Education

ᔥ NZ Herald

Steven Joyce is starting to bring some sensible decisions to the fore. He is starting by reigning in student allowances:

Tertiary education minister Steven Joyce has indicated that student allowance eligibility will be cut back in the Budget.

He said today the Government had already signalled strongly that it was concerned about a blow out in the costs of student allowances, the costs of which which had gone from $385 million in 2007/08 to $620 million in 2010/11.

He said that was largely because of changes to the parental income threshold adjustments introduced under the Labour government.

“We can’t keep sustaining those sort of increases so we are looking for changes.”

He said more details of the changes would be released in the lead-up to the Budget.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Damien Grant explains som upcoming changes in Education:

Hekia Parata, the new Minister of Education, has an agenda. She appears to want to tackle the problem of poor teachers.

It is time, she announced to principals, for them to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Teachers are important. Last month, Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf referenced an OECD report that confirmed class size matters less than teacher quality and improved education has an impact on GDP.

He also made the point that in New Zealand, social-economic background has more of an impact on education results than in most other OECD countries, which is a polite way of saying our education regime favours white and Asian students at the expense of the brown and poor.

Parata is talking about performance pay for teachers and publishing league tables for schools based on National Standards. This is, as Sir Humphrey would say, courageous.

It is courageous but necessary. In Finland all teachers must have a masters degree for example.

Teacher unions are opposed to both policies. To bolster their argument the NZEI recently brought Australian academic Professor Margaret Wu to our shores. Wu was quoted in the Otago Daily Times as saying that “we need to look at education more broadly than just students’ academic results”.

It is hard to imagine a more incredulously stupid comment. We pay teachers to teach – not to eat their lunch. We can and should assess success by comparing what the class knows at the end of the process from what they knew at the start. A competent principal will know which teachers are effective and which are not.

A system that does not reward success encourages failure. Poor performers stay, talent leaves, children remain uneducated. Our education industry has become a sheltered workshop for useless teachers and a frustrating workplace for good educators.

The NZEI and PPTA will always oppose National, no matter what National does they want a war, so I reckon we should just have the war.

The problem with the NZEI and the PPTA is that they are unions masquerading as education think-tanks. Unions exist to advance the cause of their members. This is honest work in a free society and teacher unions have been remarkably successful at shielding their members from any form of performance scrutiny. They are so good I suspect they have convinced even themselves that it is not possible to tell a good teacher from a bad one and that students learn by osmosis rather than by anything a teacher actually does or does not do.

Regular readers of this blog will know that about 30 seconds after I post this along will come Kosh telling us all how only the teachers are allowed to speak on education matters because only they care about the kids.

Thirty per cent of students leave school without passing Year 12, or NCEA 2. This is a shocking result and it is worse for Pacific Island and Maori students. We are condemning a third of our students to low-paid, unskilled futures to shield lazy teachers.

Rumour has it Parata harbours grander ambitions. If she can tackle and defeat the teacher unions she should invest in a set of pearls and a black leather handbag.

The teacher unions will go to war, Annet Tolley fought some skirmishes successfully, but it was always a read guard action. Hekia Parata needs to be bold and agressive in going after the NZEI and PPTA. She needs to emulate George Patton…Old Blood and Guts.

There’s a nasty little hate-filled column on education in the SST yesterday (not online) which does the newspaper no favours.

Anthony Hubbard trots out an entirely predictable attack on charter schools, using NZEI darling and government hater Ivan Snook’s “evidence”. Farrar discusses the perils of relying on Snook’s “evidence”.

Oh Ivan Snook. Having Ivan Snook attack the Government’s education policy is as surprising as having Sue Bradford attack the welfare policy. Professor Snook has spent decades as a champion of socialism, and fighting almost every educational initiative since and including Tomorrow’s Schools. You can read his own version of it here.

Even Trevor Mallard when Education Minister commented:

Ivan Snook advises teachers to continue with their professional reading. I would endorse that advice, with the proviso that teachers find someone other than Ivan Snook to read.

For once I agree with Trevor.

As usual though, there is no mention in the Hubbard article of the twenty per cent of kids who are failing. Or any suggested alternatives which might help. It’s all class war and how dare the right have an opinion on an education system which the left has run to its own advantage (but not kids) for years.

