Posts Tagged ‘anne tolley’

I’ve had enough and I want my share

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, October 24th, 2010 - 10 comments

The Secretary for Education Karen Sewell has just had a minimum pay rise of $30,000p.a. Ironically the same 4% that teachers are after. Here is some maths for Mrs Sewell. Her 4% is 30,000 dollars. 4% of a teachers salary of around $65k is $2,600 dollars.

I’m confused

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 20th, 2010 - 32 comments

Trying to get my head around the economic arguments going on. Hearing contradictory things. Who’s telling the truth? ls Labour’s new overseas investment policy Stalinism that will  ruin the economy, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday? Or is the same as the existing law, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday?

Tilly Solley

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, October 8th, 2010 - 3 comments

Hot on the heels of massive cuts to Early Childhood Education Tolley has formed a taskforce to ‘take a look at the provision of ECE services‘. That’s hot on the heels of a similar taskforce to have a gander at why the National Standards won’t work. Has the goose ever thought that maybe, just maybe, you should think before you act?

Anne Tolley is a fool

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 am, September 29th, 2010 - 67 comments

Anne Tolley, Minister for wrecking primary education, doesn’t have the first or faintest idea of what “national standards” are actually going to mean in practice.  She is “appalled” at the idea of labelling children as failures.  But that is exactly what the standards are designed to do.

The Tolley Challenge

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, September 18th, 2010 - 53 comments

On Tuesday Anne Tolley, Minister for wrecking primary education, dropped another pearl.  Has there ever been a comment made by any other minister, ever, in the history of New Zealand, that is as stupid, as arrogant, as offensive, as out of touch, as brain-fartingly idiotic a statement of the bleeding obvious as this clanger from Tolley? Anything even close?

Teachers strike

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, August 30th, 2010 - 68 comments

Not content with wrecking primary school education, Anne Tolley has bought herself an unnecessary fight with secondary teachers.

Standards fiasco and more National lies

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, August 27th, 2010 - 14 comments

At what point, I wonder, will National figure out that they’re in a hole over “national standards” and finally stop digging? At what point, I wonder, will National stop lying to us that the parents of insert region here are supportive of national standards?

Principals’ principled stand for quality education

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, August 23rd, 2010 - 29 comments

National Standards have been slated by all of the education and assessment experts in New Zealand as being fundamentally flawed. Anne Tolley’s recent admission that she has failed to find a way to ensure that League Tables (the most educationally damaging aspect of the National Standards policy) will be avoided is the final straw for principals around the country.

Tolley lives behind The Wall

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, July 9th, 2010 - 26 comments

Anne Tolley is on record. She told the Principals gathered at their annual conference that rather than run to the media that they need to talk to her directly.

Lets see some of those who have voiced their opposition to Nationals Standards so far…..

Back to the Future – Education in the UK

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, July 8th, 2010 - 16 comments

God knows what the National Standards are designed to do – it can’t be to lift achievement. Even the Minister says that is not the case. It can’t be to identify those behind – schools already do that. Anyway there is no money or extra resources to ‘fix’ them. Maybe there is a bigger plan […]

A Minister and some National Standards

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, July 3rd, 2010 - 61 comments

The Minister of Education Anne Tolley, and the Government, is facing a fair amount of (growing) opposition to the implementation of her National Standards. Her message was essentially that schools need to get on with the job of putting the Standards in place and not to publicly criticize the policy. Unfortunately, the Minister herself is responsible for a fair degree of the criticism.

The continuing education of Anne Tolley

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, July 3rd, 2010 - 15 comments

Tolley told principals they should stop talking to the media about national standards. Their criticisms are valid. She would rather silence the critics than fix the problems. A wise authority figure power talks softly and carries a big stick. An idiot with an ego problem yells loudly while carrying no stick. Threatening 500 pillars of local communities when you’ve got no power over them. That’s just dumb.

The paper that Anne Tolley censored

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, June 30th, 2010 - 38 comments

Anne Tolley can’t stand to hear any criticism of National Standards, and she doesn’t want you to hear it either. She has had a critical Parliamentary Library research paper removed from the Parliamentary website. You can read it here.

The anti-education government

Written By: - Date published: 1:03 pm, June 26th, 2010 - 33 comments

John Key and the Nats are an anti-education government. Everywhere you look education is under attack. The Nats seem incapable of grasping the basic facts – trained, skilled committed teachers are the best way of creating good educational outcomes, and good educational outcomes are the best way of lifting society and the economy.

Schools’ boycott spreads

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, June 25th, 2010 - 60 comments

Just a few days ago I wrote about schools in Dunedin and Invercargill refusing to participate in National’s flawed, damaging “national standards” process. The boycott is spreading, with the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association refusing to participate in training, and warning of “further action”.

