World Teachers Day - It's Time!

It's time!  Kua tae te wa!!

Last week was World Teachers Day and it is time!!!

It's time that teachers were once again held in high regard and not pushed around by politicians and the neoliberal agenda pushing their GERM policies.  It's time our professionalism, knowledge and experience is respected and we are fully consulted on and collaborated with in regards to education policy and how the New Zealand education system is run.  It's time our workload is reduced and we are renumerated appropriately.

Last Wednesday I came back from a four day conference.  It was the annual conference for the New Zealand Education Institute, NZEI.  People generally know us as the primary teacher's union, but we also cover primary principals (and primary includes intermediate schools), kindergarten teachers, teachers in ECE centres, special education teachers who work directly for the Ministry of Education, and school support staff who work across the kindergarten, primary and secondary sectors in a range of roles.

People usually view NZEI as an industrial union, as they mostly hear about us talking about how much teachers are paid and Collective Agreement negotiations because that is what the media talks about.  But NZEI is more than an industrial union, because the 'I' in NZEI means 'Institute' and that is because NZEI is a professional body.  What you do not see in the media or public eye is the professional and pastoral sides of the Institute, how NZEI aims to develop teachers, principals and support staff as professionals so that children are provided the best education possible.

Because in the end it is all about children.  Children are the ones that benefit from a strong teacher profession promoted by NZEI.  Children are the ones that benefit from having support staff who are focused on supporting the child and their learning and wellbeing.  A teacher's working/teaching conditions are the learning conditions of our students.  When you shortchange and restrict teachers, and fellow staff, the ultimate sufferers are students.  And I think this sign below, drawn at the Annual Conference, sums that up quite nicely.

The last eight and a half years have been difficult for the education sector as a whole.  This list is not an exhaustive list of what has been inflicted on us, but it is representative:

• revoking the goal to have 100% of ECE teachers fully trained and registered.
• funding freeze for kindergartens and ECE centres.
• the destructuring of the kindergarten model into the industrialised day care model.
• constant slamming of the teaching profession and the focus on the "tail of underachievement" without the explanation of the children who make up the "tail of underachievement".
• support staff receiving miserable pay rises and not recognised by the government for the integral part they play in the education of children.
• allowing children to start school before their fifth birthday.
• National Standards.
• narrowing of the curriculum, teaching and learning to reading, writing and maths.
• expecting all children to be assessed against the National Standards, including students on IEPs and receiving ORS funding.
• league tables in the major newspapers.
• bullying principals and BOTs into taking National Standards on.
• advisors sent into schools with little or no experience of the schools or the levels.
• Commissioners sent into schools and BOTs and/or principals being fired.  These Commissioners are also paid for by the schools, so are financially draining.
• the killing off of the Teacher Advisory Service and privatisation and corporatisation of professional learning development providers who never knew what they would be doing from year to year.
• the closing of Learning Media and the consequently lower quality and restricted variety of the resources now supplied to schools for learning.
• changing the leveling of School Journals with no consultation with classroom teachers to fit in with National Standards.
• PaCT.
• Charter Schools.
• Teach First.
• allowing people to teach in Charter Schools who are not trained registered teachers.
• Charter Schools not coming under the requirements for OIA (Official Information Act).
• continually cutting funding for Reading Recovery.
• not spending all the money in the Special Education fund despite the desperate need.
• closing several residential schools for children with special education needs.
• trying to close Salisbury School and make Halswell a co-educational facility despite the court ordering that housing these girls within the same school as boys would put all the children at risk.
• IES that devolved into Communities of Schools that became Communities of Learning.
• freezing the school Operations Grant and giving schools money for children deemed 'at risk' but not naming who those children are.
• job insecurity for support staff as they are at the mercy of pressures on the Operations Grant.
• the attempt to reintroduce bulk funding and disguising it by calling it global funding.
• the decision to go with the Risk Funding model.
• refusing to fund food in schools programmes.
• ignoring the effects of poverty and the housing crisis on children.

Many of these things were predicted by the NZEI General Secretary, Paul Goulter, each year in his speech to the NZEI Annual Meeting.  This year Paul put out a call to teachers, principals and support staff that is is time.  It is time to stand up and be paid what we are worth and that we will not be nice about it anymore. 

