Posted by: Tom Haig
on 10, Nov, 2012
Tagged in:
secondary schools ,
public education ,
private schools ,
National Party Education Policy ,
Maori achievement ,
Hekia Parata ,
funding ,
Fees ,
equity ,
education spending ,
education politics ,
education policy ,
education
So a day after announcing the closure of two residential special schools, Parata announces the government is going to be giving $3 million a year to Wanganui Collegiate.
Collegiate is a decile 10 school, which according to the 2011 ERO report had no Pasifika students and 11% Maori.
The same ERO report praised its ‘relatively small class sizes’ which enabled teachers to know their students well, and commented on the ‘success rates considerably above national comparison levels.’ Yep, well that’s what a top private school is supposed to do, right?
Parata and Longstone have been berating schools and teachers to raise the achievement of Maori, Pasifika, special needs and students from low-socio-economic status families - these are supposed to be the priority learners that are the Minister’s ‘unrelenting’ focus.
Posted by: PPTAweb
on 13, Jul, 2012
Tagged in:
transparency ,
teaching ,
teachers ,
stupidity ,
students ,
secondary schools ,
public education ,
power ,
New Zealand School Trustees Association ,
National Party Education Policy ,
learning ,
Hekia Parata ,
G30 ,
education politics ,
Education forum ,
collaboration
Came across this cartoon on Susan Ohanian's website this afternoon and it seemed to fit.
Posted by: Tom Haig
on 22, May, 2012
One of the ways in which performance pay is going to solve the ‘long tail’ of underachievement is that it will encourage good teachers to stay in the classroom. The Minister says, “We need[…] to look at the structure of the career pathways so that excellent teachers aren't forced to become leaders or managers - in other words taken out of the classroom situation - because that would be the only way they could get a pay increase.”
On first blush this sounds a reasonable proposition, as of course teachers who are fantastic with students should not have to wave them goodbye and join the desk jockeys in order to pay off their mortgage before retiring.
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).
Posted by: Flying Pig
on 05, Dec, 2011
Some teachers seem to have got their knickers in a twist about the circular from NZQA about the changes to external moderation for next year. They seem to think that it's going to add to their workload.
How wrong could they be? How could a few teachers in a school having to collect a sample of every piece of assessment work for one or two students chosen by NZQA possibly be more work than every subject having to randomly choose eight students and collect their work for maybe two or three standards at each level and send it off? 500 students across about 400 secondary schools will mean that some schools don't even get sampled!
PPTA fought for a reduction in the 10% random sample for an agreement rate because it made no sense. Political polls don't sample 10% of the population to find out what people think! NZQA has delivered on this, so let's celebrate that.
