Minister Parata was probably hung out to dry in order to divert attention away from far hotter issues,…

I do see your point. But the post was about Key pretty much launching league tables off the top of his head. If there's a fall-guy in the whole thing, it's Parata,

No argument but it it enough to just focus on the guy at the top in this case? In the past few years I've see a lot of people slagging off John…

I feel angry at the way we're all…

Such as blagging the government into giving you law changes and corporate welfare?

Commentary from Kelvin Smythe

When decisions were being made as to where my nephew was to go for secondary schooling, Wel Col was counted out in spite of the resources it had, because of the "people there". In the end, he attended a Montessori college (which…

Oh, I am quite familiar with Wellington College's...character.

Hilary: yeah, I imagined something like that would be the case.

Somewhere a cucumber is looking for its Sunbeam.

Not just that, it's on the other side of, specifically, *Ngauranga Gorge*, which is a pretty damn effective geographical barrier. There's no such obvious explanation for why Coll encompasses, frex, Roseneath but not Hataitai.

(I actually…

"School choice now, school choice tomorrow, school choice forever!"
...

"The headmaster of Auckland Grammar has threatened to obstruct efforts to escort nine low-decile students into the school grounds on their first day..."

I wonder…

Surprise me.
Weta is all about wealth = power = social dominance. It sure as shit…

My understanding is that the high decile schools make up for that lack of funding by charging (arguably illegal) fees. These fees of course, deter…

I'd say Karori & Wadestown also have Onslow College to choose from. Also, the southern suburbs are likely in the…

Metaphorical Heads, is that “Principals”? and what have they been rolling?.
Anyhoo.
The Ministry responded to Morning Report in a statement, saying ministry guidelines state “householder income should not be considered when zones are drawn up”.Can someone explain how this can be so when according…

Leaving aside the rest of it, if that's true, some metaphorical heads should be rolling.

A Fulbright scholar says some Auckland secondary schools admit deliberately skewing their enrolment zones in order to block enrolments by children from poor neighbourhoods.

True, there is now much less competition for university places in Japan.
It is also true that – partly as a result of the demographic shift – the standards of students accepted into university (and that’s any given Japanese…

Although they're starting to relax things a little. If there's one plus-side to Japan's ageing population, it's the receding of Japan's university entrance rat race, courtesy of fewer students applying in the first place.

Dunno, but I know what he would drive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-er9FqhYA

Not at all. Pressure-cooker education is precisely why we intend to move back to NZ by the time our wee one needs a primary school. I really don't like the state my students arrive at university in – [gross generalisation alert] intelligent, creative,…

No, it’s just that National Standards misses the point and is fixated on attacking the symptom.

Is pressure-cooker education really the way forward? Hardly likely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uem73imvn9Y

So we should lower our expectations for these kids?

I like those

And with constrained budget and staff, the money spent on testing is subtracted from the already inadequate resources for remedial action. Schools already know…

New Zealand Principals' Federation president Paul Drummond said principals and teachers were reporting increasing numbers of children arriving at school lacking basic abilities.

"The disparity and the gaps around…

Revisiting…

I think that parents probably did respond focussing on the impact on their childs education of having a couple extra kids in the class. But at the same time they are realising that the poor teacher will…

But IMO, National aren't treating only teachers wrong – they're treating public education and learning wrong – that's the point.

The fact that teachers are getting dumped on is a result of that. I'd prefer to focus on how National's policies…

You…

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/value-money-in-new-zealand-education-video-4939848

Is there much difference between Dio and St Cuths? I heard years and years ago that St Cuths girls were given a more well rounded education and were more tolerant.

Any truth to that?

Are we talking Oxford and Cambridge?

Proposed Dilworth school motto: Plurimus Probus De Pauperum (The most deserving…

I thought of it because it's the one way that otherwise-isolated kids from Dio/Cuth's/Kings/etc are likely to encounter kids who aren't from their parents' financial class while in social settings during their teens. Those schools are a pretty rarefied atmosphere, by and…

Likewise. I was responding to an observation that you made Tim!!! Not claiming that that was the main issue. Too intellectual for me :)

I don't know about the Dilworth example though. How many students are…

Very hard to tell. That part of Auckland has a reputation for being very racist, heavily populated with immigrants from societies and cultures that are very racially-intolerant (a colleague lives a few streets away from…

So is the Thurston College controversy an isolated case, or the…

Emphasising working closely with parents might blunt that 'reason' for notional standards.