Below is Paul Goulter's address to the NZEI Annual Meeting 2017.

Teachers are quite fed up.  While we love the job, we don't love the workload.  We don't love the teacher bashing we have endured under National.  We absolutely abhor National Standards.  We don't like PaCT.  We have little time for CoLs being forced upon us.  We absolutely hate that our profession is constantly disrespected for our knowledge and experience we bring and the constant call for accountability, which is out of control and increasing the workload, taking the focus off our core reason to exist: teaching children.

I was surprised by these statistics Paul spoke about in his address:

• New Zealand teachers have 922 teaching hours on average annually compared to the OECD average of 794 hours.
• New Zealand has the 11th worst child:teacher ratio in the OECD.
• New Zealand teachers have the 19th worst buying power for their salary in the OECD.

There are 35 member countries of the OECD.  We are at the wrong end of the statistics.

Add to this that New Zealand has the highest rate of youth suicide in the world and, in one study, the worst rate of homelessness, we really need to wonder if this country is doing the best for the children of New Zealand.

Below is a Storify of tweets illustrating Paul Goulter's address to the Annual Conference and how our members feel about the issues our members face.

The Primary Teachers Convenor, Michelle, stood to read the pledge we are making to all members.

I am a primary school teacher, so most of what I have written above is focused on that.  But NZEI promotes a kaupapa of whole of union.  So below I am going to discuss issues for other sectors within NZEI, because I will support and activate for these members too, because it benefits every other sector and, most of all, children will benefit.

Let's start with ECE, early childhood education outside of the Kindergarten sector.  This is dominated by the industrialised day care chains and peppered by community based day cares (which are often now being squeezed out of the market).  Most teachers in this sector are not unionised.  There are minimal requirements for child:teacher ratios or for the numbers of trained, qualified, registered teachers to be in these centres.

I won't go into my own personal issues in regards to the quality of education and care in these centres, but when I read the statements in these pictures below and hear the stories in person, I wonder how staff subjected to such poor employment practice can consistently deliver quality education and care to the students in these centres.

Anyone reading these statements has to be moved by the fact we have a fair chunk of the ECE sector under stress and working in centres that are not meeting the legislation requirements for workers and for children.

Our Kindergartens have been undermined by this current government, who have lumped them under the same legislation and policies and ECE centres.  The result is that the ethos of Kindergartens is being lost.  They have been turned into the day care model, therefore reducing choice for families looking for the best fit for their preschooler.  Kindergarten teachers have had their professional status undermined and their conditions eroded.

Our support staff are on the lowest wages in education.  Our support staff have been subjected to years and years of job insecurity due to being funded through the Operations Grant.  If a school suddenly needs to cut costs due to financial pressure, the support staff budget is one of the few places they can make cuts to balance the budget.  The result is that students suffer because that teacher aide is gone or there is no longer someone running the library or one of the many other roles support staff take on.

Teachers have a phenomenal workload, but principals really take the cake.  The amount of principals burning out or creating a poor culture within their schools due to the workload is continuing to increase.  The government has tried over and over to pit principals against teachers and principals and BOTs against each other.  The fact is, a principal needs to have a close, quality, collaborative relationship with both their staff and their BOTs.  Without that, the principal will fail, the school will fail, the BOT will fail, the staff will fail, and ultimately the children suffer.

Resource teachers are often the bridesmaids and forgotten in all this.  Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTLits), Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour (RTLBs) and Resource Teachers of Maori (RTM) as well as Resource Teachers for the visually impaired and hearing impaired, Health School teachers, Correspondence School teachers, and those who work for Special Education in the Ministry of Education are often forgotten by the mainstream.  They get reorganised, renamed, have staff not replaced and are expected to work wonders with limited resources and time frames.  It's time they were treated with more respect and listened to as well.

Teachers have been nice for too long.  We will not use children as the bargaining chip because children are at the heart of everything we do.  Without children we have no purpose.  If we want to do the best for children we have to fight for the best we can get.  When we have the appropriate staffing, funding and resources we make magic everyday with our students.

