Tolley has cut funding to two little known but significant programmes.
When I became Minister too many of those in the education sector focussed on the negative. Pupils who were failing (or the system was failing) and schools that were in trouble.
I set up a group that looked at international research evidence on Gifted and Talented education. What they found was not that surprising – some of our most talented kids were the most disruptive in school. They were often bored and very rarely stretched.
There is a still unanswered question – whether it is better to get the kids out of the regualr classroom for at least sometime each week or to concentrate on teacher professional development to identify and challenge these kids. I decided to forget about the question and to put some resource into both areas. It was beginning to work well – especially by challenging teachers to accept that there are kids in their classes who know much more in specific areas than they do.
The other issue related to schools. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year dealing with schools that are failing – even if we just count the building costs for the neighbouring schools as “informed flight” occurs. We weren’t good at accepting that some schools were doing much better than average and trying to share that good practice between schools.
Somehow it was acceptable to identify losers but not leaders.
Again I put in some funding – a small amount into identifying the schools – not that hard – and more into getting them to share the +ve things they were doing.
Both programmes have been cut by Anne Tolley. Just stupid.
The answer came in this morning. It shows that they have dropped the ball. I will ask a follow up question :-
Question: Has the Ministry of Education undertaken a review of initiatives in gifted and talented education; if so, has the review been completed and where is the report available?
Portfolio: Education (Associate Minister – H Roy)
Minister: Hon Heather Roy
Date Lodged:07/08/2009
Answer Text: The Ministry initiated a review of initiatives in gifted and talented education in March 2008.
Three key areas of expenditure were identified for the review: the funding used to support The Rising Tides – Nurturing our Gifted Culture conference which was held in August 2006, the Talent Development Initiatives (TDIs) contestable funding pool and the funding used for School Support Services gifted and talented education advisors. An independent contractor was to undertake the review in consultation with the Gifted and Talented Learners ’ Advisory Group.Because of illness, the independent contractor completed only one section of the report (Rising Tides). A second section was received in draft form only (Schools Support Services gifted and talented education advisors). A senior policy analyst from the Ministry carried out a review of the Talent Development Initiatives contestable funding pool.
The Ministry planned for a final report across all initiatives to be completed in March 2009. However, planning for Budget 2009 overtook events and a final report was not completed.
OMG, they chopped the jobs of all those professional people (who often worked a lot more hours just on goodwill) based on a draft report of someone who was ill!
The main issue with G&T is not the funding but flexibility. From our own personal experiences parents had little choice except for the lucky ones who could afford to go out side what the state offered. Educating a gifted child costs no more than a normal child. No special equipment is required. Teacher training (if it is done!) will cost no more. What we found is that the state system forced a ‘one solution for all’ where no two gifted children are the same. We managed to find a gifted headmaster who understood our children’s needs, and largely met them, by ‘tricking’ the system. If there was flexibility, ie could choose you local school and schools could organise themselves around their pupil’s needs, many of the issues would go away. This does not cost money!
With respect Susan, having children in a class requiring significant modification to the standard programme (be it extension or simplification) costs in terms of teacher time and some resources. If the teacher is not trained pre-service to provide for significant differences (as required, NAG1) and PD or advisors are not available through state-funded sources, then the cost falls to the school or parent. The school should not need to ‘trick’ the system to fulfill requirements set by that system!