Allan Peachey: Protecting Democracy

To continue the theme of the last edition, I want to share with you my thoughts from reading one of the books that the Parliamentary Library sourced for me. It was called “The Age of American Unreason: Dumbing Down and the Future of Democracy” by Susan Jacoby.

Jacoby quotes President Eisenhower in 1954 as saying that an intellectual is “a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows”. I bet that upset a few people at the time? Or did it?

Allan Peachey: The Joy of Reading

I have just had a splendid summer reading. In fact for me being in Wellington for so much of the year is only made bearable by the access that I have, as an MP, to the General Assembly Library. It is my favourite place in the parliamentary complex. I doubt that any MP makes more use of it than I do, not only for research, but also for access to all of the books that I want to read in a year. I have already compiled the list of books that I want to read this year and the Library has already begun to source them for me. After all, a bloke has to keep his mind alert during those long dreary hours that a MP is required to sit in the Chamber while socialist drivel fills the air. And a cynic might say “and not from just one party either!”

Allan Peachey: You be the judge!

I am going to do something a little bit different for this edition of “Breaking Views”. I am going to report on two things I came across while overseas recently, one from the United States and the other from the United Kingdom. I shall report on them without comment and allow readers to draw their own conclusions or make up their own minds.

Allan Peachey: Great Principals Must Be Great Teachers

I found what I thought was a particularly insightful description of leadership in a book that I have been reading recently. The book, incidentally, is ‘Spinning Wheels: the Politics of Urban School Reform” by Frederick M. Hess. The description is from Tom Kean, a former governor of the State of New Jersey in the United States:
"True leadership takes time. A desert thunderstorm strikes with a flash and a roar, releasing all its water and energy at once. But the flashes quickly fade, and the water is mostly lost in runoff. Effective leadership takes the time to allow efforts and skills the chance to sink in, as opposed to the flash-flood phenomenon of high-visibility attempts at quick fixes."

Allan Peachey: Quality Principals the Key to Quality Education

In my last column I wrote about Michelle Rhee and her attempts to rescue the Washington DC public school system from endemic failure, and her focus on the view that effective teaching can overcome all types of disadvantage and poverty. And she wanted a situation in which a school principal would have to assess the effectiveness of a teacher without tenure to determine their ongoing employment. Of course, one of the most frequently raised arguments against performance pay for teachers is that principals are not competent enough or cannot be trusted to assess the effectiveness of teachers. That is a contention that I encountered often during my career but one I never accepted as having validity.

Allan Peachey: Revolutionising Public Schooling

The other day I came across the name Michelle Rhee. I knew it was a name I had come across sometime in the past. A bit of a memory search and I recalled where it was. It was a “Time” magazine article back in 2008. Rhee had been appointed Chancellor of the Washington DC School District, one of the poorest performing school districts in the entire American public school system, with falling rolls and achievement levels year on year.

Allan Peachey: Speaking the Truth

The recent articles that I have written about the importance of science and history to the successful functioning of a democracy have drawn an interesting response; not just in the ‘Comments’ section to Breaking Views but also from a number of people who have made direct contact with me. One of the issues is the question as to the extent to which facts are facts. And that in itself is really important. Because something is either a fact or it is not. One of the things that young people need to learn is how to distinguish fact from opinion, interpretation, self-interest or straight out propaganda. Let me use history to illustrate my point. I could equally do the same with science, but I am more confident in dealing with history material.

Allan Peachey: The race between education and catastrophe

I wrote last time about praising New Zealand’s great schools and fixing or closing its bad ones. That brings to mind that great Ronald Reagan statement ‘if you cannot make them see the light, make them feel the heat”. I think it has been well demonstrated that getting New Zealand schools to “see the light” just has not brought about the changes that are needed if every New Zealand child is to have an outstanding school to go to. I spent over 32 years in schools and now after five years in Parliament all I continue to see is tinkering around the edges so that real problems never get dealt with.

Allan Peachey: The Scandal of School Failure

I did not have a lot of time for Al Gore, the former Vice President of the USA. It was a stroke of good fortune for the world that George Bush finally prevailed over him in 2000. However, Gore did say one thing that continues to resonate with me: “Scandals are front page news, while routine failure is ignored.” He could have been talking about the New Zealand schooling system. The media, particularly but not exclusively the Sunday print media, love the “teacher sleeps with pupil” stuff or for variation “pupil sleeps with teacher”. And whether the Teachers’ Council is stern enough, or severe enough, or quick enough, or public enough in dealing with such cases. I am not arguing that such matters are not important, of course they are. But they attract far more attention than what the routine failure of schooling attracts.

