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Posts Tagged ‘education’

Charter schools have no future

Posted by on April 17th, 2013

On Friday the Education and Science Select Committee reported back to the House the legislation introducing charter schools. In our minority report, the Labour Party has set out very clearly our reasons for opposing the legislation. Among our reasons are:

  • The introduction of charter schools is based on the failed notion that increased competition will improve student outcomes. There is clear evidence from New Zealand and overseas that this isn’t the case. Even the Treasury has argued that systems with “highly competitive elements” do not produce systematically better outcomes.
  • At a time when the government claims it is focused on quality teaching, charter schools won’t have to employ registered teachers, and the principal won’t even have to hold a teaching qualification.
  • Charter schools will lack public scrutiny. They won’t be covered by the Official Information Act, and although the Ombudsman can now investigate concerns about student stand-downs and exclusions, the overall accountability regime is still very weak.
  • New Zealand’s world-leading curriculum won’t have to be taught in charter schools. Charter schools could be used for indoctrination, rather than education. For example there is nothing to stop a charter school teaching “intelligent design” in the place of science.
  • The Labour Party does not believe that schools should be in the profit-making business. Money that is extracted from charter schools in the form of dividends for shareholders is money that isn’t being invested in education.
  • Charter schools will not have an enrolment zone. While the government claim that charter schools will be targeted to areas of high need, there is nothing to stop such a school accepting a majority of their enrolments from outside their neighbourhood. We remain concerned that charter schools will be able to use underhand methods to “cherry pick” students.
  • We recognise that a number of learners are currently struggling within the education system, and that Māori and Pacific learners are disproportionately represented in that group. That’s why we believe the government should be focused on ensuring that every school is a great school, regardless of where they live. Policies should be based on research and evidence, not ideology.
  • Much of the flexibility that the government claims it seeks through the charter schools model already exists, for example Special Character Schools can already be established with in the existing public school framework.
  • National has no mandate to introduce charter schools. Although it was working on the proposal before the last election, it did not reveal it to the public until afterwards. The fact that the process of establishing charter schools has already started even before the legislation has passed is a real slap in the face to those who took the time to make submissions to the select committee.

I’ve made Labour’s position on the future of charter schools very clear – there isn’t one. We will not guarantee on-going funding to any charter school established under the present government, nor will we necessarily offer them integration into the public system. The legislation allowing for their establishment will be repealed.

You can read Labour’s minority report on the Bill here.

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Filed under: education
23 Comments

Surrender and retention in schools

Posted by on April 12th, 2013

Today the Education Amendment Bill was reported back to the House. While much of the debate on the Bill will focus on the establishment of charter schools, there are some very important changes to the powers of schools around search and surrender of student property.

As a committee we spent a lot of time debating these issues, and I think the position we reached is sensible. Schools have a very difficult job balancing the rights of individual students with the rights of all students and staff to work in a safe environment. The clearer the rules and guidelines are, the easier it will be for schools to tread that fine line appropriately.

Here is a quick summary of some of the key provisions of the Bill (paraphrased):

  • If a teacher or an authorised staff member has reasonable grounds to believe that a student has hidden or in clear view on or about that student’s person, or in any bag or container under the student’s control, an item that is likely to (a) endanger the safety of any person; or (b) detrimentally affect the learning environment,  they may require the student to produce and surrender that item. If the item is contained on a computer or electronic device they may require them to reveal the item or surrender the device on which it is stored.
  • Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a student has a harmful item (one that poses an immediate threat to the physical or emotional safety of any person) in their possession and the student has refused to produce or surrender it, the teacher or authorised person may ask a student to remove a jacket or outer clothing so that it can be searched (but this would not be allowed if they had no clothing underneath it); require the removal of a head covering, gloves, footwear or socks (but this specifically excludes tights and stockings); require a student to hand over a bag or other container and allow it to be searched.
  • Such actions need to be done with sensitivity and so as to afford the student maximum privacy and decency; and that where possible the search be carried out by a teacher of the same sex as the student, in the presence of another teacher or authorised staff member of the same sex.
  • A school may allow a contractor to bring a suitably trained dog onto their premises to search school property such as desks or lockers (but not to search students).
  • The legislation also requires the Secretary of Education to issue rules regarding the surrender and retention of property and searches by schools. These rules will need to spell out requirements for written records to be kept, how any property confiscated is to be dealt with, the procedure for authorising staff members, and so forth. These rules are treated as regulations and can therefore be disallowed by the Regulations Review committee.

