September 2010

Has anyone wondered why teachers, when they threaten strike action, never schedule it for the school holidays?

I have. Especially when the bleat about hard they work, and how holidays aren’t actually holidays, and how hard they actually work in the holidays. (I can’t believe a principal is so stupid to put this on a school blog, but there you have it)

As students leave for their two weeks holiday I hear teachers making plans with their teams for meetings for planning and assessment during the two week break and I wish all those people who say teachers have so many holidays could see the reality.

You would think just once in their miserable lives they would schedule strike action for the holidays wouldn’t you? But no, I guess that tells us exactly what holidays really are to teachers, same as for everyone else, holidays.

Anyway I digress. Teachers are actually miners who dress up sort of nice, they should be treated as such when the go about working at the “chalk face” and other such nonsense.

However it seems to me that Anne Tolley needs a little help. First up she needs to take some lessons from Merv Wellington. He knew how to treat bleating highly unionised whinging teachers. He ignored them.

The second thing that Anne Tolley can do is follow the play book of Chris Christie, the governer of New Jersey. He is sorting out the teachers unions in New Jersey.

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (CBS 2) — Determined to turn New Jersey’s education system on its head, Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday unveiled a tough-love reform package that will make classroom achievement — not seniority or tenure — the basis for pay hikes and career advancement in Garden State public schools.

Christie is turning his take-no-prisoner’s style to the classroom, demanding a top to bottom overhaul of how New Jersey students learn and teachers teach. And that means undoing tenure, seniority and other union work rules.

“We cannot wait. Your children are sitting in these classrooms today. We cannot wait to make it better,” Christie told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

Uh huh….seems they have the same problems in New Jersey as we have here. But wait it gets better.

Unqualified teachers will feel the lash. The governor is demanding that teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade actually pass tests in reading and math in order to be certified.

“It might lead to the firing of lousy teachers and bad principals who hurt our children,” Christie said.

The governor wants to turn the old seniority system inside out and put quality teaching ahead of lack-luster performance. He will:

* Prohibit salary scales based on seniority

* Grant raises based on classroom performance

* Give tenure based on classroom performance

“We are paying a fortune for something that is not giving our children the hope and the faith and the trust that their tomorrow can be better than their today,” Christie said.

The governor said he would appoint a task force to come up with standards to measure teacher achievement.

Educational experts applauded the governor’s actions.

Bwahahaha, making teachers actually sit tests. Brilliant!

Og course the teacher unions are a mite upset.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association attacked the governor’s plan saying that once again he was “trying to implement education reform without any input from educators.”

They’ve had their chance for input, same as the teachers here. the results are before us of 50 years if their input into the education sector. Time to do something different.

So long as the teachers unions and Teachers Council advocate to protect the most useless teacher and hide the names of criminal teachers, including those convicted of sex crimes, I will campaign against them.

Len Brown’s patsy CEO, Leigh Auton, the man who helped cover up Len’s expense scandal, the man who billed his own private expenses to the council credit card too, and who still refuses to release information requested under the LGOIMA, and the man rumoured to be paid a rather large golden parachute (a six figure sum) also gets a park named after him.

Manukau City Council’s chief executive will get a top honour – having a park named after him – despite losing his job to the Super City.

Leigh Auton has worked in various roles for the council, including as a town planner and in management, for 32 years.

For the past four years he has been the chief executive, but will lose that role with the advent of the Super City.

The Leigh Auton Reserve will be at the headland at Spinnaker Bay, in Beachlands.

He got a park named after him for doing his job! A job he received more than $400,000 per annum for! A park!

This is an outrage. He gets a park named after him for doing his bloody job, a job he was exceedingly well paid for.

One wonders just what his fat farewell cheque is written out for? Auckland City has released the details of the exit package of their CEO, will Len Brown be so transparent?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: GST is designed to apply to the widest range of goods and services supplied in New Zealand. This ensures that the tax is as fair and equitable as possible. The GST regime works best with few exemptions, as they can create distortions and extra compliance costs.