Allan Peachey: Protecting Democracy through Education

Some weeks ago I wrote about the importance of science in the protection of democracy. That drew some nice comments in my direction and the ire of one economics teacher. Today I want to write about the importance of history in the protection of democracy, and no doubt draw praise from history teachers and the ire of a few more economics teachers! I should probably start with a declaration of personal interest. I am an historian by academic training and I have remained one by personal inclination for the nearly 40 years since I graduated. I remain an avid reader of anything historical. I always thought that was one of the great things about history – it can be the interest of a lifetime and stimulate a wide range of book reading. I sometimes say that when I retire from politics (and anyone with an eye on the Tamaki seat will have to wait a while longer!) I intend to spend my days watching the history channel on Sky. Some of the most pleasurable years of my teaching life were those spent teaching history.

Allan Peachey: Improving Teacher Training

I write this week’s commentary in partial defence of my last article in which I argued that teacher recruitment and training should become the responsibility of schools. Schools should be able to recruit their new teachers direct from university graduates without a course of teacher training having to intervene first.

Allan Peachey: Bulk Fund Schools for Teacher Recruitment and Training

The thoughts for this article flashed into my mind when I began a talk at one of the retirement villages that are located in the electorate of Tamaki that I have been elected to represent in Parliament. (Yes, I am an Electorate MP, not a List MP. I put great emphasis on the difference.) I began my talk by paying tribute to a resident of the retirement village who had been a school teacher; in fact who had taught me social studies and geography at Ruapehu College, Ohakune, way back in the 1960s when I was 14/15 years of age. I described him as “a teacher who knew stuff, more than we his pupils (yes we were pupils in those days, not students) knew, who was really interesting to listen to and learn from, and who was superbly well organised”.

Allan Peachey: Choice

Why is the word “choice” so inflammatory in education circles? Why are so many on the left side of the debate over school quality so affronted by suggestions that parents should have some sort of choice about where they send their children to school? Why do they see choice as some sort of violation of their egalitarian view of schooling?

Allan Peachey: Ideology Undermines Education

Just how socialist has schooling become? Ask the fools who abolished grammar schools in England. Fools you say, which fools? Well, start with the Harold Wilson Labour Government of the 1960s; go to the Heath Conservative Government of the 1970s (in which Margaret Thatcher no less was Education Secretary) and right up to current British Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, who said in 2007 that he would not lead any calls to “bring back grammars”. He argued that a selective system concentrating talent in a few schools would not raise standards across the board or promote social equality. Now how socialist is that, coming from an old Etonian no less?

Allan Peachey: The Importance of Science

For our protection and prosperity as a democratic society there are two subjects in school that take on an importance beyond all others once the business of reading, writing and mathematics are taken care of. Those subjects are science and history. In this article I will concentrate on science with a view to discussing history in a subsequent article.

Allan Peachey: What About The Universities?

One of the things that I have been doing in recent weeks has been chairing Education and Science Select Committee hearings into the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. This is a private member’s bill that would introduce voluntary student union membership into New Zealand. Under present legislation membership of student unions is compulsory although provision exists for students at a tertiary institution to vote to have membership of their student union to be voluntary. That, for example, is what has happened at Auckland University. I don’t want to say any more about that until the Select Committee hearings are completed and a recommendation returned to Parliament.

Allan Peachey: Transforming Education

A few weeks ago I read an article in “Time” magazine (March 29 2010, p.40) entitled “Making the Grade President Obama’s plan for US education reform is a good start. Here’s how to make it even better.” It was written by New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and New York City Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein. Incidentally, there are 1.1 million youngsters in the New York public school system.

Allan Peachey: Bigger Government Not the Answer

In a recent Economist (23-29 January 2010 page 23) there was a statement which might have been staggering to some people but which came as no surprise at all to me: “…perverse incentives mean that governments can frequently spend lots of money without producing any improvement in public services. Britain’s government doubled spending on education between fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2007, but the spending splurge coincided with a dramatic decline in Britain’s position in the OECD’S ranking of educational performance.”

Allan Peachey: Is this Dumb or What?

I have long had an interest in early childhood education. It goes back nearly 30 years when our four children were preschoolers and I helped out on kindergarten committees and my wife was involved in play centre. This meant a bit of voluntary effort like digging the sandpit, mowing the grass and painting the building’s roof. That’s how we did it in those days. How things have changed.

Allan Peachey: How School Inspectors Lifted Teaching Standards

I maintain an irregular email correspondence with an elderly gentleman who many years ago rose from being the Head of Science at as successful secondary school to being a secondary school inspector back in the days when teachers were graded by two inspectors in consultation with their principal. Indeed he must be one of the few such inspectors still alive.