So it really is time.  Kua tae te wa!

A tale of two Hekia Parata speeches.

This week is the first week of the term break.  Every term break there are teacher only days and planning days and professional learning days and conferences.  This week three conferences ran across the week, NZEI's Annual Conference, PPTA's Annual Conference and the School Library Conference (SLANZA).  I only found out on Tuesday that there were also conferences running for ERO and PaCT in Auckland as well.  So many teachers, principals, support staff and other educational professionals were well involved in many different conferences throughout the land.

NZEI began its conference entitled It's Got to be About the Child (see the picture on the left to see one of the banners) on Sunday.  They had a full agenda planned with different sectors within the Institute demonstrating their year's work and what was to come as well as CTU President Helen Kelly was speaking, Prof Bob Lingard from Queensland as the key note speaker and addresses from the Australian Education Union and Education International.

What was of note was our Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, was again not on the agenda.  Several weeks ago I had been told she had declined the invitation.

While not an official attendee for this year's conference, I decided to gate crash on Monday because of the speakers.  I really enjoyed Monday, and was as surprised as everyone when Louise Green stood up before the afternoon session and told the meeting that the Minister's office had rung to say Ms Parata wanted to speak to the membership the following afternoon and was rearranging her afternoon to do so.

So what prompted this?

I was not at the NZEI President's Awards Dinner on Sunday night (obviously), but I was told that Bill Noble, former NZEI President, did comment that previous to the current Minister, all the Ministers of Education of the day had spoken to the NZEI Annual Meeting each year.

It was then observed that the invited Ministry official was seen with two phones, and was texting away furiously on one of them.  To the Minister perhaps?

Join the dots from Sunday night to Monday afternoon.

Before the Minister arrived on Monday afternoon I engaged in the following tweeting exchange with the PPTA:

What was interesting was that after her greeting, Hekia address my tweet first.  Oops.

During the "acknowledgement" of my tweet, the Minister stated that she was supposed to be in China this week on a delegation regarding education or the like.  Well I know that Gerry Brownlee was in China on the day, apparently putting a deal about leasing pandas on the table.

The Minister also stated that she was going to Finland in a few weeks (here's hoping she actually takes a lot of notice of how they do things there!) and so her office decided she couldn't be out of the country so much, and withdrew her from the China trip.

She then claimed that the invitation was not reactivated within her office.

Looking at the explanation, then marrying it up with the fact that she had just arrived from two conferences in Auckland that day (the ERO and PaCT conferences), as well as the fact that she had been confirmed to speak at the PPTA conference in the next few days for several weeks... and well... you can see I thought (in polite terms), "CODSWOLLOP MINISTER!!"

Anyhow, you can watch the Minister for yourself in this video below.

The Minister aggressive at the beginning of her speech.  She then whipped through a 17 page speech in 12 minutes.  Note the video in 19 minutes long.  Ms Parata flung a lot of figures and numbers at us to justify what she has done.

Ms Parata also claimed that she wanted to be held to account.  That is very difficult if you do not front up to us each year, if you decide to show if three years after your last visit.

The Minister did not look at all comfortable with herself in front of the NZEI membership at all during her visit.

There were no questions.  There was no time for questions.  She had arrived at about 4:10pm and had to catch a flight at Rotorua Airport at 5:15pm. 

Please also watch National Executive Jan Tinetti's response to the Minister.  This is very clever and pointed.

Below is the Twitter feed from before, during and after Ms Parata's speech as a Storify.

Two days later, Hekia Parata spoke to the PPTA (I hope this embed works!).  Her demeanour was more relaxed, comfortable.  I wondered if it was because it was a smaller room with less delegates, if the NZEI members are more scary than the PPTA members... She was cracking jokes, spontaneously breaking into te reo (then having to translate when she realised 90+% of the attendees were not fluent bilingually)... it was all going so well until she got to answer a question on charter schools.  Watch and see... by the way this video is an hour long (if it is working).



On the plus side, at least Hekia Parata can remember her stance on the 1981 Springbok Tour, unlike the Prime Minister.