Money for tax cuts for rich, none for doctors’ pay

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, June 21st, 2010 - 9 comments

Tony Ryall, like Anne Tolley, is facing a big fight over wages. The health budget is chock-full of cuts as it is and Ryall says there simply isn’t any money to give doctors pay rises as they and other workers face nearly 6% inflation next year. The government can find billions for tax cuts for the rich but not to pay doctors and teachers. Priorities.

School boards revolt

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, June 19th, 2010 - 14 comments

Several schools have spoken out against the imposition of national standards, and three have gone so far as to completely refuse to cooperate. This creates a dilemma for the Nats. How will they respond? Not, I hope, by following one moronic suggestion to cut funding to schools

Losing confidence in education

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, June 15th, 2010 - 37 comments

I really like my children’s school – I think they work hard to keep those young minds engaged and bodies active. I know it’s a job that is pretty demanding, and hugely important. So when I hear that three-quarters of teachers are feeling unprepared and rushed as they work to implement National’s new national standards (according to a NZEI survey) I start to feel apprehensive.

Misdirection can’t hide Nat attacks on education

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, June 1st, 2010 - 21 comments

You’ve got to hand it to John Key. He’s so good at distraction he could be a rodeo clown. Yesterday, a classic case in point. Asked about his government’s cuts to early childhood education, Key talked about getting the cruelest cut instead. The journos were so surprised they forgot their questions. Mission accomplished. But we can still examine what the Nats are cutting.

Nats paving the way for ECE cuts

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 pm, April 28th, 2010 - 19 comments

The Nats are getting ready to cut 20 Hours Free Early Childhood Education, after having promised during the election campaign not only to keep it but extend it. The Nats don’t have to lie. If they want to break their promises they should just say ‘we just wanted to get elected, so we said what you wanted to hear. We’re going to break our promises and cut ECE’.

Big fat Tolley folly

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, April 26th, 2010 - 35 comments

Comment from an international expert reported in The Herald today reminded me that National Standards aren’t the only ideologically driven folly that Tolley is forcing down the throats of schools. She’s also doing her bit to contribute to a major health problem…

Over-promise, under-deliver

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 am, March 31st, 2010 - 7 comments

The Key Government is constantly promising us great results and actually do nothing that improves things for New Zealanders. English, Bennett, Brownlee, and Tolley are prime examples of this MO. While they promise great things and fail to deliver unemployment is rising, wages are falling, crime is up, and the government has no plan to move us forward.

One in five children

Written By: - Date published: 6:18 am, March 22nd, 2010 - 28 comments

Anne Tolley has promised that national standards have been introduced so that “every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school”.

The depths of arrogance and ignorance in that claim leave me at a loss for words…

Another big empty promise

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 20th, 2010 - 41 comments

Education Minister Anne Tolley has made an extraordinary promise: “New Zealand elected a Government that promised to introduce national standards so that every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school. That is what the country voted for.” We would all love to see National deliver, but they can’t, and they know that they can’t. It’s an empty promise.

‘Oh, oh’: sound of a minister floundering

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, March 18th, 2010 - 30 comments

Which minister will be next to go? Rodney Hide or Anne Tolley? If competence was a condition of keeping their job, both would be long gone. But doing a good minister has never been a job requirement in John Key’s government. It comes down to which of them makes a spectacular mistake so serious that […]

Tolley losing the plot?

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 16th, 2010 - 14 comments

Anne Tolley put out an odd media statement on Friday. She reckons Trevor Mallard, opposition spokesperson for Education, dominated two public meetings in Auckland on her Government’s unpopular national standards policy. Which begs the question, was she actually all there at either meeting?

Stupid competition

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, March 13th, 2010 - 30 comments

We keep hearing, from the Key government, statements about education that make no logical or factual sense at all. Here are two examples. Help me choose — which is the stupider statement, and why?

Nats resort to plants to help Tolley

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 pm, March 11th, 2010 - 57 comments

Let’s face facts. Anne Tolley is a dangerous minister. She is undermining the education system at every turn and the damage will last lifetime. But is National doing the responsible thing and removing her from the portfolio? No. In fact, a guest poster reports they’re so desperate to help her out that they’ve got plants in her audiences to ask patsy questions.

Education cuts good for kids in bizarro Tolley world

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, March 11th, 2010 - 20 comments

Have a listen to Education Minister Anne Tolley on Morning Report today trying to explain the $25 million cut to the education budget.

It really was a shocker, even for her.

High unemployment helps Nats keep wages down

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 11th, 2010 - 21 comments

While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.

But how much did the bus cost?

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, March 10th, 2010 - 24 comments

“Tolley finds ally in school mum” screams the headline of Audrey Young’s piece today.

When National runs a bus tour the Herald is desperate in its attempts to drum up support, when it’s Labour all they want to talk about is how much the bus is costing the taxpayer.

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