Posts Tagged ‘national standards’

Sadistics office backs National Standards

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, March 19th, 2010 - 19 comments

New instalment from John Key impersonater “Plumedekiwi”, in which the PM gets his linguistic knickers in a twist over national standards….
If you haven’t seen the other vids by Plumedekiwi, check him out here

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?

Lorraine Kerr, National Standards & Schools Money

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, March 15th, 2010 - 19 comments

Lorraine Kerr, head of the NZ School Trustees Association is one of National’s few supporters on National Standards. She says a survey of boards of trustees gives her a mandate for this position, with only four boards opposing the Standards. Now, she has been forced to admit that only 14 schools were included in the survey result.

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?

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.

Listening to the evidence on national standards

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, March 5th, 2010 - 14 comments

All available evidence and expert opinion suggests that National Standards, as the government intends to introduce them in our primary schools, won’t work. They may even do damage. Will Key and Tolley ever take heed of the evidence, or is this just a blind ideological crusade? Bring on Diane Ravitch…

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.

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.

Labour pins clueless Nat ministers

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 pm, February 17th, 2010 - 13 comments

It’s hard to decide which is worst: Do Nothing John Key flouncing around the country while thousands of Kiwis lose their jobs, the Joyce cabal pushing their hard-right economic agenda, or the rest of them who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.

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.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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