Posts by John Holley
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What is the bigger worry for me is if someone who knew of the security holes used the information for a range of purposes - the best intrusion is where you use the data for gain and those you copied it from are unaware of your level of knowledge.
So this can make things like benefit fraud easier (I can check what the investigators are doing), identity theft becomes real easy as I have a whole lot of personal details (send me a credit card please),and if RFPs were accessible this would give me in the inside knowledge I could use to get contracts. The list goes on.
The problem is we will probably never know what information has been taken for illegal purposes and where it has been used.
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Ironically the evidence was out there since Aug 10. No one connected the dots for over 6 weeks...
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Brilliant article! Thanks!!!
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If anyone wants, I have put up the MoE Provisional Leavers attainment stats (Decile/School type/Ethnicity) for 2011. E&OE!
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Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Kumara Republic,
I will have to put them online tonight :)
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I was pretty pissed off when I received the email yesterday (I'm the Board Chair of Liston College in Henderson). But I am a firm believer in open government and the importance of OIA/LGOIMA.
So while my initial reaction was to give a proverbial digital finger to Fairfax, as a Board Member with legal responsibilities, I can see no justification in not providing a public document when legally requested. School National Standards (being neither national or standardised) returns have normally been provided to the MoE as part of the Board's Annual Report. So to meet this OIA claim we (Liston College) are sending him the section of the Annual Report that has the collated data the MoE required us to include. (and we won't be waiting 20 days)
Now this means, potentially, 100's of different responses in different formats/reporting structures/media type etc. so Hartevelt/Fairfax are going to have a lot of fun. I suspect though they may focus in on areas where you can compare high and low decile schools with similar catchment areas.
Like others here, we don't turn away special needs boys - that would absolutely not be in keeping with our special character!
What is missing from this is MoE statistics for 2011 that show a direct correlation between no achievement by school leavers and decile. The MoE numbers clearly show that the richer your parents are, the more likely you are to achieve at all levels of NCEA. This is the story Fairfax should be focussed on - the effect of poverty on under achievement in education in NZ.
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Great news! ( as I sit here in Canada at midnight).
I think JK will bring a similar style to Pat Lam, but with a hard edge that comes from his ABs time and his battle with depression.
Pat Lam has set up a great foundation for JK to exploit.
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Awesome result for you Russell and the crew - and for all us fans!
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National Standards and NCEA are modifying behaviour of school management across the country. Here is an OIA for someone to make of secondary schools in relation to NCEA achievement rates:
How many students, and why, do you exclude from your NCEA results at levels 1, 2 and 3?
The school I am the board chair for takes the view that all students, including those with special needs, should be included in our NCEA achievement statistics. Our view is that we are a school community and every student matters. I know that other schools in Auckland exclude certain students to bolster their achievement rates.
Why? Well whether you like it or not, the media (and often schools themselves) create league tables and a few special needs students can have quite an impact on your achievement levels.
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Hard News: Reading the Numbers, in reply to Ben Curran,
The challenge is that so much of policy is being driven by spreadsheets (Treasury) without any understanding of the true operational impacts e.g reduced educational outcomes.
One thing that has been missed is that, where schools are forced to reduce staff numbers, and can't do so via attrition, they must go through the "redeployment" process in the Teachers award. This means, in a primary school for example, EVERY scale A teacher (pretty much all teachers) will have to reapply for their positions. The School is not at liberty to pick who goes. This means some good teachers who have had enough may just take one of the other options in the award and leave teaching altogether.
Why no howls? Well NZSTA seems firmly in bed with the Minister rather than being the independent voice for parents and Boards that they are meant to be. I am a Board Chair and have been stunned how NZSTA have been doing the "Dunne" to protect their relationship with the Minister.