However, there is no comparison between apartheid and making a stance against charter schools.  I believe that the Minister may have been disappointed at the lack of media interest in her this week and was looking for a hook to get the media to sound bite.  Well it worked.  Here is an sample of the media coverage after this speech on 1 October 2015:

• On Stuff:  Hekia Parata uses anti-apartheid protests to defend charter schools
• The NZ Herald:  Hekia Parata backs charter schools with anti-apartheid comment
• Radio New Zealand:  Charter school opposition linked to apartheid

These articles were pretty much the first lot of press she had gotten since the 22 of September.

The PPTA has the right to make a stand against charter schools.  They have chosen to do so by not being professionally involved with charter schools or their staff.  This trainee teacher was still employed at the charter school at the time he wanted to do his student teacher practicum at a state school - hence the decision not to have him at the school by PPTA members who would have been required to mentor him.  As the PPTA has pointed out, those who have left charter schools to work back in the state schooling system have been welcomed back.  Besides, if charter schools are so fabulous, perhaps he could have done his practicum at one of those.  #justsaying

So some other issues to raise my ire:

Targeted PLD
The Minister said that there would be targeted PLD in reading, writing, maths, science and digital fluency along with a pilot for PE and health (note that National killed all the effective PLD in these areas in 2009 when they introduced the flawed National Standards and focused all PLD on implementing that very badly).

This PLD would be targeted at the regions with "consistently poor achievement data" - that would be Northland and Gisborne/East Coast schools - because "as tax payers we should be very concerned" that the current PLD has been ineffective.

To me that means that the Minister will be interfering directly in these schools with how they run and dictating what they do.  Where is the flexibility and collaboration in that?

While more PLD would be welcome, the Minister's signal that the Education Council (aka EDUCANZ) will most likely be responsible for this signals more warning lights.  It raises questions over the flexibility of PLD to meet the needs of individual teachers and schools, centralising education functions (after 26 years of decentralisation) and the ability the Education Council to administer and deliver PLD.

Funding of Schools
The Minister brought up how schools will be funded and the fact that it is now on the table for review.  While she says that no decisions have been made yet, think back to March last year when she accidentally slipped to a Herald on Sunday reporter that schools would be funded based on achievement data... and then back tracked after the article was printed.  From the article School funding shakeup looms (16 March 2014), I've copied these quotes

The Government did not want to fund schools according to their raw results in National Standards or NCEA, but on how much teachers had helped students to learn over the course of six months or a year, "the consistency and the progress".
"You've got to work out which school is delivering achievement, which schools are focusing on how they raise the quality of their teaching and leadership practice, and how is that translating into kids demonstrating that they're learning more?"

To hear Hekia come out with comments on this during her speeches worries me.  Angela Roberts from the PPTA was pointed in her reply to the Minister after her speech that the four meetings a year with the Education Forum the Minister established was not enough to collaborate and consult with the schooling sectors on how funding will work.  I agree.

I think John's Blog 8 Predictable Outcomes of Hekia's Planned Funding Changes alerts us to why the Minister's ideas on school funding are so flawed.

The Education Act is a dinosaur
The Minister stated in both speeches that the Education Act is a dinosaur and that there were parts of it that dated back to 1867.  I'm pretty sure that is the part of the Act that actually established education provision in New Zealand, and without it there would legally be no education provision allowed.  #justataguess

The Minister has said that children are not mentioned at all in the Education Act previously, that is keeps tripping her up (which means the Act is stopping her from completely destroying our quality public education system), and that she wants it to be child centric and all in one easy document.

Great -  just make sure that there is full and proper consultation with the sectors and all stakeholders.  And listen and use it.  Don't ignore us like you did with the Teachers Council!!

Early Childhood Education
Ms Parata acknowledged to the NZEI Conference that we had concerns over ECE funding being frozen.  She then proceeded to tell us how much more money is being spent on ECE now than in 2009 and that 98% of providers were meeting the standards.

What the Minister failed to consider was, that while more money is going into ECE, more children are participating in ECE and the funding per child has not increased.

Also, minimum standards does not necessarily equate to quality in ECE.  She did not address that.

Support Staff
Support Staff did not even rate a mention with the Minister.

