Rehash of tired clichés?

PPTA News February 2010 p. 7

A secretive group has been working behind the scenes as part of the National/ACT confidence and supply agreement to promote greater privatisation in education.

The brief for the Inter-Party Working Group for School Choice is to “consider and report on policy options relating to the funding and regulation of schools that will increase parental choice and school autonomy”.

PPTA president Kate Gainsford believes the outcomes are predetermined.

“It will be nothing but a rehash of the tired clichés about choice and privatisation that ACT pedals in lieu of an education policy,” she said.

The group comprises Roger Douglas, Chester Borrows, Hekia Parata, Te Ururoa Flavell and Heather Roy as chair.

“The detail of the sweeping and self-interested changes to education they recommend remain to be seen,” Kate said.

The group first met on 27 May 2009 and has been meeting ever since. It was due to report back in November last year, but to PPTA’s knowledge, at the time of printing, no such report has been published.

The terms of reference of the group allows its members to “enhance their educational understandings by commissioning research or obtaining information from the Ministry of Education”.

The ministry however appears not to have heard of the group and there have been no tenders for research Kate said.

“So we must assume that they feel no need of any expertise in the subject.”

PPTA News, volume 31 number 1, February 2010

Table of contents

President's viewpoint - Real improvements better than political stunts 3;
A student is more than a test score 4;
Auditor general weighs in to behaviour debate 5;
STCA - a big industrial year 6;
School choice - the vultures are circling 7;
PPTA hopes cabinet reshuffle will lead to ACE rethink 8;
NZQA scans horizon for electronic marking of NCEA 8;
Salary assessment for new and beginning teachers 13;
PPTA develops professional learning toolkit for teachers 13;
Letters to the editor: Not listening; For the students; Well trained teachers the key to alternative education 14.

Download the February 2010 issue of the PPTA News

If Treasury secretary John Whitehead gets his way it will be a grim Christmas for the education sector

PPTA News December 2009, p. 5

Treasury’s latest document, Challenges and Choices: New Zealand’s Long-term Fiscal Statement, calls for bigger classes, fewer non-contact hours and performance pay – all the while failing to acknowledge Treasury’s own role in pushing for the expensive and disconnected Tomorrow’s Schools system.

Whitehead speaks of “difficult trade-offs” between economic, social and cultural education objectives, and advocates “using limited funding more efficiently to achieve the same or better results.”

PPTA president Kate Gainsford is concerned about the document’s flaws and has written to Whitehead seeking a meeting.

You just have to be happy with a lot less

PPTA News December 2009, p. 8

PPTA executive members could be forgiven for being a little bemused when, instead of a prepared speech, the education minister chose to read them a children’s book.

But when Anne Tolley told the November executive meeting the moral of the story, The short and incredibly happy life of Riley, was “you have to be happy with a lot less” reactions at the table turned from puzzlement to concern – and in some cases complete outrage.