Posted by: Observer
on Sep 1, 2010
Tagged in: Untagged
Well - butter my butt and call me a biscuit. "There's no money" says Bill English; "there's no money" says Anne Tolley; "there's no money" says John Key. Except for the 1.6 BILLION to pay back investors in South Canty Finance that is. Why should the taxpayer reimburse investors - if it's good enough to tell teachers that they need to take a pay cut for the good of the country why shouldn't investors have to do the same thing? "We worked hard to save that money" the investors cry "and we are owed it". Teachers work hard too but when they want to be reimbursed for their labour they are told they are "greedy" "disconnected from parents" and "off the planet.". I don't mean to upset the good folk of Timaru - of course they should get their money back - but merely to point out the ideological contradictions that mean that we treat financiers as gods and workers as devils.
Coda: Goldman Sachs, the bank the American taxpayer bailed out last year, made such a huge profit this year (no competiton any more, see ?) that its employees received the biggest bonus in the bank's 140 year history. If this doesn't get more New Zealanders joining the global push to get a transation tax on the international flows of money, I don't know what will. It's called a robin hood tax and boy do we need it!
Posted by:
on Aug 31, 2010
I have been playing around with the Reserve Bank Inflation Calculator and it has thrown up some interesting statistics.
My calculations show that teachers rather than being disconnected have been sidelined. Mr Key says we have had significant pay increases over the last 10 years however what is significant is the fact that this has been insignificant in real terms when adjusted for inflation.
Compared are 2000 at top of basic scale $50300 with 2010 top of basic scale $68980
Salary for 2010:
2000 - 2010 CPI adjusted is $65,000
2000 - 2010 Wage increases adjusted is $70,750
2000 - 2010 Food price increases adjusted is $69,000
2000 - 2010 Housing price increase adjusted is $105,000
Averaging these out is $77,000
Salaries have kept pace with food but that is it. In real terms secondary school teachers' salaries are barely keeping up with inflation.
In terms of food and housing someone teaching in 2000 would need to be earning $87,000 in 2010 just to keep pace with inflation.
Actually no New Zealand Government has given secondary teachers a decent pay increase in the last decade. So far it has been a catch up for inflation. Increases in productivity (NCEA workload etc ) have NOT been rewarded.
Posted by: Max
on Aug 17, 2010
Teaching is a profession in crisis, particularly in my area, Computing. The problem that we face is that as the technology and the skills we wish our young people to have, progress and change, we need teachers who can inspire, lead, and teach these skills. How do we attract teachers with these skills into the profession.
Parents would, I am sure, agree with me that computing skills will open doors and give access to lucrative jobs and opportunities for their children. We want our children prepared for the future, we want them inspired and enabled to use the new technologies that are available today or will be in their futures.
In computing we have a whole set of new areas for assessment for our fifteen year olds from Programming and Computer Science to Digital Infrastructure and Electronics. These new areas will spread to 16 and 17 year olds over the next two years. These are vital skills in a sector that will help New Zealand's global competitiveness.
Skills Shortage Slows Recovery summarises "discussions with information and communications industry leaders and chief information officers (CIOs) across Australia and New Zealand" showing how the IT skills shortage is slowing the economic recovery.
In October last year the Ministry of Economic Development conducted a survey into the IT skills shortage - ICT Industry Skills Gaps and Ultra Fast Broadband Roll-out Skill Requirements - and found that “83% of companies surveyed found difficulties in recruiting qualified, skilled and experienced staff, and it was having a medium to major effect on their businesses.” Brett O'Riley the NZICT Chief Executive had this to say when the report was released. "These roles are essential to New Zealand's drive to improve productivity and also generate foreign exchange."
Posted by: Cynic
on Aug 17, 2010
Been following stories and tweets about the name and shame approach of the Los Angeles Times’ article, “Who’s teaching L.A.’s kids?” (August 14th).