Now before you scoff, remember that Chris Carter is still the unopposed candidate for Te Atatu for Labour at the next election, and he states that he is still a labour member but just doesn’t like the current parliamentary leadership. So his position on GST from 2004 presumably hasn’t changed.

Yet another reason for Chris Carter to want a leadership change. His views on GST are pretty emphatic, unlike his leaders which are all over the show.

Rest assured dear readers there will be many more quotes like this from Labour.

Unfortunately not here in Auckland where a drunk, illiterate clown should be denied a seat on the Super City Council at the ballot box, but in Brazil.

A former clown who is expected to win a seat in Brazil’s congress when the country goes to the polls on Sunday will be prevented from taking office until he passes a test proving that he can read and write, a judge in Sao Paulo has ruled.

Francisco Silva, a circus performer turned TV comedian who is better known by his stage name “Tiririca” – the colloquial Portuguese word for “grumpy” – is accused of being among the one in 10 of his countrymen who are virtually illiterate.

The allegation could prevent him sitting in congress, even though polls suggest that he will win more votes than any other candidate, since (for mostly practical reasons) the Brazilian constitution requires all of the nation’s politicians to be able to read.

Ahhh the problems of clowns standing for office, it seems it is world wide.

Let’s hope that the good voters of Albany Ward vote for Slater to rid themselves of the Clown of Campbells Bay.

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest

Two egregious articles of spam journalism int eh past two days.

The first is the case of a Segway owner riding his device off a cliff. The media have leapt upon this as a case of Segways being lethal.

Segway: Is it safe to ride?

The death of James (Jimi) Heselden, the British owner of the company that makes the two-wheeled electric vehicle, has prompted the question.

Heselden, according to police, fell off a cliff in Englandwhile testing an all-terrain version of the Segway scooter Sunday. Heselden led a group of British investors who bought the company in December 2009.

A report published online today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, says that injuries sustained while riding Segway transporters are on the rise, based on Washington, D.C., emergency room data.

and this article in Stuff

Safety concerns after Segway death

The Segway was supposed to revolutionise human transportation but now the owner of the company that makes them is dead and questions are being raised over the safety of the two-wheeled motorised machines.

Not long after it was revealed that the British millionaire owner of Segway Inc, James Heselden, died after driving one over a cliff, a new study has been published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine reporting that injuries associated with the transporter are increasing.

I haven’t seen the calls from the media for mountain bikes and skateboards to be investigated for rising deaths and injury. Life has risks and it is impossible to mitigate them away, much and all as the greens and other meddlers would like to.

Another example was in The Herald today;

iPod warning after teen girl’s death

iPod users are being warned by police to be vigilant on the roads after the death of a young woman who was hit by a car while listening to music.

It is believed to be the third case in the past year in which a pedestrian or cyclist listening to an iPod has been distracted and killed.

Life support for Taranaki woman Cushla Marie Girling was switched off on Sunday night after the 19-year-old was struck by a four-wheel-drive in New Plymouth.

She was walking home in the rain from work at a bakery, listening to music on her iPod, when she was hit.

Using the logic of Malcolm Harbrow at no Right Turn, if the government doesn’t move to ban the listening of iPods when near roads, or Segways near cliffs then they are contributing to murder and should be prosecuted.

Kay Hume, a Year One teacher at decile 5 Puni School, south of Pukekohe, said working with the new standards had been heartbreaking. The revised benchmarks were “drawing an unrealistic line of achievement”.

The conference heard that just one child in Miss Hume’s class of 21 was close to meeting the required standards in reading.

“You are setting up our children to fail,” she told Mrs Tolley.

If there is only one student in this teacher’s class meeting national standards might I suggest the problem isn’t the children. Even using standard devitions nd averages that teachers so like to apply to everyone there should be 60% of the class at or above the national standards.

This leads me to conclude that the teacher is useless and should be put top of the list for “career planning”.

