Posted by: Richard
on 08, Sep, 2010
How I hate to write
But I must take offense
At your lack of common sense.
You called us all puppets
And that simply doesn’t cut it.
We are teachers of the youth
And we simply told the truth
The MOE offer, to say the least
Teachers, it tries to fleece
We aren’t playing any game
National though has gone insane
You mantra comes from every corner
And education will soon be poorer
Posted by:
on 31, Aug, 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:
on 17, Aug, 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 17, Aug, 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 12, Aug, 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.
