Posted by: PPTAweb
on 31, Oct, 2011
Tagged in:
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teaching ,
teachers ,
students ,
student achievement ,
secondary schools ,
schools ,
public education ,
professional ,
profession ,
PPTA ,
parliament ,
education politics
I described PPTA as being 'apolitical' recently and then immediately thought "oops don't think I used the right word", Kevin Bunker (PPTA General Secretary) always carefully describes PPTA "as not supporting any particular political party". So to Wikipedia I turned
"The state or quality of being apolitical can be the apathy and/or the antipathy towards all political affiliations. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased position in regard to political matters."
Wiktionary took it further
Posted by: PPTAweb
on 25, Oct, 2011
Tagged in:
unions ,
teaching ,
teachers ,
students ,
secondary schools ,
public education ,
professional ,
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PPTA ,
elections ,
education spending ,
education politics ,
conditions ,
collective agreement
Decisions are made by those who make themselves heard ... and those who vote
Not only is it election time where, next month, we get to have our say on what the future of New Zealand will look like and under whose leadership; but over the next fortnight secondary teachers will have the opportunity to vote on the leadership of PPTA. There are two nominations for president and three nominations for junior vice president (JVP).
There is a saying around elections along the lines of "we get what we deserve" - i.e if you don't vote you'll just have to put up with the result!
The leadership of PPTA, an incredibly important voice for teachers and public education, is too important to leave to chance.
Posted by: PPTAweb
on 10, Oct, 2011
Tagged in:
teaching ,
teachers ,
students ,
student achievement ,
secondary schools ,
PPTA ,
Performance pay ,
MOE ,
Ministry of Education ,
learning ,
education spending ,
education politics ,
education ,
Class size ,
annual conference
Sitting on the train wondering where to begin with this week's blog. Class size seems a good place to start as Kate Gainsford, PPTA vice president, was on breakfast TV yesterday morning discussing class size - and in the twitterverse a couple of commentators suggested performance pay for teachers would be better value for money in improving student achievement.
Posted by: PPTAweb
on 21, Jul, 2011
Tagged in:
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Ministry of Education ,
equity ,
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education politics ,
change
The first sentence was too long to Tweet :) - so I thought I'd blog.
At the MIT seminar Mon/Tues there were comments that the secondary sector is 'change averse', this wasn't intended as a compliment, ... although it could be.
Being change averse can be an entirely appropriate strategy when unproven initiatives are constantly being thrown at you in an environment of continuous policy churn.
Posted by: Cynic
on 23, Jul, 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.
