I have a son who is a professional fire-fighter. I would imagine that they most basic advice they receive is to point the hose at the fire.
Stanford has done almost nothing on what all data and research show to be the most important aspects for the education of our children and young people. There is barely any water going on the flames.
These are the absolute key areas for the contribution of education towards our future.
1. How to support parenting so that the vast majority of 5 year olds arrive at school ready to fully engage and with the basics of a love of learning, good behaviours, as well as numeracy and literacy in place. This includes parents reading to their children and being fully informed of key aspects of development from conception until 5 years old (at least).
2. Massively improving school attendance. She has allocated just 0.7 of 1% of VOTE education to improving this aspect – that remains in deep crises.
3. How to significantly close the gaps between those who achieve – and those who don’t (concentrated among poorer families, Maori and Pasifika). 2024 school leavers data shows that the proportion of school leavers with no qualifications has risen to 16% for all ethnicities. This is the worst in a decade and it well-and-truly under her watch. It is now 28% for Maori youth. Appalling – but I do not see a single ounce of effort from Stanford on this. Let this statistic land … 28% of Maori youth are leaving school with no qualification. Will the proposed qualifications changes improve this? What are the future consequences?
4. Improving the quality of outcomes of every high school. There is actually some low hanging fruit here with an easy to implement programme. NZ only has 460 high schools. To have every one of them create a 5 year improvement plan for outcomes – aims and how to achieve them – is easy and can be highly effective. I have already been working with some schools on this in a private capacity.
5. Improving the quality of teachers. While there has been some emphasis on this – the impact of poorly consulted curriculum changes, and barely consulted qualifications changes, will have massive work conditions implications for teachers (i.e. chaos). While teachers remain in a collective contract that restricts the ability to reward high contributors – the prospect for true change remains low.
6. The huge hand-brake of a massive and inept Ministry of Education has barely been challenged by Stanford. National/ACT promised to reduce the employment numbers in the Ministry to 2,700 (pre-Hipkins) but it remains near 4,000. Even one of Stanford’s best friends, Tim O’Connor of Auckland Grammar – recently stated that the Ministry serves little purpose and should be disestablished. Stanford has not even been able to appoint a new Secretary for Education – nearly a year after the previous one left.
As someone who fully evaluates the outcomes of our education system each year … the current changes will do nothing to halt the decline – except that students from high performing schools, and privileged demographics, will have a better qualification to get themselves into international study.
Alwyn Poole, a well-known figure in the New Zealand education system, he founded and was the head of Mt Hobson Middle School in Auckland for 18 years. This article was published HERE
11 comments:
Alwyn I read this expecting to see some ideas or suggestions on how to fix the issues you outlined…..but nothing. Yes there are a lot of problems but there is No point complaining if you’ve got nothing of value to contribute towards fixing the issues.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
Stanford has made an extraordinary start converting the NZ education system to emulate the successful UK model.
Copying an existing successful model is far wiser than reading and trying to incorporate the miriad of, often conflicting, education studies into a new untried structure and system.
Stanford's outstanding achievements in 18 short months, operating in the terrible nz education environment where teacher's and their unions don't give a damn about our kids education as long as wages go up, workloads come down, and no-one is held accountable for their multi generational failures, include:
1. Change the curriculum back to the good ol' 3 Rs
2. Remove Maori mumbo jumbo from mainstream education whilst creating an expensive parallel Maori system to quell the inevitable despicable nz press' / Hipkins' (junior and senior) howling.
3. Create a standardized, independent National measurement system so parents can see and judge schools', principals', and teachers' performance.
4. Establish Charter Schools whilst creating a pathway for existing schools to adopt the managerially superior charter school model.
5. Read and respond to her emails (Willow Jean take note).
Asking Stanford to take on parenting for ages 1 to 4 at the same time dosn't seem fair or realistic Alwyn.
Point 5 of this article invokes the CPD (Continuing Professional Development) of teachers to prepare them for system changes and mentor them through. A very useful model to follow is the Japanese one. All teachers must undertake 100 hr/year of in-service education and training, themes and activities for which are determined by the Ministry of Education, Universities of Education (yes, you read that right!) and professional teacher bodies.
