In the spirit of Christmas the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) is continuing its commitment to help John Key with his holiday reading and has carefully selected themes he can use to reflect on the past year and the year to come.
PPTA’s latest reading for the prime minister, 'Extreme Money' by Satyajit Das, charts the rise of global finance and its inevitable collapse in 2008. Tax reduction for the wealthy, fire sales of assets and privatization are the problem not the solution.
Dear Prime Minister - evidence about the effect of poverty on learning is irrefutable
22 December 2011
Dear Prime Minister
The book we are sending today is Extreme Money by Satyajit Das.
It charts the rise of global finance over the last thirty years to the inevitable collapse of 2008. The book debunks the myths that masquerade as dispassionate economic advice but which actually serve the needs of a small coterie of irresponsible bankers and financiers.
While you are no doubt well acquainted with the greed and excess on Wall Street, this book may invite you to reflect on some of the economic "truths" that led to the collapse and amazingly are still being trotted out as solutions to the financial crisis.
New Zealand features in the book in an unflattering light as the only country in the world silly enough to attempt “the full Chicago programme" (p128). Das assumes New Zealand has stepped back from the crevasse, so he would have much to say (and little of it polite) about the government's renewed determination to exhume these failed theories.
Tax reductions for the wealthy, fire sales of assets and privatisation are the problem not the solution. Das describes this as “voodoo economics". He uses a phrase popularised by JK Galbraith to describe these policies as simply promoting “private profit and public squalor” (p187).
This phrase sums up the charter school policy. The determination of politicians to serve the needs of “extreme money" by supporting tax cuts, tax avoidance and tax havens leaves them with insufficient revenue to run the public infrastructure. Lacking the leadership and the courage to confront the greed and selfishness implicit in these policies (or, perhaps, believing like Gordon Gecko that they are positive attributes), governments look for distractions.
An honest, non-partisan review of education in South Auckland would concur with the irrefutable evidence about the effect of poverty on learning. But this would imply that more needs to be spent on job creation and social services, raising the spectre of the rich having to accept greater financial responsibility for the well-being of less fortunate New Zealanders. This possibility is unpalatable to “extreme money”, hence the plan to turn to charters, charity and churches. In approving charter schools, the government is telling these communities that they do not have the same right as other New Zealanders to receive high-quality education in their local state school.
Particularly insidious in this debate is the attempt to smear teachers who struggle daily with the challenges of working in low decile schools or who are helping children rebuild their lives after an earthquake. It is not teachers who caused the global financial meltdown; nor was it the communities of South Auckland or East Christchurch. They deserve more than to be treated as cannon fodder in a cynical political game.
Yours sincerely
Robin Duff
PRESIDENT
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