National education

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 27th, 2014 - 10 comments
Categories: act, national - Tags:

So National will continue their rorts by giving ministries to their tame poodles, Rimmer and the Hair.  Despite each making the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party look like it has a serious electoral mandate.  I guess it makes it look like National has friends, and Act and UF appreciate the extra cash.

snowhitekey

But Seymour will probably get Associate Education, which means National will continue to have cover for more Charter Schools.  Which had at least 1 in 5 schools failing completely, despite being given 5 times as much cash per pupil as normal schools.

Once again Act works to provide National right-wing policies they don’t want to own.

We could go over again how Charter Schools (from plenty of overseas evidence) enhance rather than solve inequality, despite Seymour’s claim, but I think the education unions have well and truly won the intellectual argument.  But that won’t stop more Charter Schools.

Because according to John Key in the campaign, your local primary school teacher, as a member of the NZEI, isn’t there to do their best by your child, but to further Labour party policies for their own outrageous ends.

This despite the NZEI being in no way affiliated to Labour (neither is the PPTA, PSA, even the CTU isn’t, despite what some media think).  Indeed the fact that Labour’s policy might be near NZEI’s targets is because Labour listens to teachers as educational professionals, instead of demonising them.

Listening isn’t what Anne Tolley does, despite her claims.  NCEA or similar for 13 and 14 year olds are her latest idea, and according to her are backed by the sector.  Except no-one in the sector can be found who’s heard of the idea, let alone backs it.

So we’ll continue to have cuckoo ideas hatched in our schools.  Education professionals who cite evidence that ideas like National Standards aren’t best practice will continue to be denigrated and sidelined.  It’s this government’s Dirty Politics way against all those who seek to add evidence to the debate – drive them out, so only National’s plan gets heard.

And while National continues their anti-teacher campaigns and implementing ideological ideas against evidence, problems like the decile divide worsen, and Auckland doesn’t have enough schools and instead has huge rolls and overcrowding.

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Do read Science and Democracy on Public Address – a good recap of how this government sidelines evidence-based debate.

 

10 comments on “National education ”

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  1. dv 1
    27 September 2014 at 8:49 am

    ‘Listening isn’t what Anne Tolley does, despite her claims
    True
    But Parata the current Min is as bad!!!

    Diane Khan – Free to all TDB readers, please enjoy your very own cut-out-and-keep handy primer of terms that I predict you will need to know over the next three years – See more at:

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/09/27/a-dictionary-of-education-terms-and-definitions-brought-to-you-by-the-letters-r-e-f-o-r-and-m/#sthash.PicE3td1.dpuf

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/09/27/a-dictionary-of-education-terms-and-definitions-brought-to-you-by-the-letters-r-e-f-o-r-and-m/

  2. Tom Gould 2
    27 September 2014 at 10:26 am

    In the United States they call them “for-profit schools”. Schools run as companies to make a profit. But the delicate folks of middle earth couldn’t handle such a brutal truth, so better call them something nice, like charter or partnership.

    • yeshe 2.1
      27 September 2014 at 12:31 pm

      Hopefully Winston will raise questions again the House as to how these partnership schools get to keep all their assets when they go bankrupt; all paid for by taxpayers. RORT.

      Good point TG — be useful if opposition MPs now referred to them as for-profit schools.

  3. lurgee 3
    27 September 2014 at 11:24 am

    Seymour will be used as a lightning rod for unpopular policies. National will get to do things they want to do and which people will hate, and he will get the flak for it. He won’t mind, because he’s being well renumerated for it and he’s got Epsom, which is hardly going to go to the barricades to stop charter schools, support the teachers’ unions or oppose bulk funding.

    I can hardly remember a single comment about education from Labour during the election. I’m sure they made a few, but for the left, education should always be front and centre.

  4. aerobubble 4
    27 September 2014 at 12:02 pm

    The cannibise party got more party votes than the UF party.

  5. red blooded 5
    27 September 2014 at 12:41 pm

    Labour spoke out strongly in support of resourcing schools to lower the student-teacher ratio. It was a focus of argument in at least one of the leaders’ debates and was a solid promise. Is it possible that you don remember because you weren’t prioritising this issue? I was, and so were my fellow teachers.

  6. Reddelusion 6
    27 September 2014 at 6:08 pm

    The sooner teacher learn they are state servants to follow democratically elected governments education policy the better. Frankly if they don’t like it, go do something else, one you make your protest by walking, two you get out of the way and stop claiming a salary on the false pretence you are a public servant

    • Murray Olsen 6.1
      28 September 2014 at 12:43 am

      It’d be nice if your views applied to the police and the gcsb as well. When they don’t like policy or the law, they ignore it.

      The way teachers are treated by NAct makes me sick. The good teachers I had at school could concentrate on teaching, getting knowledge across, as well as opening up enquiring minds. NAct fools think it can all be done as teach by numbers. No wonder teachers are resistant to the dismantling of education.

    • Minarch 6.2
      28 September 2014 at 12:02 pm

      “The sooner teacher learn they are state servants to follow democratically elected governments education policy the better. Frankly if they don’t like it, go do something else, one you make your protest by walking, two you get out of the way and stop claiming a salary on the false pretence you are a public servant”

      you try telling that tot he next police officer you meet and see how you get on

      fool…

    • Anne Elliot 6.3
      1 October 2014 at 1:31 pm

      Reddelusion, that’s what happens in totalitarian states: you do as you are told. In Aotearoa New Zealand, teachers are moral beings, professionals with a highly developed pedagogical philosophy, always seeking to use the best methods for students to reach their potential. When whacky policies that contravene their beliefs are trotted out, they are right to object. After all, whacky policies are usually political, imported from other countries and at odds with what we know about learners and learning. I know teachers are always open to new ideas that will enhance student learning but know a dog when they see one.