Posted by: Tom Haig
on 23, Aug, 2012
Public achievement information is the Minister of Education’s phrase of the moment, but the achievement information made public by Labour’s questioning about the youth guarantee won’t have her smiling.
In 2010 Tolley trumpeted that this initiative will increase the achievement of 16 and 17 year olds because many of them will be “more motivated to achieve qualifications in a tertiary setting.” Reading between the lines here, what the Minister means is that schools are boring and inflexible, and what many teenagers need is the freedom and ‘real world’ relevance of a tertiary setting.
There’s definitely an argument to be made for this, but there are legitimate questions about it too. We wrote to Minister Joyce at the time that “the evidence is clear, that students who do not achieve success at secondary school do not have any greater likelihood of succeeding at a more expensive tertiary institution.”
Posted by: PPTAweb
on 03, Aug, 2012
Tagged in:
teaching ,
teachers ,
teacher training ,
quality ,
qualifications ,
public education ,
politics ,
Destiny Church ,
charter schools ,
Charter school working group ,
Catherine Isaac ,
ACT Party ,
ACT
1. That choice and flexibility in how schools are run is what kids need to learn.
2. That mud and water are what boys need to learn.
3. That the retired maths professor across the road wants to come and teach as a volunteer at his local school.
4. That charter schools will have fabulous architecture.
5. That teacher aides write fabulous lesson plans.
6. That the govt wants quality teaching and well qualified teachers but teaching, according to our govt, is not a profession that requires standards, competency, ethics, registration.
7. That children do not need qualified registered teachers to support their learning.
8. That Deborah Coddington, via twitter, described herself as an unfit parent. This, of course, was just time out from criticising registered teachers.
9. That evangelicals, meditation experts, Maxim, rich Americans, and the business roundtable are amongst those looking forward to saving NZ children from the ills of a secular well-rounded well-regarded public education system.
10. That as I write this the list keeps growing .... add your own
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Posted by: Tom Haig
on 17, Jul, 2012
Diane Ravitch has recently written about how to ‘fix’ charter schools. She’s taken a list of points from Albert Shanker, and suggested that these should be criteria by which charter school proposals are assessed.
Of course they are in a different context in the US, with public schools generally having far less freedom than here, charters being well entrenched, and some teacher unions backing a few charter school models. However, I think that these are worth exploring as a basis for discussion with the charter school working group.
Posted by: Cynic
on 08, May, 2012
Tagged in:
school choice ,
research ,
private schools ,
politics ,
Maori achievement ,
John Banks ,
charters ,
charter schools ,
Charter school working group ,
Catherine Isaac ,
ACT Party
Charter schools - New Zealand education for sale - - you can buy anonymously 
it's a captive market, guaranteed income from the taxpayer and regulation free, ... sign up here.
'I can be objective' says Isaac - and my appointment is not political
Well tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with jam! I just couldn't maintain my zen listening to Catherine Isaac on Native Affairs. Cynic is back.
Have a listen to this paragon of virtue on Native Affairs and then tell me she's objective.
Posted by: Rob
on 30, Mar, 2012
There's been considerable discussion in the office and among members about performance pay. I've put together some thoughts around this discussion. What do you think?
It is useful to first determine what is meant by 'performance' or 'merit' pay
Does it mean more pay for those who take on more work? Extra-duty payment.
It can mean pay for doing extra work over and above the teaching job you are employed for. We have such 'extra duty' pay for managing a department (units and MMAs) or being in charge of specific management functions (units, MMAs, SMAs).
