Posts by mic weevil
-
Great post, thanks Keith.
Something else relevant to the discussion of John Key as pundit du jour:
It is part of the strategy of the Nats to make Key an everyday guy who you could have a beer with. By constantly asking his opinions of all and sundry current affairs, he is given a platform to deliver his watercooler take in exactly this kind of way.
It is the modern evolution of Roosevelt’s fireside chats: an opportunity for the PM to present as just a good old guy with an opinion like everybody else…
-
Busytown: School bully, in reply to NBH,
easier just to rename with a vaguely university-sounding name: ie. Unitec, or the deluded grandeur of Palmy's "universal college of learning" (UCOL)
-
OnPoint: Re: Education, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
this really is entry-level statistics.
it extremely advanced journalism to whine about academic standards while disregarding the academic critique of their statistical basis by elitist "priests". um, maths is a science, nowadays, granny Herald.
-
OnPoint: Re: Education, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
This fundamentally misunderstands the role of the media in a democracy.
Truth to power. Public accountability with public money. Etc.
in that case, I think the media fundamentally misunderstand the role of the media in a democracy (Herald and Stuff at least...)
-
OnPoint: Because Statistical Rigour, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'm struggling to see where it tells me five eighths of fuck all.
You know the standard measure for fuck all in metrics & decimals now, right?
-
OnPoint: Because Statistical Rigour, in reply to DexterX,
The answer I come up with is, "A change of government".
That's been the standard answer to a lot of my questions lately...
-
OnPoint: Because Statistical Rigour, in reply to Russell Brown,
Well, no, these numbers won’t let you “measure the teachers” at all,
aside from the obvious problems - ie. with using a set of stats that distill a huge number of complex variables into some simplified, aggregated, unmoderated figures - identifying teacher quality based on the performance of a school's aggregate scores is impossible. every school has good and bad teachers. even if you send your kid ta a great school they might still get a "bad one" (I actually don't think there are any bad teachers - just some that cope with being overworked, overstressed and underpaid better than others).
I take it the school and ERO / MOE are able to examine the data on a teacher by teacher basis, but even still I can't see an easy way of extricating the influence of teaching quality from the other socioeconomic, biological and environmental factors that impact on student's learnification. It just seems like a huge amount of effort to go to to obtain data of dubious value...
-
apologies for shamelessly self promoting, but I released (aka uploaded to bandcamp) my new album:
and appreciate your ear traffick.
</shameless>
-
Hard News: Keeping our heads on "bath salts", in reply to Russell Brown,
It's actually a huge step to permit the sale of a psychoactive substance that has no recognised therapeutic use -- but which people simply wish to take -- but I think it's the only sensible way forward.
As a parent - recognising my child will quite possibly experiment with drugs at some point in her life - if I had a choice over what substance they were going to take I would prefer it to be MDMA or marijuana than whatever toxic garbage is currently available by dint of having not yet been prohibited.
-
Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Sacha,
One of these days people will notice that the Greens are an exceptionally competent party.
And it is certainly a breath of fresh air to watch people engaging in the parliamentary process in good faith.
