I don't really share this gloomy view, largely because at the moment we're lucky that our lad is at a brilliant and enlightened high…

Sure, but feeling like you have some supra entitlement because "I paid taxes all my life", which somehow makes you a better person than the struggling DPB mother...?

The decile 1 intermediate school I attended…

I can't see the problem either. If that's what was on offer I'd be all for…

This recently happened to my 7 year old niece. She'd been in a decile 5 school where she'd been thriving and doing really well. Her parents moved and she ended up in a decile 9 where the…

Belatedly: they SHOULD feel entitled. We're all entitled, because we're members of this society. Isn't that what this is supposed to be about?

Yep, it's one little story. But that's exactly how it happens: one kid…

That sounds like the Perfect being the enemy of the Good. Yes, it would be great if we lived in a paradise where governmental services can detect and correct all injustices to children. But we don't…

It's not just about food in your mouth. It's education in many forms, health a huge one. Anything that can help quell our Enormous Diabetes problem in NZ is great for the tummy as well as the health budget. Multiculturalism is another benefit when…

This is kind of what I mean by conceding the argument to the right. This is kind of saying we don't care if kids go hungry or live in poverty as…

I don't know if it's the major cause, but if it's a…

Pensioners vote. Some of them also have a real sense of "I've paid taxes all my life" entitlement, and that's only going to get worse as the number of Boomers receiving National Super increases.

Why do we treat kids here like we do? Seen but not heard seems to be still alive and kicking.…

But I feel like we are conceding to the right by proposing this idea. Rather than putting benefits back to proper levels we're saying we'll feed the hungry kids at school. It…

Again this is inefficient though. School decile ratings are very crude. You get very poor kids at high decile…

Yes, that's my favourite idea too.

What I like about it is that because it's universal it gets rid of the 'us and them' mentality of tradition welfare. And best of all it recognises that a universal income is a fundamental right and not something…

yes. UBI could be interesting.

As a proportion of total spending it seems pretty small. Hoiwever current proposals suggest that what's politically achievable now is targeting of bottom deciles (providing govt is still measuring such things).

That's because the social welfare system is underfunded and benefits are too low. If benefits were at a decent level then I think this solves the problem. It's wasteful supplying breakfast to children who are fed…

And even if you don't want to buy into the whole "children are hungry because their parents are neglectful", or "parents don't feed their children because they spend the money on alcohol, cigarettes, lotto and…

Hasn't worked. Let's just make sure teachers don't need to act like social workers.

Didn't Campbell Live cover a school (Pt England?) also growing the produce for their school lunches, then making and selling them for a modest fee to…

That's the usual argument, to which the counter is that kids not getting breakfast might not be because breakfast was totally unaffordable, but that the parents preferred to use the money…

I agree. But if you want children to stop being hungry it might be better to increase payments to struggling families…

Subsidised ECE is a good one too because it reaches across multiple policy areas. It helps families get by, it helps the economy by employing more people in ece and allowing people to work who otherwise find that after the costs…

But it’s also important to child poverty overall not to see education or learning as the only worthwhile outcomes.
There were people, for example, who said that the Breakfast in Schools programmes was a waste of…

Quite. I think decent ECE access is under-emphasized, too. It's an area where lot of policy initiatives are possible.

If Labour can coalesce their policy platforms around tackling child poverty (which is looking like…

I'm not so sure about that. Individuals are typically interested in a small number of things, but there are many…

Sorry – I'll stop my own continuation of this.

I agree with you that better policies must be formulated rather than straight opposition. But I think they are better to propose one or two strong policies and principles rather than a broad suite…

I agree with this entirely. I think we are on the same page just expressing it in different ways. I…

they have to be good

Apart from this obscure and little-known chap who no-one has ever heard of called Sun Tzu.....

his key points aren’t regarded as being refuted.

Military historian John Keegan argued in 'A history of warfare' that for the Clauswitz doctrines…

("Politics is the continuation of war by other means": Michel Foucault, in Society Must Be Defended (2003))

Pretty much. The head on war I was referring to is this entrenched ideology vs ideology one that moves backwards and forwards with the same pace as you'd expect from trench warfare.

They have to find a highly…

I agree with this entirely. I think we are on the same page just seeing different answers. To me…

And to this…

If politics really were a war then the Clausewitz…

In my experience most of that seems to have been washed out of the system now, though, and ITPs/Polytechs…

Not at all, and thanks for the correction. It is good that this happened. I must have been remembering the whole time that MIT was trying to get into this, all of the time Mum spent talking about them trying to get this status and…

In the UK, they allowed every polytech or FE college to become a university, which doesn't really fool anyone, but has been good for a small number of higher-end polys like…

I have the transcript.

This isn't true. 'University' is a legally protected term in NZ, and although one Polytech (or ITP) became a university (AIT become AUT) after an incredibly tortuous…

Not in a democracy. Look at Australia, where the new federal government has an agressive program of undoing everything that the previous government did that they disagree with. That's a battle of ideologies, but it's…

Oops. The latter! But yes, the former works, if you presume sarcasm.

How is the “rising tide” idea markedly different from the “trickle down” idea, other than the volume of liquid (warm…

How is the “rising tide” idea markedly different from the “trickle down” idea, other than the volume of liquid (warm and yellow, or otherwise) with which those…

I don't know if you meant to type "worth nothing" or "worth noting". But either way is good.

I have a poorly formed memory of a satirical…

The only problem they see is that it's one of the last public services still holding out against the forces of private equity. You know something's amiss when even Forbes is calling bollocks on it.

they have warped the empirical 'some (many) of our kids are failing' into...'the teachers are failing our kids', when I suspect it's more that government and society are failing the teachers and our kids.