One thing I do wonder about is how much blunting effect Dilworth has on the rise of real social stratification in Auckland. After all, by definition a Dilworth boy comes from…

I'm not sure about that, TBH. Maybe I'm just not rubbing shoulders with "the right people", but my experience with people from the "upper social classes" is…

Allan B'Stard: I'm sorry, I don't speak unemployed!

That’s how a filter system works. I see nothing sinister in these numbers.…

National standards measuring narrowly defined curriculum outputs will be used to generate blunt and meaningless league tables. These will in turn create fear and suspicion about neighbourhood schools. This is designed to increase the public appetite for private forms of education, including…

Oh, can I +that a gazillion?

And thanks, Yamis, for…

Too right.

Shifting the goalposts, methinks?

Thank you for this sentence Russell. Not many smiles in this thread but that's one. :-)

Tautoko mai na e Jackie-

"gimme a kid 'til ''e's 7"

gottit, right, eh?

We just had parent teacher interviews a couple of hours ago and her teacher said that they had to have those reports written and to the principal 5 weeks earlier and she had actually started…

To teach well requires a commitment to your vocation which many people do not understand and that includes politicians.

The latest OECD report ranked NZ Fourth out of 32 countries surveyed for educational outcomes in Literacy, Science and Maths…

We actually looked at Roy Greenslade's allegation that Murdoch had directed the…

And that's the problem. It's a bunch of lazy truisms strung together with a few…

The stereotype being – all teachers are unionised socialists, who work 9-3 and enjoy 12 weeks of paid holiday.

When did that become the dominant part…

Yet another newspaper opinionist bloviating on the basis of what he thinks he…

-35% of UK MPs elected in the 2010 General Election attended private schools, which educate just 7% of the school population.…

An exchange of letters in the Press over the last few days:
1) Visiting Wellingtonian is startled to hear racist abuse bandied about at a Christs College/CBHS rugby game – "Your Mum's our cleaner", the little shits…

nowadays almost the entire British political elite is narrowly drawn from those who matriculated at the Oxbridge universities.

As has always been the case.

Looking at that article, this isn't an entirely accurate summary – the 2000…

On that note, The Press thinks league tables are a great idea. Much of…

Yet it is almost certainly all in vain. Ninety percent of children in the UK attend publicly funded state secondary schools. But just five private schools send more pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than the next…

a natural location to trial charter schools.. :)

Copying that is bound to help NZ's hi-tech economy.

Pay parity is, in my humble opinion, one of the key aspects of our NZ education system.

It is an active and actual way of valuing all educators for their role in working with students who move through our education system. It is about saying the work…

NZEI Collective Agreement

You can also read the current collective agreements (if you really want). These agreements are coming up for negotiation now.

But you can't pay the best teachers more, they're all paid according to a pay scale that's based largely on qualifications I believe. Allowances for responsibilities are on top I think.

Someone more informed than me might be able to elaborate.

Scott you are mistaking numbers for information. It's a relatively common error especially when funding is dictated by people who spend their lives working with numbers.

Your version of the statement actually conveys less information but it has numbers and hence can…

Yes, fund decile 1,2,3 and 4 schools so damn well that they can afford the best teachers and more of them so that the decile 10 school are no longer the only choice. Wait isn't that…

Well back in 2008 I got angry that we got a National govt. Closest it got to god was me screaming " Jesus F... Christ!
Now I send emails complaining about whatever it is they plan…

Funnily enough, I…

Also, massive white flight from the inner cities to the (more expensive) suburbs, whose public schools are perceived to be “better”, because whiter and more middle…

Am I the only one disturbed that such a job title even exists?