The Bill makes it very clear that students are not allowed to be strip searched, nor is any property they possess allowed to be forcefully confiscated. If a student refuses to comply, the school may take appropriate disciplinary action, for example stand down / suspension from school. While the legislation authorises a teacher or authorised person to ‘require’ a student to do the things above, they cannot be ‘forced’ to do it.

If a student refuses to show a teacher an item on an electronic device (eg. a cellphone, laptop or tablet), the teacher can ask them to hand the device over, but they couldn’t then search it without the students consent.

It’s also important to note that there need to be reasonable grounds for suspicion, and that the power to require students to surrender items is limited to items that present a risk to safety or to the learning environment. The very limited powers around search are even further limited to only cases where there is an immediate risk to safety.

Schools should be safe places, free of drugs and weapons. Teachers shouldn’t be required to act as ‘police’ but they should have the ability to deal appropriately with the very real challenges they face on a daily basis. I think the new provisions, as amended by the select committee, get the balance about right.

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Filed under: education
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Novopay shambles continues

Posted by on March 18th, 2013

Two months after Steven Joyce was brought in to fix the failing Novopay system, the problems are getting worse not better. Over the weekend we found out that hundreds of teachers have been unilaterally given the sack by the government’s payroll provider. That news came as a shock to them and to the schools they’re employed by. It’s a total disgrace.

This latest shambles follows news last week that Novopay provider Talent2 was using debt collectors to recover money from those who had been overpaid. It’s shocking that with thousands of people still being overpaid, underpaid and not paid at all, the government deemed this heavy-handed approach acceptable. Responsibility for this mess now rests with Steven Joyce. He either didn’t ask what steps Talent2 were taking to recover the overpaid money, in which case he is incompetent, or he signed it off, in which case he shows absolutely no understanding of the extent of the Novopay debacle.

Steven Joyce speaks of technical reviews and long-term solutions, but he needs to urgently deal with the massive problems Novopay is causing in schools right now. Despite seven months of chaos, schools still aren’t being compensated for all the extra work and stress Novopay is causing. I’ve had reports of schools taking on extra staff just to deal with payroll issues, not hiring relieving teachers when someone is sick because they don’t have the funds left, and cancelling equipment orders because they aren’t confident they’ll be able to pay for them. Yet still Steven Joyce does nothing.

Of course we need a long-term solution, but Steven Joyce can’t keep turning a blind eye to the turmoil Novopay is causing in the meantime. A comprehensive remediation and compensation package is long overdue. It’s time ‘Mr Fix-it” delivered one.

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Filed under: education
11 Comments

Arrogance and contempt

Posted by on March 18th, 2013

Last week in the House I asked the government a series of questions about former Secretary for Education Lesley Longstone’s $425,000 golden handshake. That’s a lot of taxpayer coin, and the public should be able to expect answers from those who approved it.

Having earlier attempted to question Hekia Parata over the matter and had that request transferred to the Minister for State Services, Jonathan Coleman, I decided to drill down a little deeper into Coleman’s initial answer.

All up it took 26 minutes and countless points of order to get him to answer the primary and half a dozen supplementary questions. His replies demonstrated a total contempt for the democratic process. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Minister reply when asked about a matter they had signed-off on with “How should I know?”

You can watch the full 26 minutes and make up your own minds.

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Filed under: education, parliament
10 Comments

Newsflash – there’s a Novopay backlog!

Posted by on March 11th, 2013

At long last the government have finally gotten something to do with Novopay right. Yesterday on Q+A Steven Joyce announced that he is beefing up the Novopay Backlog Clearance Unit (BCU). This is something principals and school administrators have been calling for.

One of the common frustrations that I’ve been hearing from those trying to sort out the Novopay shambles is that the problems keep compounding. Schools don’t have time to get on top of the problems from one pay round and then another one rolls along and a whole lot more problems are created. Clearing the backlog will ease a lot of pressure, and I’m sure schools will welcome that.