When I envision a…

It’s apparent they have warped the empirical
’some (many) of our kids are failing’
into the more imperious
__’We…

We have traction...

internationally uncompetitive rates

Is there any evidence that there is international competition in income tax rates? As far as I know, people generally do not make good on threats to move because of tax levels, neither is quality…

Yeah, how about that? I've thrown you some issues, where's the debate?

Funnily enough, there's a long list of organisations that got insulated from 'competitive pressures': Rio Tinto, Warners, SkyCity, MediaWorks, the Road Transport Forum, Anadarko, AMI...

Weeell, I did link to that 17 posts up the page, so you're welcome :)

But again, I recommend anyone who is interested has a read through the 'secret teacher' archive on The Guardian. Of particular interest…

I think, rather than attempt to unpick any sort of meaning from this, let alone respond, I’ll just leave it standing, like a work of abstract art. It's inherent meaninglessness ensures that it only has the meaning that we ascribe to it, and in…

What bullshit. Doctors don't operate under "competitive pressure".
Find me a top-performing school system where teachers are constantly having their performance measured and calculated and their pay adjusted accordingly. Especially one where teachers' pay scales…

Given that NZ has one of the flattest, least-progressive taxation structures in the OECD, I’m really, really curious as to just what Labour have planned that will…

I don't support linking funding to student achievement either, but your own ideologically driven theories may be just as damaging to educational outcomes as the agenda you claim the government is pushing. At least they…

And assessment should be integral to learning…

Fortunately I didn't ever encounter that. I was a late starter, entering uni at 26, so like you I came through under the old system (left mid-6th form, though) with all the attendant differences.
Perhaps it was…

Yes, of course . Vote. Ignore polls ,ask questions, look for answers. I fire emails…

The opposition is pretty much universal, too. Even Stuart McCutcheon, VC of U.Auckland, is opposed, and…

Target all politicians. all Parties. bombard by mail. Request a response other than generic or threaten to continue to bombard them for answers

That is f'ing scary, as they say in the profession. Make me very glad I don't have kids, and even more glad that, unpleasant as my schooling was at times, it was not like that.

That sort…

Sample size of one and all that, I was part of the first year of students at U.Auckland that had to undertake general education papers as a component of our first under-grad degree. In…

My earlier blog…

I wrote about this, twice.

Big Education, not Big Government

[[http://passthesource.org.nz/2011/02/17/big-education-the-reprise/|Big…

and my partly-relevent Werewolf column http://werewolf.co.nz/2014/03/from-the-hood-unofficial-cabinet-manuals/

As a parent of a year 8 child in the current system I am very interested in the best possible outcomes…

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/finnish-education-chief-we-created-a-school-system-based-on-equality/284427/

They didn't always have an excellent education system.

We could be barely be bothered to raise a feeble groan as our universities plunged out of the top 200…

Al-Qaeda offered charter school contract after showing proficiency in training New Zealanders

I agree. This is an important article.

But still, I especially like:

__Ask how these policies think of schools: as a key part of the democratic social fabric that binds us together, community spaces, collectively funded, open to all and open to inspection? As places where…

bet everyone complaining about that $60 a kid won;t be for much long as it…

UK schools are actually 2-3 years (give or take) further down more or less the exact same path NZ is heading down.

See here, here, and here for a different comparison than the US ‘no child left behind’ (spoiler: the ending is the same).

In…

I've been in hospital, too. Perhaps next time I…

How can we turn the ideas in this essay into an "elevator pitch" that will bring home…

Unfortunately a common thread in the ideology of our current guvnors is that the best overall result in any endeavour comes from giving the…

No parents are, I'd agree. However, I'm not so optimistic about some of the neoliberal ninnies in and behind this government. When they introduce…

Right you lot. If you want your kids to have a good education in this country and you heard Parata on the radio “mischaracterising” (what a wonderful Newspeak word!!) her quotes about funding schools by “incentivising”…

Because what Parata suggests and what the government has done…

There's nothing new about this idea.

Right?

But I'm…

Thanks, Jolisa.

This, so much. My kids don't need to memorise lists of facts: they have Google. They need to learn how to find and evaluate information. They need to learn…

The world you were being taught for no longer exists. Mine neither. No-one can get by…

The…

We weren't taught to a test, we had it instilled in us that in order to succeed, you had to do well. In order to do well, you had to…

However, there is hope. Whilst there's a temptation to teach to the test at the moment, particularly given National Standards, many teachers are embracing integrated curriculums where you make the English and Math parts of…

You're a gifted educator and one of only a few people to understand how my younger son learns.

Fuck.

To cut a long story short, it's a branch of Shock Doctrine disaster capitalism.…

We've just volunteered to help the Greens this…

I’m thinking maybe Scoop might take an opinion piece but whaddoIknow?
I've already suggested Chris Hipkins might peruse. If others push the opposition MPs, maybe they can get behind a concerted campaign to advise the public quickly

So hunger, poverty and racism don't influence education? It really…

I mean, it's not as rich…

I too…

The conversations I was part of about yesterday's news showed kiwi teachers – and I know some *excellent* ones – are feeling acutely demoralised by the trail of breadcrumbs you…

But this isn't about improving teachers: it's about undermining the union. It's always, ALWAYS about breaking up the union.

https://secure.zeald.com/nzinitiative/Research/Teacher%20Quality%20and%20Student%20Achievement%20The%20New%20Zealand%20Context?mv_pc=13233