Posted by: blogger
on Feb 4, 2010
By Winged Avenger
2010 should be all about the NZ curriculum. Instead, the government is determined to railroad teachers into focusing on national standards.
Secondary teachers already know the downsides of too much summative assessment and league tables, both of which are key features of the national standards.
Teachers want to use the NZC as a platform for developing great teaching for diverse learners; parents want plain-English reporting of their kids’ progress. Neither group needs the national standards to achieve these goals.
Posted by: Cynic
on Feb 3, 2010
National standards for patients
The government intends to introduce national standards that will enable patients and concerned observers to compare medical practices online, and potentially identify poorly performing doctors.
This comes after political analysis of a new report revealed 30% of doctors have only a rudimentary understanding of human physiology and inappropriately low expectations, passing up opportunities to motivate and engage patients.
Posted by: Cynic
on Jan 21, 2010
Surface readings
Today my head hurts from trying to follow up on a NZ Herald story that quotes from the Unesco report Reaching the marginalised (Education For All global monitoring report 2010):
year 11 Maori students enrolled in kura kaupapa immersion schools did significantly better than Maori in English-language schools (p.206)
so I tried to follow up. I looked at Nga Haeata Matauranga (the Annual Reports on Maori Education)
Posted by: Flying Pig
on Jan 11, 2010
I have a powerful feeling of deja vu right now. Has anyone else noticed the Request for Proposals published by the Ministry of Education in late December? Sneaky time to do things like that, eh? It called for a contractor to “support the development of a range of senior secondary curriculum and assessment resource production projects". In other words, work which in the past would have been done by Ministry staff is now being contracted out to someone who be 'overseen' by a project manager in the MOE. It's the usual right-wing approach - slash the numbers of public servants, then contract work out, often at a higher cost than employing a staff member. What will be contracted out next? Negotiating the STCA? Who will be left in the Ministry of Education by the time a left-wing government takes the reins again? A CEO and a few 'project managers'? Watch this space!
Posted by: blogger
on Dec 22, 2009
By Winged Rodent
At a time when the world focuses on the dangers of climate change, the government appears to be going green - by recycling its spending this Christmas.
We could see the $200 million 'budget' allocated to fighting truancy and crime among teens as a form of "up-cycling” – a term coined to describe "the creation of a product with higher intrinsic value from a material at the end of its service life."
In other words, it is taking an empty ice-cream container, covering it with glitter and calling it a present.
Posted by: Cynic
on Dec 21, 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
I wish you good cheer as you take time to reflect on the past year
I wish you relaxation and success as I prepare - I confess -
for a 2010 that will be rough
that Anne, she likes to play tough
be happy with less ...
So merry Christmas and good cheer as we prepare for a new school year.
Posted by: blogger
on Dec 9, 2009
Tagged in: vouchers , Tomorrow's Schools , teachers , privatisation , private schools , power , politics , Performance pay , education spending , education , Don Brash , 2025 taskforce
Don Brash is famous for two things
By ToilandTrouble
- His willingness to use race in order to advance his campaign for political power in 2005, and:
- His ability to survive for many weeks on a diet of corned beef and frozen peas.
He is also an economist and we know how many of them it takes to change a light bulb (none, the darkness will cause the light bulb to change itself). In sum he is overwhelmingly under-qualified to comment on educational matters. That doesn't matter though because economists are immune to intellectual humility, untroubled by their own ignorance and always ready to draw a crooked line from an unproved assumption to a forgone conclusion.
Posted by: blogger
on Nov 3, 2009
By Peter Sumpter
A scientist was researching cockroaches. He trained one to jump out of a petrie dish each time it heard the command “Jump”. He then removed its legs and repeated the experiment. On the command “Jump” it stayed motionless in the dish. This proves scientifically that if you take the legs off a cockroach it will go deaf.
Most high schools have larger classes for their high achieving and well motivated students, allowing the school to have smaller classes for low achieving students or students who require learning support.
Enter New Zealand’s leading educational researchers to survey the students. The statistics clearly show that the highest achieving students came from a class of 30 taught by teacher A, while the lowest achieving students come from a class of 18 taught by teacher B.
Posted by: blogger
on Oct 30, 2009
By Winged Avenger
Q. when is a voucher not a voucher?
A. when it’s a bulk fund.
Q. when is a voucher also not a voucher?
A. when it means the removal of zoning.
Q. when is a voucher good for education?
A. so far, never…
So, what is a voucher?
“Vouchers” describes various systems that place school funding in the hands of students and families. The idea is that each student is entitled to access education up to a set value each year. This value is issued in the form of a voucher. The student takes the voucher to their chosen school and redeems it for their education.
Posted by: PPTAweb
on Oct 28, 2009
Key issues pay-cut challenge to teachers - Jase writes that
Key and the other MP’s should in turn be challenged to take a pay-cut to support the cleaners, or those workers in parliament who lost the redundancy in their first year of employment clause (as mentioned by Helen Kelly in her address to the NZCTU Conference)…
Both CTU and NZEI responded to Key - a quote from the CTU response follows
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