I’m sure schools will also welcome Steven Joyce’s commitment to getting Novopay fixed within 3 months. People have been calling for a timeframe, and now Joyce has given them one. If he fails to live up to that commitment, the responsibility for that will fall squarely on his shoulders.

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Filed under: education
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Responsibility for payout rests with Parata

Posted by on March 5th, 2013

Today the State Services Commission finally announced the details of Lesley Longstone’s departure package. Recall that Longstone resigned as CE of the Ministry of Education the week before Christmas, just after her Minister, Hekia Parata, had conveniently brought her holiday forward so she was away from any fallout.

In announcing her resignation, State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie cited a breakdown in Longstone’s relationship with Hekia Parata as one of the reasons for her leaving. To this day, Parata is still refusing to comment on the issue.

Responsibility for Longstone’s $425,000 payout rests squarely on Hekia Parata’s shoulders. Taxpayers are paying a hefty price, just so that National has someone else to blame for the Government’s stuff-ups in education. Let’s look at the big debacles:

  • Bigger class sizes was a policy signed-off by Cabinet as part of the Budget
  • The Christchurch school fiasco was all done under ministerial direction
  • Novopay was signed-off by Ministers (albeit on shonky advice)
  • Salisbury School’s closure, overturned by the courts, was Parata’s decision

Basically, Longstone is taking the fall for the government, and the taxpayers are forking out $425,000 as a result. The real accountability should be with the Minister. John Key promised Kiwis he would hold his ministers to a higher standard. Repeatedly he has failed to live up to that commitment.

Today’s pay-out is also a complete slap in the face to the thousands of school staff who are still waiting to be paid what they are owed by Novopay. It is galling to see so much money wasted on a severance payment when schools are still waiting for proper Government support to compensate them for the costs of the Novopay debacle.

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Filed under: education
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Novopay Issues #1

Posted by on February 25th, 2013

Plenty has already been said about the Novopay shambles. The system was never ready for implementation, it never should’ve been signed-off, and the safeguards and contingencies that should have been in place weren’t. I’ll keep holding the government to account for their failure, but I’ll also be picking up specific issues and, where I can, working to ensure that people aren’t disadvantaged in the long-term because of Novopay.

Last week in the House I asked the Minister Responsible for Novopay, Steven Joyce, some questions about Novopay not handing over Kiwisaver contributions to savings providers. The money is being taken from employees pay packets, but it’s not showing up in their Kiwisaver accounts. In some cases I’m aware of, this has been going on for months and months. Not only are the employees concerned worried about where their money has gone, they’re also missing out on the returns that would otherwise have accrued had their money been paid over on time.

The most important comment Steven Joyce made was this one:

Chris Hipkins: Will employees who have had KiwiSaver or other superannuation contributions deducted from their salaries but not paid over to their scheme provider be compensated for lost returns that would otherwise have accrued, and if not, why not?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: My understanding is that yes, they will be made good in those regards.

I welcome this commitment by Joyce. It means that not only will people affected get their money back, they will be compensated for any returns that would’ve accrued in the meantime. I’ll be interested to see the details of exactly how they’re going to calculate that, and will ask some more questions in that regard.

There are other specific concerns about Novopay that I hope to address in coming weeks, including people defaulting on child support payments, justice ministry payments, student loan repayments, and so on. I’ll blog more about those as the answers come through.

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Filed under: education
6 Comments

National Standards are the problem

Posted by on February 16th, 2013

This week’s Listener has an article (unfortunately pay-walled online) about supposed ‘grade inflation’ in primary school tests. The allegation comes as a result of changes to the marking guides for key assessment tools teachers use to measure student progress in core areas like literacy and numeracy. Principals are reporting vastly different results that they claim over-inflate the amount of progress students have made during the year.

The tools concerned, e-asTTle and STAR, are used by schools to assess writing and reading respectively. The issue at hand appears to be that the underlying assumptions used to produce test ‘results’ have changed. For example:

The old e-asTTle test looked at the piece of writing each student did during a test, and gave results purely on face value. The new one uses that piece of writing as a starting point, and extrapolates to what the student could probably do with support from his or her teacher and without the pressure of the test.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with this change. e-asTTle is only a tool, and the results it produces need to be weighed up against a number of other things including teachers observations, interviews and a child’s written work. The problem comes because e-asTTle and STAR results are often used in the reporting of National Standards progress to parents.

