This may seem disappointing from a pedagogical perspective, but given the quality of education he receives I am not concerned. The teachers, I should say, are great, but they are working in a system and world view that mandates and enforces mediocracy.
No matter. The aforementioned urchin will spend part of the break at a holiday programme where they are meant to teach coding. From what I have observed it is mostly how to create avatars in Minecraft, but even so, that is preferable to whatever passes for teaching in the state sector.
This is remarkable given that none of the tutors have the requisite four-year tertiary qualification required to be a real teacher. This is itself a rort.
Each Saturday we send our offspring to a private tutoring academy where, for two hours, enthusiastic university undergrads engage with school kids for beer money. You will struggle to find a more positive learning environment.
Meanwhile, the gold-plated state sector atrophies. A Ministry of Education strategy document in March 2022 admitted, “the system is not serving over a quarter of learners well in their literacy learning”.
That is an understatement, and the proposed solution was a booklet of platitudes without meaning or urgency. The ministry proposed it would, “work with families, iwi and community, in culturally sustaining ways, to enrich maths learning”. So, nothing.
What an opportunity for Mr Air New Zealand! He launched his education policy last month. How did he do?
Sadly, National’s solution is weaker than a homeopathic remedy for cold sores. Despite a list of failures, their remedy is to mandate numeracy and literacy for one hour a day!
One hour a day. Now. I am reluctant to defend the current dysfunction that passes for schools, but one hour of actual education assumes students are currently receiving less than that, which seems improbable.
The kids seem able to read the instructions on a vape packet, and they didn’t get that from YouTube, so something must be going on.
Luxon is proposing to re-write the curriculum to something that suits the world view as seen by the National Party; presumably more Kipling and less kingitanga. But the opposition has failed to correctly diagnose the problem, which prevents them from designing a solution.
The blind spot that limits National is the belief that all that is required to fix an institution is to put better people in charge.
Alas, you can no more repair our education system than you can breathe life back into a steamship company. Changing the CEO of Blockbuster would not have saved it from extinction, and swapping a red minister for a blue one isn’t going to change the incentive structures and institutional culture that pervades the education sector.
Our public education, despite a focus on te reo and te ao Māori, has so alienated indigenous students that only a third meet the criteria for regular attendance.
Two thirds of Māori students are not attending school at least 90% of the time. Many not at all.
This is rational. At some point these children and their parents accepted that there is diminishing value to being at school. The same conclusion that half of pākeha families have reached, and decided to embark on the responsibilities of adulthood, in whatever form that looks like, a year or two early.
We are creating an underclass of undereducated children where those with brown skin are consistently faring worse than their pākehā and Asian peers. This is a structural fracture line in a multi-cultural society.
The failure of the Labour Māori caucus to confront this crisis of their own tamariki is something for them to answer for. At some stage you would think that a moral imperative to protect and educate your children would cause even the softest of ministerial leather to feel a little coarse.
Apparently not.
What we have is the inevitable result of a single-payer system where there is no market pressure or discipline, where teachers are insulated from poor performance, where the consumers of education are impotent in the face of poor service, where students are locked into local monopolies, and we are unable to reward good schools and punish bad ones.
We are running our schools the same way we used to run Telecom, and with the same dismal results.
In the face of this intergenerational unfortunate experiment, the Opposition leader thinks a bit of tinkering at a governance level will fix it.
Does he really believe that an edict from the Beehive to the teachers to “be better” is going to do anything, when those running the schools, those teaching the kids, those running the ministry, will all remain ensconced?
There was a brief period when then-prime minister Jim Bolger was pressured by his education minister, Lockwood Smith, into bringing some market discipline to the education sector through the bulk funding of schools.
It was a pathetic response to what was then a failing sector, but even that was vastly more ambitions than the white flag of National’s current policy.
Reform means permanent, structural change that frees up the private sector to service this market; kills the monopoly on tertiary trained teachers; and destroys the power of the ministry that priorities the wishes of teachers over the needs of children.......The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.
Each Saturday we send our offspring to a private tutoring academy where, for two hours, enthusiastic university undergrads engage with school kids for beer money. You will struggle to find a more positive learning environment.
Meanwhile, the gold-plated state sector atrophies. A Ministry of Education strategy document in March 2022 admitted, “the system is not serving over a quarter of learners well in their literacy learning”.
That is an understatement, and the proposed solution was a booklet of platitudes without meaning or urgency. The ministry proposed it would, “work with families, iwi and community, in culturally sustaining ways, to enrich maths learning”. So, nothing.
What an opportunity for Mr Air New Zealand! He launched his education policy last month. How did he do?
Sadly, National’s solution is weaker than a homeopathic remedy for cold sores. Despite a list of failures, their remedy is to mandate numeracy and literacy for one hour a day!
One hour a day. Now. I am reluctant to defend the current dysfunction that passes for schools, but one hour of actual education assumes students are currently receiving less than that, which seems improbable.
The kids seem able to read the instructions on a vape packet, and they didn’t get that from YouTube, so something must be going on.
Luxon is proposing to re-write the curriculum to something that suits the world view as seen by the National Party; presumably more Kipling and less kingitanga. But the opposition has failed to correctly diagnose the problem, which prevents them from designing a solution.
The blind spot that limits National is the belief that all that is required to fix an institution is to put better people in charge.
