Posts by Paul Williams
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Well, the text offended me as much as the picture (more so, in a way). Any way, in the finest tradition of teh blogz I got ever so slightly irritated (some mild-ish language including the P-word, so probably marginal for work viewing).
All fair I'd've thought.
I've not seen the offending imagery or text but have heard enough to not need to. I simply don't understand how this small bunch of idiots aren't being actively discouraged by more experienced players (present company excluded). They do their cause far more damage than good.
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Don't mean to be rude Paul but I really would like you to be more specific about which bit of this report constitutes bugger all evidence.
Not at all, I kinda expected the question. My recollection of the study is a little hazy and I wasn't directly involved, although some of my colleagues were. The report does not directly estimate the educational effect as it is too soon and there are a number of other factors at play which make isolating class sizes difficult but your right that the report does say that all parties did perceive benefits.
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OK, that's enough - I got send a link to the damn thing, and am just ashamed to (presumably) share a species with the utter, utter fuck-tard who posted it. Tempted to name and shame, except 1) I rather doubt the person responsible is capable of shame, and 2) it would probably lead to traffic which I don't want to (even indirectly) reward 'the offender with.
Craig, for what it's worth, though I'm clear you've got different politics to me, I've never associated you with that particularly odious crowd and I can completely understand your desire to restate your independence.
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Surely, the report is online here. You might note that the results are largely described in terms of whether teachers, parents and principals agree with this statement or that... this is partly because the trial is still ongoing with respect to educational outcomes.
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81st column, there's actually bugger all evidence for smaller class sizes being particularly effective. A trial in NSW was pretty inconclusive. BTW, speaking of NSW... who'd have thunk it. Hive-mind?
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I wonder what the evidence is behind increasing leaving ages. I would have thought that if a person is flopping around and failing at school at age 16, that another year or two is probably just going to be more flopping around and failing. If a system hasn't worked for you for 11 years, is two more going to make a difference?
There is evidence for the value of keeping kids in school, but only if they are achieving (as measured in terms of qualifications). Access Economics (Aus) estimated that increasing senior secondary retention rates to 90% will lead to a 1.1% increase in GDP, the report is here. There's all sorts of assumptions implicit in this modelling, and I think that some of them aren't all that robust, but it's not an unreasonable report/conclusion. The key point is, however, that the retention alone isn't the goal, the goal is achievement. In which case, I'd still argue for an education, not school, leaving age.
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Well, Paul, I feel the same about raising the school leaving age -- and I think it's fair comment to ask "where is the work on the additional funding, resources and staff that will be required? And how is this going to lead to more students leaving school with meaningful qualifications, as opposed to just 'warehousing' folks to keep the welfare and unemployment rolls artificially depressed?"
I'd prefer an increase to the education leaving age which is not nearly as expensive and is more likely to be effective. With some reorganisation and better articulation, so-called second chance programs can be effective and can lead to both qualifications and jobs.
Lets not overlook the horrific numbers of people who leave compulsory education every year with no qualifications.
Given the base they are starting from, most second chance education providers do a fantastic job, and the outcomes many of them achieve surpass the fairly dismal results that schools achieve by comparison. If allowing for education provision that actually fits the learning needs of these kids is what is proposed, I'm all for it.
The numbers leaving school with no qualifications are declining - by the looks of it, around 11% leave with little or no formal qualifications. This is a group that need specific attention and highly customised training - elsewhere in this thread I've mentioned some Australian work that estimated the costs at around three times that of other post-compulsory training - and I agree this is probably not best done by schools (though I'm not convinced that Training Opportunities and Youth Training are working as well as they could - if anyone knows what happened to the review done, called something like Pathways and Staircasing, I'd be very interested to know).
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That wasn't the State of the Nation speech, it was the State of Manurewa speech. He should have been standing for Sir Barry Curtis's old job, not Helen Clark's.
Perhaps that's what is meant by a "small target" approach?
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Raising the school leaving age has been on Labour's shelf for ages. Mallard/Maharey toyed with the idea of an education leaving age quite early in their terms. It's worth noting that almost every new initiative in education and training since the '80s has had retention as a goal but some have been very poorly designed. I think Key's falls into this category not least of all because the training is not likely to lead anywhere i.e. a qualification.
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Which I suspect is what it will come down to. The 2002 Labour strategy covered in the story I linked to earlier looked great on paper, but it's been really hard to make work, in part because the people in the relevant agencies are already running at capacity.
That's generous! If you mean the Tertiary Education Strategy, then I'd say agencies simply didn't do a good job. In their defence, it was a significant change and not all the necessary tools were available. I don't think there was a policy failure however, which is why I think Key's got a problem.