…some principals are worried that less-scrupulous schools – or those whose staff simply don’t understand how the tests have changed – could be using the results to artificially boost their National Standards results. That in turn could give schools a higher ranking in the public league tables.

Paul Drummond, principal of Tahunanui School and outgoing head of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation sums up the problem:

“I’d like to think there was professional integrity around this, [but] there are going to be enormous pressures to the contrary – to actually spin your data. There is so much pressure put on for schools to look good in those judgments, those scores.”

I have a lot of faith in the integrity of our teachers, and I don’t think they would deliberately inflate student results. However, if the National government go ahead with the plans they’ve got Treasury working on at the moment and introduce ‘performance’ pay for teachers, things could well be different.

If a teacher’s pay at the end of the week is going to be determined by a narrow range of student test results, there will be every incentive in the world for them to use every means available to make those results look as good as they possibly can.

The fundamental problem is that National Standards are narrowing the focus of teaching and learning too much. There are no national standards in science or art for example. Linking teacher pay to National Standards results is only going to make that problem worse.

Instead of taking such a narrow-minded approach, we need to replace National Standards with a requirement for schools to report to parents regularly and in plain language how their child is progressing against the whole curriculum. Instead of attempting to measure teacher performance by looking at a narrow range of test results, we should be focused on encouraging ongoing professional development and establishing a robust attestation process that factors in all elements of effective teaching.

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Filed under: education, Teachers
17 Comments

Integration of Charter Schools?

Posted by on February 13th, 2013

The Green Party have announced today that they would seek to integrate any Charter Schools setup under National into the public education system. I don’t agree with that approach. Labour doesn’t see the need for Charter Schools. We have enough schools already.

We don’t support having schools with unregistered teachers and that don’t teach to our world-leading curriculum. We don’t support a model of education that sees a proliferation of schools competing with each other for bums on seats. Why should we be offering these prospective schools a lifeline when we don’t need or want them in the first place?

Labour’s message to anyone looking to setup a Charter School under National’s proposed legislation is to think very carefully. A future Labour government will not guarantee ongoing funding, we will not guarantee integration into the state school system. In short, we will not guarantee these schools a future.

We don’t yet know what the contracts with these new Charter Schools will look like. Hopefully we’ll get more clarity around that during the select committee hearings. Until then Labour won’t be making any clear statement about what we’ll do with any Charter Schools National establishes, but we’re certainly not offering them the lifeline of integration.

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Filed under: education
24 Comments

Another Parata communication triumph

Posted by on February 8th, 2013

Within the next two weeks Hekia Parata will be charged with announcing the fate of several dozen Canterbury schools. Consultation on merger and closure proposals ended just before Christmas and Parata  supposedly spent her extended summer break reading them.

While all of those schools wait on tenterhooks to hear their fate, Parata decided today to announce the government’s plans to open six brand new schools in Christchurch. Talk about a slap in the face to all of the schools still waiting to hear what the future holds for them.

Nobody doubts that significant change is required. The population has moved around in Christchurch, and as a result some schools have shrunk to the point where they are no longer viable while others are bursting at the seams.

But there is a way to do this. It starts with respect for the school communities affected. Shepherding all the principals and BOTs into a hall and giving them colour-coded name badges to indicate whether they were closing, merging, or remaining wasn’t a great start. Announcing the opening of new schools before telling the existing schools of their fate rubs further salt into the wounds.

Hekia Parata has a difficult job to do, but she seems determined to make it even harder for herself. Her handling of the Christchurch schooling situation has demonstrated arrogance and a total lack of respect. The people of Christchurch deserve better.

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Filed under: Canterbury Earthquake, education
11 Comments

Performance Pay for Teachers

Posted by on February 7th, 2013

Treasury documents released this week talk about exploring new ways of ‘holding teachers accountable for their performance’.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that the National government want to put performance pay back on the agenda.