I am not sure that I agree with Balanced above that the UK model is particularly successful. An important structural difference between the UK and European systems is that all post-primary schooling in the former occurs under the same roof, whereas lower and upper secondary are institutionally separate on the Continent. The Sixth Form Colleges the UK began introducing 60 years ago have been very successful but some local education authorities have resisted them for ideological reasons.
The European model - largely emulated by the SFCs - involves 'tracking' upper secondary students into programmes that mesh with specific tertiary destinations - university, polytechnic, or vocational training. The French system, for instance, has three Baccalaureates: academic, technical and vocational. Individual schools tend to emphasise one of the tracks. In Germany, for instance, there are upper secondary colleges that are entirely devoted to vocational education and training, often in tandem with a technical college.
Excellent observation Barend.
Once Stanford has established the educational basics for success back into the NZ system;
It would be a dream come true to see her implement the German 2 tier secondary school structure.
Trying to implement that structure before the basics are in place would fail.
How will the system determine which students go where without an effective, dispassionate ranking system / qualification?
Stanford has been on the job less than 2 years. How anyone can possibly blame her for any of the things mentioned here is beyond me.
How is the Minister for Education responsible for parenting pre 5 year olds? Or truancy? Isn’t this the parents’ responsibility?
If 28% of Maori kids drop out of school, how is this Erica Stanford’s fault?
How can you possibly blame her for the quality of New Zealand's teachers?
It’s clear that Stanford is part of the solution, not the problem. She’s demonstrated the ability to make some very difficult decisions that will tremendously benefit the New Zealand education system in the long term.
She should be applauded, and doesn’t deserve this level of criticism.
We need more like her.
If 100 hr/yr in-service training was to be implemented here, with directives like this in the latest ETA Bill:
“… to ensure that the school gives effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, including by—
(i) achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students; and
(ii) working to ensure that its plans, policies, and teaching and learning programmes reflect local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori; and
(iii) taking all reasonable steps to make instruction available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori…” I'd suggest it’s unlikely to be a mystery where the majority of teacher training time would be spent and what would be the overall benefit to the vast majority of students i9n that event?
And, “Balanced” (aka, the National Party advocate, or is it President of the Erica Stanford Fan Club?), if this is removing the “Maori mumbo jumbo” you mention, please enlighten readers what of that culture has been excluded?
While pondering that, perhaps you could also define and explain what is an “equitable outcome” and how it would be measured and, if it’s so appropriate to achieve it for Māori, why not then for all students? And given the variance in the abilities and circumstances of all individuals, how do you guard against the dumbing-down of the entire student cohort to achieve that "equitable" level? Or is this really just aspirational nonsense, for without a tailored individual teaching and assessment programme (which no public school can afford), the result will unlikely reconcile with a school board’s paramount objective being "to ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement."?
I think the public deserve an explanation - if not from you, certainly from the one you exalt?
Have you not noticed most sports teams are dressed tidily, many with ties. Teachers are generally at the low end of casual. Shorts and T shirts hardly generate respect, there it starts with NZ education.
The elephant in the room for me are the insane ideologies and philosophies that pervade our schools. The main one , of many is constructivism which is the reason we have a lack of focus on effective teaching of the basics particularly at primary schools. It also explains our shameful long tail of underachievement . Thinking in the dizzy heights of the ivory towers of academia has become so rarefied that commonsense explicit , systematic , cumulative , learning of any subject , such as we used to have is scorned because it is oppressive and non holistic ( whatever that means exactly) to the student. You need a PhD to understand and believe this nonsense and you are unlikely to get a PhD. if you don't .
Admittedly there are notable and brave individuals who are exceptions to this and somehow go through the system without being indoctrinated and they are gems to be treasured.
But the average Jo Citizen , is categorized by the educated elites, as a sanitary worker who talk rubbish and are to be ridiculed and ignored.