Of course there is no mention of the massive defeats suffered by the unions over national standards and wage claims at the hands of Anne Tolley. But Hubbard does have a go at Tolley, for being stolid and stubborn.

The truth is Tolley refused to bow down to the unions, and parents are now getting better school reports than at any time in the past.

She faced down the likes of Frances Nelson, Ian Leckie and the well-financed NZEI campaign against Standards. She also stared down Kate Gainsford (better known as Mrs Brent Edwards of RNZ) over the PPTA’s ludicrous wage claims. The likes of Mallard, Moroney, Carter and Hughes couldn’t dislodge her, and nor could their buddies at Red Radio.

Anne Tolley put kids and parents first. No wonder she is hated by the left.

↬ Andrew Sullivan

The student loan book is out of control. Everyone thinks it is a problem…and it has got worse since Helen Clark bribed students with interest free student loans. I learned in my sales career though that moaning about something just pisses people off and that when you criticise something have an alternate proposition to solve the issue.

To date I haven’t found one that is elegant… until now:

Students in California have a proposal. Rather than charging tuition, they’d like public universities in California to take 5% of their salary for the first twenty years following graduation (for incomes between $30,000 and $200,000). Essentially, rather than taking on debt students would like to sell equity in their future earnings.

This means students who make more money after graduation will subsidise lower-earning peers. It is not clear if this will provide adequate revenue for the university. It also means the university bears more risk, because the tuition it will ultimately receive is uncertain. But the proposal will benefit some students and the principle is not so ridiculous.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

The teachers unions are bent right out shape because someone who isn;t a teacher dared to have an opinion on education:

More accountability for teachers and larger class sizes are again on the political agenda as Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf shapes up for a scrap with education unions.

He was urged yesterday by a teachers’ union, the New Zealand Educational Institute, to “stick to his knitting” after he went on the offensive, saying it was the quality of teachers that made the greatest difference to student achievement.

He suggested “a number of ways” to assess teacher quality, including in-class observations by other teachers, direct observations by principals, and feedback from students and parents.

A boost in class sizes of one or two students per classroom could free cash to invest more in quality teachers, he said.

The “central theme” of Treasury’s advice in a paper made public yesterday was that, within schools, quality of teaching mattered most to lifting student achievement.

Of course the teachers unions all think that teachers should be paid exactly the same irrespective of performance. Theirs is a racket to protect mediocrity and the attitude is infecting the students.

The NSW government is set to announce performance pay for teachers, predictably the teacher unions are having a sook about it. The unions never want performance pay, they exist to protect mediocrity:

Teacher salaries will be determined by performance instead of years of experience, the NSW government is expected to announce today.

As part of changes to give public schools more power over their budgets and how they choose teachers, principals will reportedly be able to use financial incentives to attract capable teachers from other areas.

But the NSW Teachers Federation has criticised the changes as unfair.

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Principals will be given control of 70 per cent of their budget, compared with the current 10 per cent, News Ltd reports.

The federation’s president, Maurie Mulheron, said that giving principals the “right to hire and fire” was a populist idea.

The changes were a dramatic setback for the system.

In this morning’s Herald we have proof that bad schools aren’t just low decile:

The Education Review Office has recommended intervention at a top Auckland primary school after a scathing report.

Chelsea Primary School in Birkenhead is a decile 10 school for up to 400 children.

Its 2008 ERO report showed off an excellent school with a high expectation of students and a sound relationship between members of senior staff and the board of trustees.

However, its latest review – released at the end of January – notes “disharmony” between senior staff and a breakdown in communication with parents and the wider school community.

“The school is not well placed to sustain and improve its performance,” the report reads.

“Governance operations are compromised by disharmony within the board. These poor relationships are a barrier to school progress.”

The report says aspects reviewed at the school included the emotional safety of students – including prevention of bullying – physical safety of students, teacher registration, attendance and stand-downs, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions. It found a number of areas of non-compliance relating to school governance and management.

“ERO recommends that the Secretary of Education consider intervention under Part 7A of the Education Act 1989 in order to support the board of trustees to address the issues related to governance and management identified in this report.”