IES/Joint Initiative
The Minister congratulated both unions on their participation with the MOE over IES/Joint Initiative.  But there was a smugness in how she gushed over the 31% of members who voted to return a 78% Yes vote for the Joint Initiative to go ahead.  NZEI has ceded all the power they earned in their rejection of IES in 2014 by taking the pig with lipstick that the Joint Initiative became after the negotiations with the MOE to the members and getting them to vote for it by saying it was the best we would get.

Jan Tinetti did acknowledge that the members were uneasy over the Join Initiative developments.  I'd say the members are furious.  I know I am, and this decision has meant I will not return to classroom teaching next year because I will not be party to the GERMification of our education system.  NZEI threw out the inoculation to the GERM by presenting this vote to the membership.

I know the Joint Initiative team put in a lot of hard work.  They collected a lot of data, examples and information that will continue to be useful in many ways.  But I consider what was put up to the membership to be an insult to their hard work.

I see the Community of Schools/Community of Learning model to be the vehicle to controlling what is taught and how, introducing and embedding PaCT in schools (because Hekia waxed lyrical on how it would make our workload better - yeah, right), bringing in super principals and replacing BOTs for each schools with Boards covering the cluster.  Just a few predictions.  I'll be devastated to see them come to fruition.

Invitations to the conferences
As stated above, Hekia said she would attend if invited.  She said that at the NZEI conference, and the PPTA conference, but her tone of voice inferred she had not been invited.  After the Minister left, last year's invitation to the NZEI Conference and the rejection from the Minister's office was put up on the big screens.  A comment was made as to "I don't know what goes on in the Minister's office but she is invited every year."

Today I challenged Ms Parata directly on her Facebook page about what she said in regards to invitations to conferences at the NZEI and PPTA conferences.  Her response was quick and concise.

I believe that this Minister of Education is incredibly dangerous.  What she has done, along with what Anne Tolley did before her (and she was a shocking Minister of Education too), and what Ms Parata is about to do will be devastating to our quality public education system, and too much of it will be irreparable if we don't stand up as NZEI members to stop her from implementing even more flawed right wing neo liberal policies.  If we don't, then we have failed the standard as professionals of the education sector.

EDUCANZ and the dismantling of democracy.

A storm is brewing in education and I am pondering: which is the best route to travel?

Several weeks ago, on the opening day of parliament, the third reading of the Education Act amendments were passed in parliament. 

The breakdown was all the National MPs currently in parliament (remembering that Mike Sabin’s resignation had already taken affect at the end of the previous week), ACT’s David Seymour and United Future’s Peter Dunne all voted in favour of the amendments.  Unfortunately this out voted Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First and the Maori Party who all were opposed to the amendments.

What did these amendments cover?

The Teachers Council v EDUCANZ: 

Firstly, it amounts to dissolving the Teachers Council and establishing a body called EDUCANZ.  This affects every teacher in the Early Childhood, Primary/Intermediate and Secondary school sectors.  It affects all teachers at state, integrated and private schools and the true bona fide registered teachers that a charter school may have employed over an untrained and unregistered teacher.

The current Teachers Council consists of some appointed members by the Minister of Education, as well as elected members for the ECE, primary and secondary sectors.  NZEI and PPTA also directly appoint a member.

EDUCANZ will have ALL members appointed by the Minister of Education.  There will be no elections for teachers to vote in representatives for their sectors.  All members will be nominated and the Minister makes the final decision of who takes the roles.  And that may mean that there would be no one directly representing teachers themselves, and that some sectors may not be represented at all.

Hekia Parata has stated that this model will be more autonomous from the government than the current Teachers Council. 

But I fail to see how with all the members appointed BY the minister, that would make it a more autonomous body from the government.  To me the only people EDUCANZ would be autonomous from are teachers themselves.  To me, it opens EDUCANZ up to being dominated by mates of the government of the day.
 

University and wananga councils:

Secondly, it made some drastic changes to the councils that govern universities and wananga.  It reduces the number of members of the governing councils and removes the compulsion/need for student and staff representatives.  The councils will be more business-like in their governance role.