Every other worker in the country has performance targets, why not teachers? Every other worker has quality control measures in their jobs, why not teachers?

hat tip Tim Selwyn

Poor old Labour, they just can’t their policy straight.

Here is what Trevor Mallard thinks about GST coming off healthy food.

In two weeks the Maori Party will vote for a very silly bill to take GST off “Healthy Food”

Just imagine trying to define that. And how much of each we are allowed each hour/day/week before GST kicks in. And the army of inspectors to check the food. And the increase in GST or other tax to cover the diff.

Now colour me stupid but I think Labour’s policy about removing GST from fruit and vege fits right in with his definition of healthy food.

I don’t normally link to Russell Brown’s echo chamber but I will today because he departs from posting his mother’s lamb chop recipes and shows up Labour’s GST hypocrisy for the hollow words that they are.

But assuming it is passed on in its entirety to consumers – not a given – a 15% move in fruit and vegetable prices is insignificant in comparison to the seasonal movement in prices, or even the gap between different outlets at any time of year. At my local Fruit World, small heads of broccoli are currently $3.49 (it’s all that rain); in three months’ time I’ll be able to buy one twice the size for 99 cents. It would be interesting to know what effect these regular seasonal movements have on demand.

(It also seems worth noting that the in-season price differential between Grey Lynn Countdown and the Fruit World across the road from it can easily reach 10 times the level of GST. People have far more to gain from shopping wisely than from being relieved of GST.)

The relative simplicity of the policy also means that it’s arbitrary. Frozen green peas have at least the nutritional value of fresh peas – and are more affordable at any time of the year for those on limited budgets – but will continue to attract GST. The universality of GST is meant to be its key feature, the thing that broadens the tax base. The world won’t end if the principle is diluted, but it shouldn’t be idly dismissed either.

Those are actually sage words of advice for Labour, but it is actually too late for them because they have announced this silly idea as policy. That means they now have to die in the ditch justifying why they are going to give tax cuts to rich (only the “rich” buy fresh fruit and veges) and ignoring the goods that the poor buy.

I asked today at the gym in deep South Auckland just what kinds of fresh fruit and veges the locals bought. They all said one word only. Taro. The concept of lettuce, apples, carrots, even Russell’s example of broccoli was simply a step too far.

Once again labour has developed policy on the hoof by listening to the liberal elite meddlers rather than their constituents in the poorest areas.

(prices from foodtown.co.nz 28/09/2010)

The mad Mayor of North Shore, bitter, nasty, spiteful, little Andrew Williams has been spraying forth again on the internet. This time he creeps, uninvited, onto other candidates Facebook walls and abuses an Immigrant new Zealander and tells us how he “waters” his lemon trees.

I suppose if you drink as much gin as he clearly does then growing your own lemons would be advantageous.

Andrew Williams about "watering" his lemon trees

After “watering” his lemon trees he then sets about abusing immigrants.

Andrew Williams abuses an immigrant Kiwi

Notice how the creepy little man went looking up the commenters profile to find out where she was from and then uses the information to abuse a constituent. Not content with abusing legitimate candidates and defaming innocent parties he now is stalking and abusing people who make comments on other candidates Facebook walls that he doesn’t agree with.

Voters in Albany can stop this sort of stalking of innocent people by Andrew Williams by voting for me to get rid of Andrew Williams.

Vote Slater for Albany, keeping the Buggers Honest.

Much is bneiong made about Kri Fa’afoi’s backgroiung and his pasifika credentials. I wonder what Kris realy thinks aobut that…or is it just Labour spin about his pasifika heritage.

Well one can’t really go past the words of the candidate can one?

“It’s really weird” says Jason. “We don’t look like white people, but we are so-o-o-o not Tokelaun it’s not funny.” Kris adds “It’s just the box that we ticked when they gave us the census.”

So Kris Fa’afoi’s commitment to his pasifika heritage stops at a tick in a box on the census.

It’s sad really when you unravel the spin.