It just shows that must mean there is such a thing as a good teacher, a good principal or a good board…and likewise that bad teachers are in good schools which turn them bad along with bad principals in good schools turning them bad.

Guest Post from a Concerned Hamilton resident

The Waikato Times was good enough to advise us that there are $6M of empty classrooms sitting empty in the region.  The process for selling them off is ridiculously long, and some upkeep is still necessary.   Urban drift is the major factor in these schools being empty but an unwieldly and disconnected Ministry of Education is causing havoc in the region.

The Waikato/BOP regional office of the Ministry of Education has done a woeful job overseeing property and funding in recent years:

• Numerous leaky buildings across the region (whole schools such as Rototuna requiring complete rebuilds)
• Building schools in Tauranga that can’t be filled due to poor planning on the Ministry’s part
• Schools under commissionership for years, leading to local parents going private to ensure their children are in a safe, learning-conducive environment
• Onerous processes for schools applying for funding for special needs and ESOL support

There are worthy projects that are falling by the wayside thanks to the fumbling efforts of the Ministry.

Take the Hamilton North High School project as an example:

Population growth in the North East of Hamilton has been huge.  Anyone taking the 1B from Taupiri to Hamilton will now see an ocean of new housing.  There are at least four feeder schools for a new high school and the Ministry and City Council have set down plans for an additional primary school in Sylvester.  The new housing growth slowed in 2010 but has lifted significantly in the last eighteen months according to Hamilton City Council.  The figures suggest a new high school can be built, but the politics of the Ministry have been in the way.

Due to lack of high school in the area most parents of high school age children send their children to a public single-sex high school in the city or to one of the private high schools further afield.  It isn’t unknown for parents to mortgage their house to meet the education needs of their children.

The Ministry argues that a public high school exists closer for these parents.  That high school is Fairfield College.  A school that has been run under Commissioner for a number of years and only just got a Board of Trustees again, a Limited Statutory Manager and a new Principal.  You’d understand if it’s going to take some time for parents in the North Eastern suburbs to have trust in that school, especially when you view the ERO reports.

This is Fairfield college:

The Ministry is ultimately concerned about ‘white flight’ from Fairfield to a new Rototuna based high school.  The Ministry is not concerned about the safe and appropriate education of children; the latest ERO report for Fairfield was appalling.  The Ministry also knows that as soon as there is a commitment for the building process that house building in the area will sky rocket – I’m sure the developers are also hoping for that.

On top of all that the Ministry is quick to say due to budgetary pressures from leaky school buildings that schools like the one in Rototuna can’t get built.

When will operational departments like the Ministry of Education take some responsibility rather bumble and fumble their way along, using up our tax payer dollars in the process?  And, I won’t even mention school vouchers…

Say what you will about John Tamihere, but the one thing you can’t accuse him of is being beholden to political dogma.

He has looked at what Charter Schools can offer Maori, who are failing badly in the current system, and thinks he can use the system to benefit students. He will, of course, now become a target for the teacher unions who will brand him a “class” traitor:

Waipareira Trust chief executive John Tamihere wants the charter school pilot expanded to West Auckland – where he says schools are failing children.

Act’s confidence and supply agreement sets out the schools will be set up in areas where educational underachievement is most entrenched.

South Auckland and Christchurch are the first two regions where the Government says that iwi, private, community groups and existing educational providers will compete to operate a local school or start a new one.

Waipareira is in discussions with Remuera’s Mt Hobson Middle School to establish a charter school for pupils in years 7 to 10.

Mr Tamihere said Ministry of Education figures which revealed that 30 per cent of students leave the region to attend other schools is indicative of parents’ dissatisfaction with educational results in the area.

“We’ve got a low track record of excellence. All we’re looking at doing is bringing the best practice from Remuera to the west.”

He may as well give it a go, because it is clear as the nose on your face that the current school system is failing Maori and Pasefika children.

The Aussies have got it sorted with awesome school comparison website:

The third version of the MySchool website has gone live, providing information about staffing, resources and student performance for almost 10,000 Australian schools.

The website has been updated to include four years of performance data from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, showing students’ progress over time and allowing schools to compare their progress against that of other schools since 2008.