My good mate and former (and hopefully future) colleague Kelvin Davis wrote an excellent post on Red Alert back in 2010 pointing out some of the pitfalls of performance pay for teachers. Here are some of the salient points:

So what happens in those schools and regions where students enter a classroom at the beginning of the year well below the national standard? Why would a teacher want to teach in a school like that where despite his/her best efforts the student makes heaps of progress but fails to get over the National Standard ‘line’.

There are some excellent teachers working really hard in schools where the students are struggling. They get incredible results, and often the students in their classes learn a lot more in a year than a child at a school with better test scores, yet because the kids are still behind some of their peers at the end of the year, these schools are labelled as ‘failures’. Why would a great teacher work their guts out at a struggling school when they could get more ‘performance’ pay by working in a school that wasn’t struggling?

Is a teacher good or bad if they focus on ‘number’ over statistics, algebra, measurement and geometry? Are we saying these other strands aren’t important? If my receipt of a performance pay bonus depended on me making sure kids were numerate over statist-erate, or measure-ate, or algeb-rate or geome-rate, I would focus on numeracy – statistics and everything else can go to hell.

This comes back to one of the major flaws with National Standards. It’s all very well to say we want teachers to focus on literacy and numeracy, but what if that comes at the expense of other areas like science, technology, or social studies. If teacher pay is going to be based on a narrow set of targets, that’s where they will focus their efforts, rather than teaching a broad curriculum.

Do they deserve performance pay for – 1) doing duty?, 2) coaching sports teams? 3) being associate teachers of student teachers? 4) being tutor teachers for beginning teachers? 5) liaising with parents, whanau and iwi? 6) taking after school music or art classes? 7) after school tutoring? 8) leading professional development and appraisal of peers? 9) organising school discos? 10) fundraising? 11) organising the school play? 12) organising the school fair? 13) organising sports trips? 14) organising the school library? 15) organising the swimming sports, athletics day, 40 hour famine, breakfast club, buses, cross country, art exhibition, assemblies, class camps, community problems solving, peer mediators, restorative justice programme, assessment moderation sessions, interschool quality learning circles, professional development programme, etc, etc, etc.

As Kelvin points out, there is a lot more to teaching than making sure kids hit an arbitrary and narrowly focused set of standards. The fundamental problem with ‘performance’ pay for teachers is that a narrow range of student achievement statistics alone aren’t a reliable measure of how good a teacher is. Can we do a better job of rewarding great teachers? Undoubtedly. Should we provide more incentives for teachers to undertake professional development and continually strive to be better teachers. For sure. Will ‘performance pay’ based on student achievement help achieve these things? No.

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Filed under: education
25 Comments

Bulk funding = cost cutting

Posted by on February 6th, 2013

Last year Hekia Parata announced that the National government was going to be putting more kids into each class. The backlash was huge, and within weeks the National government had backed down, leaving a big hole in their Budget. They still haven’t identified how they’re going to fill it.

Yesterday Radio NZ reported that the Treasury are arguing for a return to bulk-funding of schools. One of the biggest components of our existing spend on schooling is teacher salaries. By devolving responsibility for salaries to individual schools, the government would also devolve the problem of working out how to make up for reduced funding.

If the new ‘bulk’ fund provided to each school didn’t keep up with increasing costs, and didn’t take into account any negotiated increases in teacher pay (which would still be negotiated by central government), schools would be forced to reduce teacher numbers (bigger classes), swap experienced teachers for less experienced ones to reduce salary costs, or cut funding from other areas of the school budget (which is already under enormous pressure).

Is this how Hekia Parata is going to fill in the hole she has created in the education budget? Bulk funding is National’s way of abrogating responsibility for funding schools properly. The losers, at the end of the day, will be the kids.

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Filed under: education
10 Comments

They’re joking, right?

Posted by on November 15th, 2012

Please give me a moment while I drag my jaw off the floor. As the Novopay debacle continues to roll on week after week, as teachers and support staff continue to be overpaid, underpaid, or just not paid at all, some genius at the Ministry of Education has decided now would be a good time to restructure the Payroll Services Unit. Checked the calendar, it’s not April fools, they’re serious about this!

In their infinite wisdom the Ministry has decided to reduce personnel in the payroll team from 23 to 14. These staff need to be focused on fixing the Novopay mess, not wondering if they are still going to have a job in the New Year. They’ve been given two weeks to comment on whether or not they should still have jobs.