At first glance this may make sense, as these institutions have multi-million dollar budgets.  But is the core business of a university or wananga to make money and a profit?  Or is its core business to educate?

When you remove the people at the centre of the core purpose of these institutions, the staff and students, you remove the purpose itself.

What came before the amendments were passed:

Now you may be thinking why didn’t the teachers and people associated with universities and wananga stand up and make a fuss?

Well we did.  We held meetings, sent in submissions, some made personal appearances at the Science and Education Select Committee hearings on the amendments, there were press releases, newspaper articles, blogs, appearances on tv and radio…. And despite 99% of submissions opposing these amendments, despite opposition from the members of the select committee not in the National Party, the amendments went through to the parliamentary vote with mere cosmetic changes.

In fact, if it were not for the opposition MPs on the Science and Education Select Committee, those in person submissions would have fallen on deaf ears and the process would have been even more farcical than it has been.  While opposition MPs like Chris Hipkins (Labour), Catherine Delahunty (Greens) and Tracey Martin (New Zealand First) asked questions and clarified details, the National Party MPs ate their yoghurt and basically warmed their chairs.

 

The day the amendments passed:

A tweet or Facebook post alerted me to the fact that the third reading was taking place.  I watched carefully.  Chris Hipkins, Catherine Delahunty, Tracey Martin, Kelvin Davis, Gareth Hughes and several others on the opposition benches spoke with authority and a good understanding of the issues and the impacts.

David Seymour (ACT) spoke with no real understanding of the implications and totally from an ideological point of view.  Paul Foster-Bell clearly had no idea what he was talking about, almost as though he had not read through the notes/speech Hekia's office had given to him after his dinner break.  And as for Melissa Lee, good grief!  She warbled on about Lydia Ko and how these amendments would make it easier for our future Lydia Ko's - oblivious to the fact that the current system caters for those families like Lydia's.

The government MPs failed to put up any concrete arguments to that mostly empty debating chamber to counter the opposition MP's fact based speeches in opposition to the amendments.

What does a former member of the Teachers Council think about it all:

Through the Stand Up for Kids - Protect Our Schools Facebook page I have been communicating with Ken Wilson, a former member of the Teachers Council.  And this is what he has to say about the disbanding of the Teachers Council to establish EDUCANZ:

As a past elected member of the New Zealand Teachers Council I find myself profoundly offended by the Ministry of Education's advertisement for EDUCANZ in today's DomPost headed up "We're making changes to education so all Kiwi kids can fly. Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand."

Why is it in today’s political climate, that any new initiative has to be accompanied by denigration of the previous, as if the previous policy was so flawed and so led by misguided and insincere people that it had no value at all?

The Teachers Council was a replacement body for the Teacher Registration Board which had been an effective organisation but one with limited powers. The Board, Director and staff of the Teacher Registration Board were wholly in favour of the new Teachers Council with its broader powers and focus on promoting the professional status of teachers.

Yes, the NZ Teachers Council had a rocky start. The first Chair was driven from her post by unfounded and politically biased accusations – she was later cleared but it was too late by then. This led to the appointment of a director who, while a good person in many ways, was not really up to the task.

This all changed with the appointment of a number of truly effective chairs and of Peter Lind as Director. Over time this hard work gained acceptance of the Council across the profession – even (remarkably) in the university teacher education faculties. What a fantastic effort to make something as bureaucratic as registration accepted by teachers! Now for pathetic political reasons, all that hard, dedicated work by Peter, all of his staff and a whole swag of Council members and chairs has been discarded, marginalised and treated as worthless.

The Ministry of Education has a website page listing the differences between the Council and EDUCANZ. Their view is that key to this is that the status of EDUCANZ as an independent statutory body rather than an Autonomous Crown Entity. Apparently this means that the Minister can select members to create a skills-balanced organisation rather than relying on the vagaries of the electoral process – so much for democracy. (The Ministry makes some interesting points about the low levels of participation in the elections in the last instance.) And of course the Minister appoints all members of the Council – that makes for real independence.

The goals of the new organisation are listed. It's worth looking back at the goals of the Teachers Council and trying to spot the difference. This is a sham, a total sham. I am really pissed off!!