Alas, you can no more repair our education system than you can breathe life back into a steamship company. Changing the CEO of Blockbuster would not have saved it from extinction, and swapping a red minister for a blue one isn’t going to change the incentive structures and institutional culture that pervades the education sector.
Our public education, despite a focus on te reo and te ao Māori, has so alienated indigenous students that only a third meet the criteria for regular attendance.
Two thirds of Māori students are not attending school at least 90% of the time. Many not at all.
This is rational. At some point these children and their parents accepted that there is diminishing value to being at school. The same conclusion that half of pākeha families have reached, and decided to embark on the responsibilities of adulthood, in whatever form that looks like, a year or two early.
We are creating an underclass of undereducated children where those with brown skin are consistently faring worse than their pākehā and Asian peers. This is a structural fracture line in a multi-cultural society.
The failure of the Labour Māori caucus to confront this crisis of their own tamariki is something for them to answer for. At some stage you would think that a moral imperative to protect and educate your children would cause even the softest of ministerial leather to feel a little coarse.
Apparently not.
What we have is the inevitable result of a single-payer system where there is no market pressure or discipline, where teachers are insulated from poor performance, where the consumers of education are impotent in the face of poor service, where students are locked into local monopolies, and we are unable to reward good schools and punish bad ones.
We are running our schools the same way we used to run Telecom, and with the same dismal results.
In the face of this intergenerational unfortunate experiment, the Opposition leader thinks a bit of tinkering at a governance level will fix it.
Does he really believe that an edict from the Beehive to the teachers to “be better” is going to do anything, when those running the schools, those teaching the kids, those running the ministry, will all remain ensconced?
There was a brief period when then-prime minister Jim Bolger was pressured by his education minister, Lockwood Smith, into bringing some market discipline to the education sector through the bulk funding of schools.
It was a pathetic response to what was then a failing sector, but even that was vastly more ambitions than the white flag of National’s current policy.
Reform means permanent, structural change that frees up the private sector to service this market; kills the monopoly on tertiary trained teachers; and destroys the power of the ministry that priorities the wishes of teachers over the needs of children.......The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.
6 comments:
The Education Portfolio is arguably the most contentious one where a single change would go a long way to restoring the system to its previous international standing.
Unlike many of the other government departments which are suffering from self inflicted wounds on different fronts, Education could be restored to something approaching its former self by simply promisingly to repeal all the rubbish legislation, so much of which is based on lies about our early history.
I can't understand why National appears reluctant to promise such a commitment.
They must know that such a move would ensure so many more votes than a similar commitment to the repeal of 3 Waters legislation which on it's own is likely to be enough to.bring the government down.
A no brainer really!
It won't be easy, but best thing you can do for your kids is to take them out of the Marxist indoctrination system that masquerades as state schooling, and home school.
Damien, I watched 2 interviews this weekend. Tame interviewing Brown, then Wright interviewing Luxon. Both reporters fixated on one line of attack the entire interview.
Wright stating over and over again that Luxon lacked cut through, Tame fixated on Brown lacking empathy. Both attacks were pathetic to anyone with any rational thought. Tame demonstrated he had no knowledge of the local government structures and the roles of the Mayor and CEO, Wright tried to dismiss every policy/idea Luxon was put forward by telling him he didn't know if they would work (despite Luxon giving her the percentage reduction of violet crime from the programs),
What do you think the reaction would be if Luxon came out and said he will restructure the entire education sector?
Your suggestions for education reform have already been successfully implemented by National and ACT - Charter schools. It was Chris Hipkins who reversed them.
The unfortunate side affect of your irrational single dimension criticism, is you will contribute to another Labour term. Then you'll gave plenty to complain about.
Concur.
I asked Luxon and Ms Stanford whether they would repeal the damage in law or Ministry initiatives ( the Te Ao refresh and NZ History curricula). Silence.
Do they even have anyone expert in Education?
Definitely linked to not losing the Maori vote.
I correct Damien on his quote from Luxon's policy statement. The word 'each is present referring to reading , writing and arithmetic. I don't apologize for the use of old school terminology here because that is what they are at primary school. You can't teach algebra and other higher level maths. activities until you are well grounded in arithmetic.
Unfortunately ,if children do an hour of guessing at words from pictures and context rather than focusing on phonics,then trying to work out maths problems in groups ,with no knowledge of tables and asked to use a multitude of strategies in basic manipulations, followed by maths games on a computer , then using invented spelling in written work with the random use of capitals,sentence structure and having nothing marked in any area, then they may as well stay home and be saved from these destructive anti-learning endeavours.
There is an overload of free structured learning tutorials on the internet: learn up phonics instruction, teach the tables and work through simple arithmetic manipulations and practice writing sentences.There are plenty of free spelling lists to be found. Home schoolers are recorded as having higher standards.
________________________________________
Damian has mischaracterised National’s Education policy on several counts. As Erica says above, National would require all primary and intermediate schools to spend an average of an hour each on reading, writing, and maths every day. Furthermore, it would rewrite the curriculum to include clear requirements about the specific knowledge and skills primary and intermediate schools need to cover for each school year in reading, writing, maths and science. It would also invest in bringing the teaching workforce up to speed with research-validated methods of teaching the basics. National’s proposed policy is about much more than re-jigged administration.
Damian is right, however, to point out that no state education system will succeed alongside the high levels of truancy that we have today. The ACT Party has developed practical carrots-&-sticks solutions to combat truancy. These are outlined on their website, and should accompany any future investment of taxpayer funding into our state schools.
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