Maybe the top managers at the Ministry of Education should get their pay via Novopay. Perhaps if they went a couple of months without getting paid correctly they’d get serious about sorting this mess out.

It’s the job of whoever authorised this restructuring that should now be on the line, not the jobs of the people working to get things back on track. The senior leadership at the Ministry of Education need their heads examined.

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Filed under: education, public services
11 Comments

Look to Local Success for Maori and Pasifika students

Posted by on October 11th, 2012

Attending the Raise Pacific Education Conference held at the Auckland Museum was an opportunity to consider what success looks like for the growing number of Maori and Pacific young people. I highlighted the importance of looking towards local exemplars in our public schools that are working and improving the engagement, retention and achievement of Maori and Pacific students. There are alot of great examples in our local schools in Auckland that are raising the bar and showing the way such as Otahuhu College, Kia Aroha College, Massey High School and Western Springs High School to name a few. The problem is that they are spread out and it takes a long time to roll these innovations across the system so more students benefit from ‘what works’. This is an exciting time to be Polynesian and living in the country’s largest city, the growing reality is that the demographic mix is becoming more diverse and more polynesian. So our communities, schools and city of Auckland will have to shift the way in which planning for the future incorporates Maori and Pacific values and identity.
Its important to recognise that in education more should and must be done to lift achievement outcomes for all our children. There are two distinct paths, under the current Government, National standards, league tables and performance pay will seek to push polynesian kids down a path that will create winners and losers. It will create a culture of teachers “teaching to the test”, ultimately schools will treat all kids the same as if they are forcing round pegs into square holes. This is not the model for a high performing system.

Its disappointing that the government is using private sector models like charter schools as a solution to the challenge. All those schools will do is take from the public purse and privatise profits with little or no real gain in outcome for Maori or Pacific kids. Its time to dismiss empty rhetoric and invest in quality public education. By tackling the causes of poverty and inequality Labour will bring together solutions that exist outside the school gate to support the good work that teachers and school communities achieve to support their children within the school gates.

Getting more parents involved in their local Boards of Trustees and owning educational outcomes can make a huge difference. We must guard against the inclination of the Government who wants to pull decision-making back to the centre and tell parents and communities what works best.

We need only look at the sweeping reforms being proposed for the children of Christchurch to see that the Government is not serious about consulting with the community for the best schooling opportunities for children.

It looks like the ‘one size fits all’ creep could be a real prospect for young people in South Auckland if that behaviour continues.

Labour is looking to the future and wants to work constructively with parents, teachers and communities to ensure that every child no matter where they come from can be assured of a great education in their local community. The future for New Zealand urges us to think and act differently to ensure that success in education belongs to all our children. That does mean a different way of doing things and it will mean shifting the ‘norm referencing’ that currently occurs in our education system.

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Filed under: education, M?ori, Pacific issues, Pasifika, students, Uncategorized, youth
3 Comments

National Promotes Divide and Rule – One Size Fits All for Christchurch

Posted by on September 28th, 2012

The National Government appears to have adopted the age old tactic of divide and rule in Christchurch. Proposing sweeping education reforms of schools closures and merge options totally contradict the message that the Government will ‘consult with’ and ‘listen to’ the community. Yeah Right!

Unless you live in Christchurch it is very hard to comprehend the daily stress families cope with to carry on in a ‘new normal’ scenario. Many continue to wait for insurance claims to be confirmed, rebuild projects to commence, and for some greater certainty about job security. This is just a surface snapshot as there is so much more happening in peoples lives.

Instead of listening and working with the community constructively, the Minister of Education bowls her way though with an inefficient consultation process, questionable data and shallow analysis of submissions to justify broad sweeping changes. This is a trend that should worry any community.

There is no coherence to the network provision of education from early childhood options, through to schooling and tertiary pathways. This is a problem. The rebuild in Christchurch will be done over a number of years, if done well, the city will be an attractive place for business, to live, raise a famility and pursue tertiary education offerings. It doesn’t seem like the Minister has her eye on the future. Her short-sighted cost saving approach will lead to an educaiton network that is ill-equipped for 21st century learning or the prospect of coping with an influx of people prepared to rebuild and possibly live in the city.

