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What are we to make of the two multi-millionaire politicians - the two Johns - signing an agreement whereby the state abandons any responsibility for education in poor communities and instead hands it over to various churches, charities, American multinational franchises and any fly-by-night concern that sniffs a buck to be made. Apparently, the two Johns think poor communities are disadvantaged by having to learn what everyone else learns, do the same qualifications and have trained and qualified teachers so they are giving poor kids that chance to miss out on all the the things that wee Keys and the little Bankses take as their birthright.

Amazingly, lowering standards like this is apparently going to lift achievement even though that's not what has happened in the US which invented charter schools. The studies don't show any educational benefits for the model, once you control for the tendency to manipulate the school's roll to keep out the more challenging kids.

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Dear Anne

I have just read your party education policy. This letter is written in disappointment that National Party education policy can so blithely ignore the best evidence in education research and policy, and dismay that you appear not to have heard the education hopes, dreams and aspirations that teachers have for their students.

National takes credit for all improvements in the education sector over the past three years; some achievements - such as retention rates in school, are unlikely to have been influenced by National education policy, others are simply manipulations such as 'employed 1600 more teachers"; shuffling funding from one education area to another doesn't double it; league tables encourage some particularly unpleasant uncooperative competitive behaviours so how on earth can your policy blithely state "ensure schools make the most of their facilities and resources and they collaborate rather than compete with each other" or does this only apply to Canterbury?

We'd like you to know that all actual improvements in the secondary education sector can be attributed to school communities, the hard work of parents, boards, students, teachers and, most importantly, quality teaching.

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The ground still shudders in Christchurch – there's an underlying feeling of constant movement and instability. I had a taste of the frayed nerves that Cantabrians feel daily when I woke for a quake measuring 5.1. It jolted me upright in bed at 3am.  By the time it had registered, and I was sitting up in bed trying to decide whether jumping out of bed was warranted, it had stopped. The adrenaline and fright left me awake. The 3am startling left me lying in bed fighting to get some rest before the  start of the day - this has been the reality for some people for months.

Christchurch field officer Ian Hamill has been working solidly for the past few months trying to retrieve PPTA equipment from its office in Latimer View House on Gloucester Street within the red zone.
The organisation of this brief entry into the fourth floor office space has been long and arduous for Ian. The building is red-stickered, meaning it is unsafe to enter as it stands – this does not mean automatic demolition although some owners are being given 24-hours notice that a building is going to be demolished and few are given the chance to recover possessions.
The PPTA have been fortunate to gain access to the building. Two landlords and two paid engineers accompanied the PPTA's team of four onto the site.

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