Oh yes, it is. Immediate past headmaster John Morris once headed the Education Forum, the educational branch of the think tank formerly known as the Business Roundtable. And here’s…

It can be a real problem for secondary schools in some areas, however. My partner grew up in Blenheim,…

But that's not what national standards measures. Not even remotely close.

You really think so?

Because they are acting self-interestedly as are the kids concerned. But that's beside the point. Grammar is not a…

No, I’m saying that your professional judgement (assuming you are a teacher) is enhanced when presented in an objective way.

To illustrate my point Russel said:

__A friend of…

That’s easy, simply stop subsidising private schools with taxpayer dollars and see…

Russell, from the Schagen article:

__National standards are driven by a commitment to help students get the reading, writing and mathematics skills they need so they can learn all the subjects in the New Zealand curriculum and gain…

The Americans tried compulsory bussing years ago to de-segregate the public school system, and ultimately…

And by the time National was voted out, the real consequences were starting to bite. We tend to forget the disastrous state some of the "loser" schools were in by the end of the…

Too true. It’s not the teachers’ fault that social work has been foisted upon them by wider society. And as I’ve mentioned upthread, it’s unfortunately far sexier to attack the symptoms with…

Actually they do. I've also read articles which show that those with more money have a stronger set of extrinsic values (my post above) and have a lower IQ. (Which…

The problem is not enough socialism for the rich, and not enough free market for the poor.

I also think that it is a little more complex than…

If that’s the case, then why are the likes of Auckland Grammar cherry-picking and poaching…

I was thinking about this last night while I made dinner and came to the same conclusion. What is being threatened for education is much more frightening than…

Not so sure when electricity is utterly crucial for the 21st century industries that we need more of.

Yet no government has fixed that unfair bulk funding system. Why not?

I honestly don't think you understand how national standards work in practice.

Our older boy had a reading deficit identified and received Reading Recovery support at primary school. Of course schools track the…

The problem is not enough socialism for the rich, and not enough free market for the poor.

I don’t agree. You can’t efficiently identify and assist under-performing students if you can’t measure them objectively.…

I don't know and I'd be happy to see data to the contrary, but my…

The downside of the zoning system is you can't get in if you're out of zone, the upside is the school must accept your…

So what's the solution? When National scrapped zoning the result was chaos. Build more schools?

I think…

Most successful school systems grant greater autonomy to individual schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies, but these school systems do not necessarily allow…

ETA And by pretty limited I mean one primary school (luckily it's a good one), and it looks like only two non-religious high schools? One…

The current experience in the inner west schools is not isolated either, I know the…

Well that settles it, then. We're not having any more kids.

Funny that the government wants to…

It's a great resource — I spent many an hour flipping back and forth between TradeMe, plugging…

Yes, absolutely. It's hard enough anyway getting your disabled child the education to which they're entitled. The pressure of league tables would make it much, much…

I stand corrected. Our old house would have been just out of the current zone for Westmere…

Sadly, to actually do something about it and getting results will likely get shot down as 'PC gone mad' – Closing the Gaps was a case in point. Anti-PC,…

We've a 4 year old son who'll start school early next year.

We live in zone for a d1 school. We have visited that school and felt it wouldn't give the education we want for our son.

We have visited 4…

One can call it many things though socialism is not one – there is a need to make a comprehensive list – welfare, income tax reform, corporate welfare, hand outs – kindly add…

Which did not happen by itself. Journalists could ask more about that.

The problem is not enough socialism for the rich, and not enough free market for the poor.

Our teenagers rank VERY highly in the OECD and also our NCEA pass rates nationally have been creeping up year on year since they were brought in and yet there's this idea that things are broken.

What follows is a bit of a rant about sample sizes…

I'm still not convinced we've got enough of an education issue in our educational system to warrant the absolute overhaul of…

I once thought that a sack of potatoes would be better than Phil Goff, but then the Labour caucus actually elected a sack of potatoes as his replacement and it turned out to be no better at all.

Your experience is somewhat out of date now though, those schools you mention with the addition of Pt Chev to the list have enrolment zones with very, very few out of zone enrolments.

The net effect is you have no choice,…

What's interesting is we got her report last week and the things that she apparently couldn't…