Posts by Russell Brown
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I’ve decided on one thing that summarises my pissed-offness with how this National government acts.
National standards.
It was a campaign slogan rushed into law under urgency shortly after the Key government took office. Avoiding select committee scrutiny was a feature, not a bug, in that process. Had it been considered like any ordinary bill, the government would have had the embarrassing experience of hearing its own officials explain all the problems with what it was trying to do.
Still, it might have been saved. There was still a possibility of using standards to get real, useful data about how kids were learning. Tolley’s office had a chief research analyst who’d been through the British experience and was very well versed in what not to do.
Which, naturally, turns out to be what National did. There was something really contemptuous about the way this was dumped in the final week of the campaign. Schools will be forced to publish their National Standards results – and the government will make no attempt to prevent these data being compiled into comparative league tables, even though they simply are not comparable.
Even though the use of the data in this way introduces perverse incentives that destroy the research value of the data. National’s even going to give “good” schools more money.
And even though Tolley promised a year ago to prevent efforts to compile such tables. Now it’s just going to happen.
I’m disgusted by the whole thing. By the pointless war Tolley has fought with boards, principals, teachers and parents the length of the country. By the fact that they could foist this on the system without even a trial. By her arrogance. By the utter stupidity of defying advice and ignoring experience in favour of a soundbite.
There are plenty of other examples of National ignoring good sense and evidence, but this one seems the most precisely contemptuous to me.
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A fat gut in a studded belt
I believe the word there isn't "gut" but something stronger.
Still, you've probably saved WebMarshal filters the length of the country from blowing up by not using that particular word in the first line of the post.
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In the band room with The Chills, somewhere in the Netherlands, 1987. Taken on timer by Simon Alexander.
Back row: Andrew Frengley, Lisa Coleman, Simon Alexander, Justin Harwood.
Centre row: Martin Phillipps, Kate Tattersfield, Craig Taylor, Caroline Easter.
And that’ll be me front and centre.
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Headless Chickens, publicity shot around the time of their first album. It's in Queen Street -- you can see the Civic building behind them. Photographer unknown.
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We knew we had arrived at the right house because one of the Androidss was outside smoking a joint.
Wonderful.
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Hard News: The Solemnity of the Day, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Perhaps The Standardistas could try not pissing on the people whose job it is to apply legislation (and do a damn good job, IMNSHO) and direct their bile at the people who write it? Just sayin’…
Quite.
The EC is feeling its way and it needs to rethink the way it frames its message – which deep down is basically that we should observe the spirit of the law – but people there genuinely are trying to apply the law with which they are presented.
Mind you, I honestly think the Standard has been outdone in this campaign by the febrile snarling from most of the right-wing blogs, especially over the teapot tapes. I’ve found those quite unpleasant. FFS, people, your guy’s gonna win – try and show at least a scrap of grace.
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Hard News: Sharing the Wealth, in reply to JacksonP,
But have you got the White Label?
Pah. Original acetate.
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Capture: Walk across the rooftops., in reply to Damian Christie,
it's nice that it's so much easier these days
Yes, the new photoblog functionality is available to you too as an option. Jackson will explain the details :-)
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Capture: Capture One, in reply to JacksonP,
We are working on this, although it appears to happen when you don't wait until the photo loads before refreshing the page.
Thinking that trying a smaller file size would be useful.
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Capture: Walk across the rooftops., in reply to Lilith __,
and now we can do that with words and pictures, how awesome is that?!
Way awesome.
