision to read a moralising children’s story book* to the PPTA Executive. Minister defends reading kid’s book to PPTA …The council says it was left somewhat bemused and feeling patronised that the minister chose to read to them […]

Education flaws: Just plain scary

Written By: - Date published: 3:06 pm, November 25th, 2009 - 24 comments

Primary school education has been the focus of debate here in NZ with the introduction of ‘national standards’. Today we hear on RNZ that: Four of the country’s top educational academics have condemned the Government’s national standards policy. In an open letter Education Minister Anne Tolley, four senior assessment academics say the brief time frame […]

Thickest. Minister. Ever.

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, November 25th, 2009 - 70 comments

So, imagine you’re the Minister for Education. You’re meeting with the PPTA executive, and sometime soon you’re expecting to announce big teacher layoffs. How do you handle the situation? How about reading the executive a children’s story book! This one should be good: “The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley”. It’s a sweet little […]

Laws needs an education

Written By: - Date published: 3:32 pm, November 9th, 2009 - 43 comments

I told myself I’d never do a post on pathetic publicity groupie Michael Laws, so here I am failing to live up to yet another resolution. Sigh. But really, this can’t pass without comment: Boys are failing, and feminism is at fault One of the great triumphs of feminism is education. It is a profession […]

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.