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Bullying schools – again
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 16th, 2012 - 29 comments
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
Parata was briefed on teacher cuts
Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, June 30th, 2012 - 26 comments
It seems that Parata was fully briefed on teacher cuts after all, but she somehow “did not have enough time to mention it”. The government’s most recent humiliating bungle just got worse.
Competition, cooperation, schools
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, June 27th, 2012 - 12 comments
Competition is the wrong model for education, and National’s nonsense “league tables” are going to make it worse…
Policy on the hoof
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, June 19th, 2012 - 26 comments
John Key wants to debate school league tables. Presumably he thinks that this will do the double whammy of getting middle class parents back on his side in the education debate, and distract from asset sales. But he’s not checked with his Minister, or the Ministry of Education, or presumably read any of the official advice about how damaging league tables would be.
ImperatorFish: Teacher Development and Smaller Class Sizes: We Can Have Both
Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, June 18th, 2012 - 60 comments
Scott thoroughly fisks libertarian Damien Grant’s Herald on Sunday Column. And if teacher development is so important (as indeed it is) why have National cut it massively since they came to power, and are now dropping their budget plans to expand it. Money could be found from those tax cuts if they wanted…
While I have your attention class…
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, June 8th, 2012 - 6 comments
While the public’s attention is focused on educational issues, use the platform to press for change on the Nats other damaging educational initiatives, national standards and charter schools.
Schadenfreude
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, June 8th, 2012 - 38 comments
The hysterical right are pretty pissed that the Nats have backed down on class sizes. Let them rant all they like – the Nats can’t afford to listen.
Class sizes vox pop
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, June 7th, 2012 - 14 comments
Public opinion is massively opposed to cutting teachers. When 50,000 people marched down Queen St the Nats dropped plans to mine conservation land. Time for another show of people power.
Coward
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, June 6th, 2012 - 79 comments
Hekia Parata has refused to front up to education groups against her bigger class sizes.
Only money matters
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, June 6th, 2012 - 12 comments
How did National get it so wrong on the cuts that would costs too many schools far too many teachers? Did the Nats do any consultation at all?
Class sizes: show National you care
Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, June 5th, 2012 - 23 comments
Here’s a petition against Hekia Parata’s class size increases. Show the government what a big mistake they’ve made. If Federated Farmers can spread it, so can you…
One law for some
Written By: - Date published: 7:48 pm, June 4th, 2012 - 18 comments
Financially troubled private school Wanganui Collegiate received a $3million grant in Budget 2012, 3 times the annual operating grant of the larger Wanganui City College. Since then it has been advertising its low class sizes and ability to reduce fees significantly. Private schools will no doubt be using the current outrage over increased class sizes for recruiting purposes, but they should not be doing it with taxpayers’ money.
Call off the education cuts
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, June 1st, 2012 - 17 comments
National has no choice but to call off the education cuts. The sooner they do it the sooner it will stop killing them in the court of public opinion.
Polly Parata
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 am, June 1st, 2012 - 69 comments
Hekia Parata is demonstrating how political lines endlessly repeated can go horribly wrong if you have nothing else to say. Her Polly Parrot repetitions are wrongly-based, and the longer she and Key go on about how fewer teachers and larger classes is going to improve the quality of teaching the worse its going to get for National. The hubristic Parata has galvanised and united the education sector and more backdowns are likely, both in policy and politics.
Class size backdown
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, May 29th, 2012 - 32 comments
Is the government coming to its senses on the matter of reducing class sizes? That would be a rare pleasure indeed…
Budget nasties
Written By: - Date published: 8:27 pm, May 25th, 2012 - 37 comments
This afternoon a couple of ‘hidden treasures’ have come out of the budget. In changes not announced, but discovered 1122 teachers could be losing their jobs and changes are being made to the assets old people are allowed to keep once in residential care. Sneaky, Bill, sneaky…
Nats to cut 500 teachers
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, May 17th, 2012 - 156 comments
If there was any doubt that National has an anti-teacher, anti-education agenda, it’s gone. Increasing class sizes will ‘save’ $43m a year by reducing the number of teachers that would otherwise be required by 500. National standards will be used for performance pay. It’s a cut to the frontline, a cut to our kids’ learning. And Parata’s comments suggest more to come.
More willful ignorance on charter schools
Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, April 29th, 2012 - 27 comments
Armstrong tries to downplay the risks of charter schools. To do so of course he has to (as the PM so often does) denigrate the science that he wants to ignore.