It led me to some interesting and valuable research including the IES report Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains:
Our results are largely driven by findings from the literature and new analyses that more than 90 percent of the variation in student gain scores is due to the variation in student-level factors that are not under the control of the teacher. Thus, multiple years of performance data are required to reliably detect a teacher's true long-run performance signal from the student-level noise. In addition, our reported sample requirements likely understate those that would be required for an ongoing performance measurement system, because our analysis ignores other realistic sources of variability, such as the nonrandom sorting of students to classrooms and schools (Schochet & Chiang, 2010, p.35)
Posted by: Rob
on Aug 12, 2010
PPTA members rejected the Ministry of Education (MOE) pay offer of 1.5% and 1% with clawbacks on existing teaching conditions.
Teachers also expressed frustration and disappointment with the MOE's refusal to negotiate on any of the improved conditions they requested.
Here's a calculation that works with the one thing the MOE actually offered teachers - the so-called pay rise.
Posted by: Winged Avenger
on Aug 3, 2010
Was Mrs Tolley starting to learn something about her portfolio?
For a moment it appeared that someone was listening...
PLD is highly valued by teachers and principals – and rightly so. Suddenly it's appeared on the government's list of things to do. Are they really listening? Is Mrs Tolley learning?
Nope.
Once again the government is adopting a once over lightly approach that smells strongly of tokenism.
MOE doesn’t have the staffing to offer this service? That’s not surprising given its regional focus on property and finance. Schools are businesses; principals are CEOs. Now, get on with it: sell your brand and balance your books.
Posted by: Cynic
on Jul 23, 2010
In 2005 ERO came up with the 20% gap - no data, no proof, no evidence. In nearly every government and education press release since then you will find this expanded myth - that teachers and schools are "failing 1 in 5" students.
Now ERO are re-using the 20% in their latest report - this is not a fact but a convenient reusable guesstimate:
"As a result, little statistical data is provided in this report. Schools are evaluated against highly variable contexts in terms of the different proportions of students with high needs they have and the range of needs these students may exhibit."(p.12)
How can ERO bring about change and improvement in the sector when their strategy appears so negatively focused on blame and bringing schools and teaching into disrepute. A strategy that values teachers, values schools, and aims to work together to improve one of the better functioning education systems in the world, would surely be better placed to promote successful learning. Together we can make it the best education system for all students.
A strategy that says there are schools that are fabulous role models, we will work out why, perhaps parts of their model will work elsewhere. There are schools not coping, we will resource them to investigate why and work together to improve learning opportunities for students, teachers and school communities.
NAH way too hard - let's drive up the crises, let's diss the teachers, diss the schools, and put the jackals out to feed on the bones of an education system that was doing reasonably well but nobody wanted to defend.
Posted by: Observer
on Jul 22, 2010
What the hell was that? Tolley (who clearly had only the most superficial grasp of what a PPP was) must have felt like she had been savaged by a flock of dead sheep because Henry’s interview was so pathetic.
If he hasn’t time to get to grips with the main problems with PPPs, he should at least have had someone on the programme (Bill Rosenberg, Ganesh Nana, - even Trevor Mallard) who does!
No Paul, it isn’t just unions who oppose them. If you look here you’ll see that the NZ Treasury concluded there was nothing in it for NZ – hardly a bunch of leftwing pinkies!
Posted by: Rob
on Jul 22, 2010
We wonder how many Treasury officials send their kids to state schools or use our public health services? We wonder how many have lived on benefits or had jobs that got their hands dirty, or in which they have had to face the consequences of the stupid policy proposals they seek to inflict on the population?
Treasury advice to the National government on funding for education includes the proposal to remove the automatic adjustments to base funding which occur through demographic and other projected changes and fund these changes within the allocation of new money each year or make a case for additional funding on a year by year basis.
School rolls are projected to rise to about 2024. These are demographic changes which increase operations funding and staffing levels in a predictable manner. Currently the funding for school staffing and operations is automatically adjusted to fund the increased cost this creates.
Posted by: Observer
on Jul 21, 2010
If you don't consult members and and then misrepresent their views in order to toady up to the government of the day there will be consequences as NZSTA is finding out
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