So let's do as Ken suggests and look at the goals of the two organisations:

http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/about-teachers-council

http://www.educanztransition.org.nz/about-educanz/what-are-the-purpose-and-functions-of-educanz/

For further information on the differences between the Teachers Council and EDUCANZ click here.  And for the FAQ according to EDUCANZ, click here.


What does a current member of the Teachers Council think:

Claire Amos is a secondary school teacher and Deputy Principal at Hobsonville Point Secondary School in Auckland, and was last year elected to the Teachers Council by the secondary teachers who voted.

In a blog post dated 2 March called Educanz - between a rock and a hard place, Claire opens with this:

I feel the need to begin this post with a few disclaimers:

• I am a passionate and committed PPTA member. 
• I am current a member of a NZ Teachers Council. 
• I am feeling genuinely stuck...between a rock and hard place. 

Claire then writes:

There is the issue that the process for forming the council is clearly undemocratic, with nominations being open to all, but final selection being made by the Minister of Education. This is of course even harder to accept when you consider that the council is actually funded by the teachers themselves.  

There is also the issue of changing the code of ethics (which are viewed as aspirational) to a code of conduct (which suggest a baseline for behaviour) which to be fair IS insulting, particularly in light of the claim that one of the aims of the new council forming is to elevate the status of teachers??

Add to this the concerns around the stated aim to "to ensure that appraisals made by professional leaders for the issue and renewal of practising certificates achieve a reasonable and consistent standard, by auditing and moderating the appraisals made for at least 10% of the practising certificates issued or renewed in each year " Source: Section 382 Education Amendment Act 2015 which I actually wouldn't have a huge issue with if it weren't for the implications this will have for council employee workloads and the potential practicing certificate fee increase this will undoubtedly lead to. 

 And then...

And then there is the million dollar question - will snubbing the nomination process and the council even make a difference? Will a vote of no confidence be enough to result in a change of legislation? Could we instead be presented with a situation where no left-leaning, future thinking folks stand and give Minister Parata absolutely no choice but to appoint conservative, status-quo protecting council members. Of course, she may well do this anyway, but there a part of me saying if I don't put my hat (or the hat of like-minded folk) in the ring there really is NO chance of having a voice for a good chunk of our sector. 

Yes, we could all disengage and stand shoulder to shoulder, resolute that nominating someone or nominating yourself is by it's very virtue acceptance of fundamentally flawed legislation - but I genuinely don't think it is as straight forward as that. 

And it is good to know I am not the only one conflicted with the quandary of which strategy is the best way forward.

Nominations open...

On Thursday 26 February, Hekia Parata announced that nomination for EDUCANZ were now open.  Hekia's press statement said,
“Nominations are encouraged from anyone with a strong interest in the development and strengthening of the education profession. All appointments will be on the basis of skills, experience and knowledge.
“Members will act in the interests of the education profession as a whole, rather than any one sector group.
“It’s an exciting time to be involved in education. Student achievement continues to rise and the Investing in Educational Success initiative signals a new era of collaboration in raising the quality of teaching and leadership from early childhood to senior secondary.
“I am confident the nominations process for EDUCANZ will attract huge interest and a high calibre of nominees.” 

This is part of the advertisement (click here to see full advert and access extra information) in the Gazette.

Above is part of the advertisement in the Government Gazette, but I would love to see a copy of the advertisement Ken Wilson refers to from the Dominion Post. Reaction was fairly swift from the unions and teachers themselves on social media.

 

What will happen next?

Now NZEI, PPTA, NZPF and any other groups have had to signal their responses and next steps.

NZEI have decided to run their own process of collecting nominations through their membership to put forward to Hekia Parata (Minister of Education) to choose from.

PPTA and NZPF have decided to boycott the process completely, with the PPTA stating they will be balloting their members to check this is still their wish going forward.  The NZPF President, Denise Torrey, has written the following wise words in relation to how their organisation views EDUCANZ:
"Through the Minister appointing all members of the EDUCANZ Board it will be possible for the government to exert considerable political control over the council and set the agenda for it. In our view such control runs counter to the notion of self-regulation which the council is supposed to provide. 

