Posts by Sacha
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no hopers in groups riding on the "success" of the others
Learning how to cope with that dynamic is essential preparation for life and work. After all, our ambitious leader tells us:
New Zealand simply can’t afford a future where 20 percent of our workforce does not have the skills necessary for modern jobs.
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This year National will progress the education reforms that are necessary to address underachievement in our schools, improve young New Zealanders’ job opportunities and drive improved educational performance across the board.
We will implement a range of reforms to lift the performance of these schools, and ensure that where children need extra help they get it. This will include improving the training of our teachers, both in our training institutions and in professional development programmes; refocusing the tens of millions currently aimed at struggling students; and intervening more aggressively in schools which are consistently failing their students.
Laughable in light of our conversation above. Punitive in tone and lacking in any concrete idea how to meet the aspirations cited. Genuinely modern job opportunities - and innovative export businesses - seem well beyond the imagination of the wallies in charge.
And 'refocusing' extra assistance where?
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TL:DR (too long, didn't read)
Always wondered what that meant. See, learning all the time..
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There's a time and place.
I don't think it's all group work.
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I feel almost compelled to link to a vindaloo recipe. Almost.
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It already is
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Does the query imply that people have been commenting on the party policy without reading it?
Perhaps assuming that the Ministry's policy is the same as Government policy is the same as what the National party sold to voters. Touching of us.
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Practically, unmoderated publishing of either individual results or aggregates can encourage changes in systemic behaviour that undermine learning outcomes. Excluding students who will reduce averages is one. Teaching to the test is another.
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Thanks for that, Hilary. Seems the Ministry is trying to make this work properly, though it's not them I'm worried about.
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High taxes, low educational attainment, red tape holding business back - all of these memes are the opposite of objective reality
Mikaere, I guess this is what I was touching on above. We're kidding ourselves if we think a rational argument is the answer here.
Those opposing this dangerous silliness must apply better political framing and mount a coordinated campaign that can't be blithely dismissed as unions stirring or teachers dodging accountability.
Get some of the reasoning out there like the great future-oriented stuff above, but make sure it's packaged well and backed up by smart action - and does not naively assume that everyone shares the same values, but does prey on any ideological consistencies.
For instance, if you believe there's already a level playing field, that success is a result only of individual effort and that rewarding it is the most important thing, then where do you suspect any extra investment should go after standards identify 'winners' and 'losers'? But will that actually result in a future where your children will prosper?
Key's tone ahead of today's tax anouncements has been interesting with his talk of fairness. However, the pollies behind this abomination will all need a strong push before they act any differently, given how well and how long their current style has apparently worked for them:
For instance, my brother and two of my neices are teachers, and damn good ones. They talk about their kids a lot and struggle to help the ones who are not doing so well. None of them like standards – it’s just an extra workload that has no discernnable educational outcome beyond providing an ignorant media a stick with which to beat the usual suspects (low decile schools) with – and they really, really dislike Anne Tolley.
Now, it has to be said their opinions are a little tainted. They are teachers in Hawke’s Bay where local society is small enough for accurate, first hand assessments of Tolley’s abilitie (or lack of them) to have been formed long before she hit the national stage. You know, two of my older sisters went to school with Anne Tolley, and have moved in vaguely the same circles ever since, and her bellicose stupidity was celebrated as early as the third form. The scuttlebutt of stories about Tolley’s egotism are legion and some are quite amusing (discretion & libel laws makes the unrepeatable of course).
She is regarded in Napier (outside the similarly stupid wannabe petty ancien regime that Hawke’s Bay specialised in creating and provides the base of the National Party there – no one exists in a vacuum) as a bit of a joke, albeit a pig headed and occassionally dangerous one.
Given that everyone in the Bay knows what she is like, that she has made it to be education minister should cause serious pause for thought about our political process in all of us, and Key’s role in it all calls into very serious question his judgement as well.
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at high school level even the teachers were struggling with transliterating higher concepts.
Shame on Turia for exempting kura from national standards. If any schools need it it's kura.
Robbie, I think you may have answered your own question there. Practically, I doubt this rushed change has allowed any time to translate and verify the material and concepts.