education

Categories under education

Tolley: national standards could be disaster

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, November 9th, 2009 - 23 comments

The man National credits with coming up with the idea of national standards has warned the incompetence of Education Minister Anne Tolley could make it a disaster and Tolley agrees. John Hattie told the Sunday Star Times national standards: Could be the most disastrous education policy ever formulated. Will only barely raise student achievement, if […]

Caption Competition

Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, October 28th, 2009 - 44 comments

John Key, Edication Espert

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 24th, 2009 - 69 comments

Well what a fiasco yesterday’s launch of National’s brave new $36 million education policy was. Despite Key claiming the plan was one of the most important steps his Government would ever take, teachers and principals boycotted the event in droves. Even the government’s education policy advisor Prof John Hattie said the new policy was potentially […]

Chopper chops science education

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 24 comments

National’s Anne Tolley, our education minister who thought that taking a ‘helicopter view’ of something meant taking a ride in a chopper, is cutting education resources so we can have an additional measure of how well kids are learning. $10 million is being taken out of extra support for Science, PE, and art teaching in […]

Clueless on ACE

Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, October 21st, 2009 - 35 comments

Night classes Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise will go. These are stupid hypocritical cuts, and there is huge […]

Another broken promise

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, October 20th, 2009 - 5 comments

Before the election National made promises about extra resources to tackle problems in schools: Schools Policy Strengthening the Ladder of Opportunity National is determined to ensure our school system helps every child climb the ladder of opportunity. We will bring New Zealand schools into the 21st century to ensure that every child, no matter where […]

Intergenerational theft

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, October 18th, 2009 - 43 comments

I had a free education. Most of the politicians in this and recent parliaments had a free education. More recent students have not been so lucky. Student loans are a 10 Billion dollar burden on the young. It’s crazy – the state spends all this money to educate people in NZ, and as part of […]

School support staff fight National’s pay freeze

Written By: - Date published: 2:32 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 3 comments

From the NZEI. Great to see the low paid mobilise so effectively.

Education cuts don’t heal

Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, October 3rd, 2009 - 26 comments

Remember “Education cuts don’t heal”?  That was the rallying cry during the last National government.  Looks like we might be needing it again this time round.  National’s 2009 budget was a very mixed bag for education, but it turns out that it only narrowly avoided being worse – much worse.  Seeking to save $50m in […]

Stupid hypocritical ACE cuts

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, September 25th, 2009 - 8 comments

Night classes – Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise will go. Right from the start reaction has been strong […]

Informative journalism

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, September 25th, 2009 - 4 comments

Colin Espiner: “For some reason that I don’t quite understand, unemployment usually continues to rise at the end of recessions, and there’s normally a lag time of something like a year before it falls.” I can help with that one. When a down-turn starts, employers generally don’t know how bad or how long it will […]

Are you smarter than a 10th year?

Written By: - Date published: 4:57 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 50 comments

Meet Robert Wadlow. When he died in 1940, he was the tallest ever recorded person, standing 8 feet, 11 and a half inches tall (2.72m) . That record still stands. The tallest living person, Bao Xishun, is a comparatively puny 7 feet, 9 inches (2.36m). As we all know, the typical person is getting taller. […]

Reverse Robin hood

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, August 15th, 2009 - 26 comments

John Key’s policy to get kids into sport turns out to be a transfer of dollars from low decile schools to high decile ones. When I say “policy” what I should say is “photo opportunity” as Key launched the scheme at a South Auckland school (ironically it will be South Auckland schools are most likely […]

Uncowed

Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, August 6th, 2009 - 9 comments

Shh. Hear that sound? It’s National’s mud throwing machine gearing up again. Inevitably, they’ve released Labour’s ministers’ spending. No evidence of any rort but the big numbers work into the media narrative. It’s all about taking the focus off ministers ripping us off by taking allowances they shouldn’t and making it ‘gosh, everyone spends lots huh?’. […]

Incentive to leave school?