What is particularly disturbing is the Economic Recovery Plan for Christchurch has not been revealed. It doesn’t make any sense to address the education issues without having a clear picture of the economic growth potential of Christchurch.

More cause for concern all the way around! The good people of Christchurch deserve more than political window dressing and opportunistic point scoring. Childrens futures hang in the balance. They need a well thought through system of education network provision.

Things can be done differently. The community want to be engaged in 21st solutions for the city rebuild. Parents want greater assurance that their aspiration to have a world class education for their child is not thwarted by the Government using the earthquake as an excuse to save money. Children in Christchurch deserve more – how different will the final proposal for Christchurch schools really be? Your thoughts?

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Filed under: Canterbury Earthquake, education, growth, infrastructure
12 Comments

Genuine consultation – yeah right!

Posted by on September 28th, 2012

Yesterday John Key tried to ease the concerns of Cantabrians by saying that final decisions hasn’t been made about school mergers and closures in Christchurch. Today Hekia Parata formally wrote to school boards of trustees to formally begin the closure/merger process. Cantabrians can be forgiven for thinking that the fate of their local schools has already been sealed.

Schools have been given until 7 December to provide feedback on proposals for closures and mergers, the first two weeks of that time will be school holidays and for senior students, exams will dominate the rest of the school year. In that time boards are expected to run a formal consultation process with parents, students, and others with an interest. It’s a sham.

We know from the Dotcom case that John Key and Bill English have a breakdown in communication. It’s clear now that the Prime Minister and his Minister of Education are also completely out of step. John Key is out there trying to tell Cantabrians that the consultation process is a genuine one, yet his Minister of forging ahead with the legal process to implement decisions that appear to have already been made.

This consultation charade would be funny if it wasn’t about something so incredibly important to the families of Canterbury. The Government needs to get this right but it’s a turning it into a bigger shambles than their plan to increase class sizes.

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Filed under: Canterbury Earthquake, education
2 Comments

Need more time… really?

Posted by on September 4th, 2012

A few weeks back I revealed how the government’s new public:private partnership school in Auckland is actually costing more than it would’ve cost if it had been built using the traditional approach. Since then I’ve been asking a few more questions. Here are a couple of recent answers:

Question: What is the total annual budget for the Ministry of Education to oversee government use of Public Private Partnerships within the education sector, in each of the next 3 years?

Answer: The Ministry of Education has appropriated a budget of $100,000 per year for the next three years.

Question: What is the full list of Ministry of Education staff positions that oversee government use of Public Private Partnerships within the education sector?

Answer: The team for the Hobsonville Point Schools’ Public Private Partnership (PPP) includes a Project Director, Policy Analyst and Project Co-ordinator.

Question: How many people working for the Ministry of Education to oversee government use of Public Private Partnerships within the education sector have been redeployed from other areas and how many are new recruits?

Answer: I am advised that that there is one new recruit. No one has been redeployed from other areas.

Now either the Ministry has found an ingenious way to hire 3 staff for less than $100,000 per year all up, or something isn’t quite right here. It’s also not clear how they can have put together a team of 3 people by only recruiting one person and not redeploying anyone else. Perhaps these are some of John Key’s ghost jobs?

I asked for a bit more information. The answer to one of my follow-up questions came through today:

Question: Further to his answer to written question 06416 (2012) Does the $100,000 budget for the Hobsonville Private Public Partnership project cover the full salaries of the 3 staff working in the team?

Answer: The question cannot be answered in the timeframe and I will resolve to answer as soon as practicable.

Really? It’s a pretty simple question. I suspect the answer is going to be no, given 3 project management staff are likely to have salary packages that collectively add up to significantly more than $100,000 per year. How on earth can he justify taking more than 5 working days to come up with an answer to this one? Certainly doesn’t inspire confidence that the taxpayer is getting value for their money from this lot!

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Filed under: education, privatisation
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Residential special schools

Posted by on August 26th, 2012

I understand the Minister of Education is going to be making an announcement this week on the future of the country’s four residential special schools. Over the past few months the Ministry has been consulting on a new ‘wrap around’ service that their official consultation document suggests will cost about a third of the cost of accommodating a pupil at one of the residential schools (but of course, this isn’t about cost saving…)

From the outside, it very much looks like the whole consultation has been skewed towards a pre-determined outcome, the closure of the schools. Having visited all four schools, spoken with some of the kids, the principals, teachers, parents, boards of trustees and many others with an interest in this process, I can firmly say that I think closure is the wrong option.

