Blog

Daniel Pink on performance pay for teachers

2012-02-26T23:38:29Z

Love this from TED talker and author Daniel Pink on the hopelessness of performance pay for teachers: Here in the U.S., we've long treated schoolteachers as public servants who should be insulated from the briny waves of market forces. But now, as the world's economic center of gravity shifts eastward, and as American students underperform their Asian counterparts, leaders are casting aside this orthodoxy for a new approach.

Charter schools and natural disasters

2012-02-22T01:19:06Z

Politicians used Cyclone Katrina to gut a public schools system and impose charter schools. Despite huge amounts of extra money, it's unclear whether the new charter schools are doing a better job. But they have eased out a largely black, unionised and local teaching workforce, and brought in white guys (many are Teach First graduates) to run the show. Professor Robert Garda summarises developments in this paper:

A story about class size

2012-02-08T20:51:50Z

What's the bet the Treasury official who wrote the report saying class size doesn't matter hasn't spent a lot of time inside a classroom lately. My son had a brilliant teacher in year 3 - but she didn't last. Class size was a problem.

More breathless reporting from the MSM

2012-02-02T21:06:06Z

Hard not to despair at the breathless reporting by the MSM of the govt’s education reforms.
John Armstrong in the NZ Herald was at it yesterday, repeating the spin that charter schools will increase competition between schools and lift student achievement.

Let's be clear: no education system in the world has lifted student achievement by way of charter schools. All systems that have them perform worse than ours and are flat-lining or in decline. Charter schools are about the privatisation of public education - that is the main driver.

New Zealand's success is due in large part to the system’s “learning how to learn” focus. We don’t rote learn, and until last year we didn’t rote test.

Guest blog: Kelvin Smythe

2011-11-29T23:08:35Z

In National’s education policy, I was taken aback by how Christchurch schools are getting nothing but bumf. We should all get in behind calls for extra support for the schools of that stricken area.

And all the rest of the document is bumf, except for the section headed ‘Strengthen accountability and performance measurement’.

And therein lies the battleground for the next few years.

Undercover policies

2011-11-23T23:58:25Z

As predicted, the National Party announced its education policies undercover of noise in the last days of the election campaign.

National quiet on standards

2011-11-06T23:59:07Z

Should we read anything in to it that the education video on the National Party's homepage doesn't mention National Standards, and that the link to its National Standards policy on the same site is broken - http://www.national.org.nz/achievements.aspx#publicservices?

Child-friendly or employer-friendly?

2011-11-06T20:44:45Z

Interesting to hear John Key reported on RNZ's Insight programme on poverty in NZ as saying National Standards is one of the ways the National government is tackling child poverty.

Don't believe there is one bit of research available to support this assertion. All research I've seen in this area (child poverty in the context of standards-based ed reforms) suggests 'greater accountabilility' reforms only further entrench child poverty by stigmatising those who are poor and behind as failing, and thereby creating a self-fulfilling downward spiral.

Nat stds won't help special ed kids

2011-09-08T00:09:14Z

Just finished a long article about deaf education for the spring issue of EA, and the tragedy of those children with mild but multiple conditions, who still slip through the net (if you're severely deaf or autistic, etc, you get resources, but if you have multiple, mild conditions that still add up to severe learning needs - you're not eligible for a lot of the funding, although educators do work around this.)

Talked to a stack of people, including one guy, fantastic commitment to deaf education, but he'd bought the line that National Standards will pick up those kids who are still slipping through the cracks.

What a whale!

2011-08-30T21:26:19Z

Far-right blogger Cameron Slater (Whaleoil) has been at it again, exposing NZEI's huge conspiracy to - well - educate the children of New Zealand.

Cameron got hold of an email from Auckland principal Liz Horgan (and how did that happen, I wonder? two scenarios spring to mind straight off - some sort of hacking or an avenue that ran past the minister's office). In the email, Liz despairs about National Standards. Liz's school is a BTAC school - but Cameron breathlessly exclaims, she's also member of NZEI! and the email is copied into - believe it or not - other members of NZEI! And someone from NZCER too - heaven's above, the sky really is falling, it's a communist takeover!!!!!