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, July 16th, 2009 - 18 comments

I disagreed with Helen Clark in 2007 when she first suggested raising the school leaving age, as I don’t believe the mainstream school system is suitable for all young people. However I did largely support Labour’s 2008 policy to ensure all school leavers under the age of 18 are in some kind of education. If […]

Bill sez: ‘pay cuts for youse’

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 91 comments

Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants (‘frontline’ or not): under National, you’ll be getting pay-cuts, don’t expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less. Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has stated a number of […]

Two birds with one stone

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, June 30th, 2009 - 11 comments

In 2007, in election mode, John Key was talking up National’s commitment to the environment and the Enviroschools programme: Without a trace of irony, the video ends with ‘join the conversation’. It’s clear now that you can converse all you want with Key. He won’t listen. They’ve cancelled Enviroschools. Undermining education and the environment with […]

Rhetoric & Reality 4: Tertiary Education

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 5 comments

National sure does talk a good game before an election. This time we’re looking at their rhetoric on education, especially tertiary education: Key: I’m passionate about ensuring today’s young people get the education they need to succeed. Education is a liberator.. It’s what makes it possible for a kid from even the most challenging background […]

Unedifying

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, June 19th, 2009 - 29 comments

The Herald reports Pita Sharples has backed down on his demand to ‘open’ the universities to Maori. Now he says: “he wants Maori to have free access to universities but only if they pass a course showing they have reached required standards.” We already have that, Pita. Just get whatever they call UE these days […]

Priorities

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, June 17th, 2009 - 27 comments

Noticed this comment in the Dom this morning [offline] about National’s decision to slash funding for night classes in the Budget: Finance Minister Bill English said the Government would continue to fund some adult and community education programmes, but had higher priorities in the current recession. Um, would that be giving $35 million to private […]

Class war

Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, June 12th, 2009 - 71 comments

One of the particularly unpleasant parts of the last budget was the cutting of funding for night school classes in conjunction with the increase in private school funding. Apart from the grossly blatant transfer of taxpayers’ money from low and middle-income Kiwis to the rich the move represents the fact that this government has no […]

Nats slash education

Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, June 11th, 2009 - 21 comments

Did anyone else notice that for all this supposed government waste that National was going to get rid of it made only $500 million (less than 0.7% government spending) of ‘savings’ per year in the Budget. To get these ‘savings’ that it had to cut education spending savagely: Cut Early Childhood Education Professional Development – $9.8m Rescinding […]

When more is less

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, May 8th, 2009 - 2 comments

Colin Espiner writes: “Another thing that’s being clearly signalled is that Labour’s previous spending promises in health and education won’t be honoured in the Budget. That $3.4 billion of spending Labour planned for 2009/2010… At the same time, Key and English are at pains to say that health and education spending will increase – and […]

School support staff fighting for a fair deal

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, May 7th, 2009 - 13 comments

Cut public spending then we can have tax cuts! It’s such a nice, appealing slogan when you say it fast without engaging the brain. The reality though is real people who spend their lives working for the greater good are losing their jobs and seeing their incomes fall, and the services they produce will suffer […]

Chopper’s vice

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, April 11th, 2009 - 6 comments

Trevor Mallard reminded us in comments of another story that illustrates Anne “Chopper” Tolley’s great intellect. Soon after she became minister, Tolley had a meeting with the Vice-Chancellors of various universities. She turned to her staff and asked something along the lines of ‘how come I’m only meeting with the vice-chancellors? I’m the minister, I […]

The Tolleycopter

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, April 8th, 2009 - 32 comments

Most people have focused on the utter hypocrisy of National’s Anne Tolley flying around Auckland in a helicopter looking at education buildings from the air at the same time as the government says it can’t afford to help people falling victim to the recession. I’m more worried about how the helicopter ride came about. It […]

Have your say

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, March 31st, 2009 - 4 comments

Professor Paul Callaghan from Victoria University introduces the ‘Think Tech’ site via video. Panelists will look at what sorts of new technologies, in ICTs, nano-technologies, or bio-technologies, are likely to emerge in the future, and the effects these could have on our society and on our education systems. Are we prepared for this future? Are […]

Education lesson from UK

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, February 21st, 2009 - 59 comments

Last year we saw how unpopular National’s “national testing” policy was going to be. Now a major study in the UK is highly critical of what appears to be a similar policy. The Guardian says: Children’s lives are being impoverished by the government’s insistence that schools focus on literacy and numeracy at the expense of […]

Govt to sell your kids junk food

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, February 5th, 2009 - 102 comments

Education Minister Anne Tolley has just put out a press release announcing the following: ‘As part of the National Government’s commitment to reducing compliance for schools, I have decided to remove the clause in National Administration Guideline (5) which states ‘where food and beverages are sold on schools’ premises, to make only healthy options available’. […]

A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success.

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments

My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month. The reason that this […]

Enough already – no more tests please

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 15 comments

When I went to my first parent/teacher interview I was amazed at the breadth of markers against which my daughter’s performance was being evaluated. I admired the commitment of the teacher to such a level of engagement. I felt fully aware and informed of my daughter’s strengths, and the areas we needed to work on. […]

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