Ideological blindness on education
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, April 18th, 2012 - 49 comments
The Nats are determined to ignore the evidence on the harm caused by charter schools, just as they are ignoring evidence on the damage done by national standards. This willingness to harm kids, as incidental pawns in their ideological games, really pisses me off.
NRT – Unqualified crony Isaac gets charter schools job
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, March 29th, 2012 - 20 comments
ACT-crony Catherine Isaac will head the implementation of the government’s unmandated charter schools programme. Isaac has no relevant expertise to justify this appointment. She has been given the position (and a generous public salary) solely on the basis of ideology and party affiliation. That is not how our public service is supposed to work.
National standards aren’t
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, March 16th, 2012 - 34 comments
The predicted problems created by a “national standards” system are coming home to roost already.
National standards fail in America
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, February 10th, 2012 - 51 comments
New Zealand schools achieve excellent results and are very cost effective. The Nats are determined to break this great system via the introduction of national standards. They’re ignoring the advice of their own experts, and all the international evidence. But will they be able to ignore the now self-evident failure of standards based testing in America, as Obama pulls the plug on No Child Left Behind?
Right-wing Herald element goes OTT
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 pm, December 10th, 2011 - 61 comments
John Armstrong’s column today – not yet on website – is extraordinary. “Elements on the left cried wolf about National having a secret agenda” Armstrong’s faux outrage is generated by the fact that National’s charter schools policy was not part of any election mandate, and some people have pointed this out. Funny how people on the left are always “elements” – couldn’t possibly have a mind of their own.
ImperatorFish: The Two Most Powerful Arguments They Can Muster
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, December 10th, 2011 - 5 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
National seem to be backing Charter Schools on the premise that if the teachers don’t want them, they must be good.
ImperatorFish: Not Irony #2
Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, December 8th, 2011 - 38 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
David Farrar is running National’s line that anything the teachers don’t want must be good for the education of our children…
Charter schools
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, December 6th, 2011 - 112 comments
Once again, under National, we get to repeat an experiment that failed 20 years ago. All cooked up on the back of an envelope in a coalition deal. Education deserves much better.
Nats’ education policy
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, November 22nd, 2011 - 35 comments
The Nats’ education policy came out yesterday and, predictably, it’s ideologically driven nonsense that will damage children. Worst aspects, league tables (almost universally condemned by experts and experience) and a proposal for the Nats to specify a “personality test” to select teachers.
Is Key going where Gove’s gone?
Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, October 31st, 2011 - 78 comments
National’s “Future Fund” asset-sale money will be spent on modernising schools we are told. Is the future they have in mind like Conservative Education Minister Michael Gove’s so-called “free schools” now being set up in Britain? It would be no surprise if our public assets were sold down by National to pay for private interests to get a stake in the school system here. We shouldn’t be under any illusions that the agenda is just short-term.
Food in Schools?
Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, September 28th, 2011 - 33 comments
John Key promised to put Food in poorer Schools across New Zealand to help children to learn. What has he done about it? One cheap, but very well-publicised stunt. Will we see any substance? Or is this another promise like not raising GST, wages catching Australia, or capping not cutting the civil service?
Education Standards and National Standards
Written By: - Date published: 6:01 pm, September 14th, 2011 - 50 comments
The guys at RSA Animate provide their illustative talents to a quite brilliant and wide ranging lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on the topic of education. In the space of just over 10 minutes, he ranges from it’s industrial beginnings to its doped out, standardised present and argues finally, that educationally we’re heading in exactly the wrong direction and suggests alternatives.
A school board member writes
Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, September 11th, 2011 - 74 comments
The other night I resigned from the bot of my local school. My experience in the field of education is fairly varied, with time on both sides of the chalkface as it were. … the bot has been forced by the government, through the moe to include national standards, and I can’t in good conscience be a party to such foolishness.
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A family living in fear of their young son's increasingly dangerous behaviour asked for support. Instead, the agency turned its focus on his mum. ...3 days ago
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions. .wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles article .entry-title { font-size: 1.2em; } .wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles .entry-meta { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: center; margin-top: 0.5em; } .wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles article .entry-meta { font-size: 0.8em; } .wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles article .avatar { height: 25px; width: ...3 days ago
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RNZ News More than 35,000 people today gathered as Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hīkoi mō te Tiriti overflowed from Parliament’s grounds and onto nearby streets in the capital Wellington Pōneke. Eru Kapa-Kingi told the crowd “Māori nation has been born” today and that “Te Tiriti is forever”. ACT leader David Seymour ...3 days ago
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