I believe in an inclusive education system. I don’t think kids with special needs should be shunted out or ‘institutionalised’. But that’s not what residential special schools do. In effect, they’re the most intensive ‘wrap around’ service out there. Kids don’t stay there forever, usually no more than 18 months to two years. In that time they often make huge progress, and a lot of effort is put into ensuring that their reintegration back into their original school and home life is as smooth as possible.

At one of the schools I spoke to a kid who’d come from a pretty unfortunate background. Drugs, crime, and dysfunction were all a constant feature of his life. Taken away from all of that, he was allowed to be a kid again. He was catching up on a lot of the education he’d missed out on, and plans had been put in place to ensure that the environment he returned to wasn’t the one he’d come from. Quite frankly it was inspiring.

Far from closing them, if anything, we need to look at increasing the number of special residential schools, and make them ‘centres of excellence’ that can provide advice, expertise and assistance to other schools so that we end up with fewer kids needing the highest level interventions in the first place.

Before Hekia Parata signs off on any final decision, I would urge her to take the time to visit these schools and see first hand what she is doing. It would be wrong for her to simply sign-off on the recommendations of her officials without taking the time to develop her own understanding of the issues.

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Filed under: education
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10 questions for Hekia Parata

Posted by on August 17th, 2012

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about Hekia Parata’s practice of dobbing in teachers who write to her to complain about government policy to their board of trustees. Fortuitously have an ability to ask them of her! Today I’ve lodged the following Written Parliamentary Questions. I’ll post the answers when I get them here on Red Alert.

  1. How many letters did she receive expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes?
  2. How many letters did she receive from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes?
  3. How many of her responses to letters she has received from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes were sent to the Board of Trustees that employs the teacher concerned?
  4. Is it her policy to send replies to any correspondence she receives from teachers to the Board of Trustees that employs the teacher, if so, why?
  5. How many letters did she receive from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes where the teacher did not identify the school that they work at, and how many of those teachers received a direct response?
  6. How many letters did she receive from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes where the teacher did not identify the school that they work at, and how many of her responses to those letters were sent to that teacher’s employer?
  7. If she sent a reply to a letter from a teacher who did not identify the school they work at to the Board of Trustees that employs the teacher, how did she identify which school board to send the letter to?
  8. Who prepared her replies to letters she received from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes?
  9. Did any of the people involved in preparing her replies to letters she received from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes access any government database or record system to identify the school the teacher worked at?
  10. Why did she send replies to letters she has received from teachers expressing concern about her government’s plan to increase class sizes to the Board of Trustees that employs the teacher concerned?
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Filed under: education, privacy, Teachers
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PPPs save money – yeah right!

Posted by on July 18th, 2012

A few weeks ago I revealed in Parliament that the National government have spent $3.5 million developing the business case for a new school in Hobsonville to be built under a Public-Private Partnership. That school is forecast to save $2 million over the 25 year lifespan of the contract, in other words, a lot less than the Business Case cost to develop in the first place.

At the time Craig Foss, the Associate Minister of Education, argued that the blowout in the cost of the Business Case was justified as it could be used as a template for other PPPs for schools. Interesting to note, therefore, that Hekia Parata confirmed at the Education and Science Select Committee this morning that her Ministry will be employing a $100k a year Relationship Manager to oversee the new project in Hobsonville. Over the life of the PPP, that would equate to another $2.5 million.

There is simply no way this PPP is going to save the taxpayer money. In fact, quite the opposite. This school is proving to be considerably more costly than if we’d just built it using traditional public sector practices. Will every PPP school have one of these managers paid for by the taxpayer?

I’m pretty sure there will be a number of boards and principals around the country who will be shaking their heads at this. The government have argued that PPPs could ‘free up’ boards and principals by reducing the amount of time they spend managing property. I’m sure every public school in the country would argue they could ‘free up’ quite a bit of time if they were given an extra $100,000 a year to manage their facilities…

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Filed under: education, privatisation, public services
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