To cut to the chase , the best idea is to in ignore and ridicule these educational elites in return- consider :
1) Most of the ideology and practices in primary schools have been proven wrong . They are not based in science. For example handwriting , rote learning, repetition , strict discipline , knowledge based learning etc ( all that "Old School " stuff ) promotes success but cancelling these out produces failure, particularly for LOWER decile students. Don't need Marxism to explain all the inequity, we have !
2) Primary teachers are indoctrinated into these sure to fail methods, but they are not to blame .They can be ridiculed and ostracized by other staff if they question the status quo.
3) Almost everything the MIn. of Ed. say is wrong since they are co-conspirators in destroying the futures of our precious children. Tell your children they are the villains . Don't attack classroom teachers. If a school principle started to have ideas strongly counter to the Ministry , (S)he is likely to be punished with monetary constraints like fewer ancillary staff or school funding.
4) Recognize you will need to become a skeptic about just about everything in primary schools. You will need to monitor what your child is doing and try and correct deficiencies in learning with home work workbooks like 'Excel 'or 'Scholastic ' or internet learning sites. Warning : many expensive private schools are also going down the drain, since the staff are usually tared with the same nonsense from the state academically run Teachers' Colleges.
4) I wish to correct Alwyn about preparing children for school . Just reading books to children is absolutely no guarantee they will become literate . You need to become very much more proactive in teaching them the sounds, rhyming, correct pencil grip and accurate formation of letters. An excellent free web site is the University of Florida center for reading Research, with extensive materials to download including Phonological (eg Rhyming) and Phoneme Awareness ( sounds of letters and groups of letters) moving onto phonics and decodable ( phonic ) readers. All four year olds should be given this beginning material because they can easily absorb it at this age and are ready for it.
You are quite right in what you say about the way 100 hr in-service would likely be spent here in NZ, Peter. Allow me to add to my recommendation that the objective of CPD in Japan is - as the term implies - to keep teachers abreast of developments in curricular and paedagogical areas as it affects their teaching. They would still manage to squeeze all the bullshit in, but it would be harder to devote most of those 100 h to it.
Japan officially recognised the Ainu people as indigenous in 2019, and the govt pledged itself to promoting Ainu language and culture. Having said that, there are reportedly only a couple of hundred pure-blood Ainu left. It is interesting to note that mixed-blood Japanese constitute a separate ethnic group, the Haifu.
Peter. You make some reasonable points, it's a pity you let yourself down with the Labour Spin Doctor, primary school level taunts.
I am president of the high achieving minister fan club and make no apology for.posting praise where it's due.
The alternative of engaging in relentless, unintelligent, negativity and name calling without offering one viable solution; would be a very unsatisfactory waste of my life.
There is a reason the TOWP bill was introduced to voters.
Passing the TOWP bill at the start of the 9 year project to save our wonderful country would have tied ministers up dealing with the professional maori protestors and would have fed the despicable nz media ammunition to fire at the government.
My guess is just enough maori mumbo jumbo will be left in place to keep the not so bright racist commentators in play.
Then at the end of the 3rd term, before the Clark advised McAnulty can use the maori mumbo jumbo to launder more of our money through the Maori Kings family and the waiparera trust, the TOWP referendum will be used to put the Maori mumbo jumbo to bed once and for all.
The euphoria the referendum will undoubtedly generate could even win national a 4th term.
Fingers crossed!
Thank you Peter for your challenging ' 'equitable ' outcomes which I believe is based in foolish and destructive Marxist DEI. We need to seriously consider the real reasons for inequity and it is not in the case of Maori having supposedly had their identity , language and religion taken from them.
I am not the only one to have observed that Maori succeeded well academically,, earlier last century when we had traditional structured teaching methods , including explicit phonics. Traditional teaching did not produce the inequity for all lower decile children, of any race, but that is what we have now with the dominant constructivist theory particularly with the introduction of constructivist Whole Language in 1980. Much research , as I have mentioned , shows this theory selectively and negatively discriminates against all lower decile and neurodiverse children.
What I am saying is anathema to current educational elites many steeped in Marxism.
Post a Comment
Thanks for engaging in the debate!
Because this is a public forum, we will only publish comments that are respectful and do NOT contain links to other sites. We appreciate your cooperation.