 

Of further concern is what other roles the EDUCANZ might take on. NZPF maintains that EDUCANZ should be primarily about teacher registration, ensuring the quality of initial teacher education, issuing practising certificates, discipline and ethics. Already we know that the auditing of principal appraisals and other roles are likely to fall under the jurisdiction of EDUCANZ and to conduct these roles will require teachers to pay more fees to the council. With no democratically elected representatives on the council, the profession will have no say in any of these changes."

SPANZ and NZSTA has yet to formally declare where they stand, and searching their websites I found nothing mentioning EDUCANZ; but considering they were totally behind IES, I imagine they have fallen into line with Hekia over EDUCANZ.

So what are the pitfalls of these choices?

At first glance to me, NZEI’s stance seemed weak and had a whiff of capitulation about it.  I was concerned that as an organisation I am a member of, that we would lose the opportunity to make a stand about the lack of direct representation.  However Louise Green, NZEI President, said it would be a bad look not to nominate appropriate people for the roles.

Then I thought about it a little more.

If NZEI runs a process that puts several strong, quality nominations up one of two things may happen:

• Hekia chooses one (or two preferably) nominations to represent teachers and appreciates the fact that we as a group of ECE and primary/intermediate teachers have quality people who can lead the profession.
• Hekia completely ignores the capable people we nominate and instead appoints a patsy who is not representative of the ECE and primary/intermediate professions, exposing her bias.

With the stance taken by PPTA and NZPF of a boycott of the nomination process, I thought, at first glance, that it was bold and sends a message about how important representation for each sector is to these stakeholders.

And then I thought about it some more.

Maybe such a stance could be taken as follows:

• The PPTA and NZPF are cutting of their noses despite themselves.
• Hekia may consider that those sectors need no representation and will appoint someone abhorrent to their groups.  The last thing we need on EDUCANZ are people who do not understand the profession and how each sector is unique in all areas.

Where do I stand on EDUCANZ:
So like Claire Amos, I too am caught between a rock and a hard place.

Firstly I fundamentally disagree with the disbanding of the Teachers Council and establishment of EDUCANZ on the grounds of financial management and loss of intellect.  It will cost a fairly decent fortune to do this on so many levels (stationery and new signs and website for starters) and even though the staff will transfer to EDUCANZ from the Teachers Council, there will be severe lost of intellect if any staff decide it's not the move for them, and it will be a severe loss of intellect that our elected leaders to the Teachers Council have collected over the years that will be lost, as it is likely those people may not be selected for EDUCANZ.

I personally believe that Hekia has thrown the baby out with the bathwater on this one.  Yes, the Teachers Council had some areas that were not effective.  So adjust the legislation and require it to tighten up some areas and change some things (particularly in regards to serious discipline matters) that are not up to scratch.  It would have been so much cheaper and faster and less disruptive.  However, we really know that this is all about trying to control and muzzle teachers.

I fundamentally disagree with the legislation that has formed EDUCANZ in regards to the lack of democracy for teachers meaning that they do not elect members of EDUCANZ, and the fact that this could open up the Minister of Education to appoint cronies and people with a conflict of interest. 

I fundamentally disagree with disbanding the Code of Ethics (which I clearly remember being consulted on and discussing the options) with a Code of Conduct.  The Code of Ethics may be aspirational, but its flexibility reflects the evolving nature of teaching and the different contexts of schools and centres in which teachers are teaching.  A Code of Conduct represents a more condemning context.

While I see the positives of participating in nominations to EDUCANZ, I can't help but think we need to send an extremely strong message - again - to the Minister and the rest of the government. 

To not pay any fees to EDUCANZ would be a start - but my protest would be impotent considering my current practising certificate is valid through to 2017 and therefore my small protest would make no difference.  If all teachers did it, then it would be huge, but now many teachers' practising certificates need renewing each year?  Are our teachers bold and brave enough to make such a grand statement?  And would that make the necessary impact?

Once upon a time there may have been strikes over this (particularly from secondary teachers) but with all the changes to employment law over the last 25 years we are unable to take strike action over an issue like this.  It is not linked directly to our collective agreements.

However there must be other ways we can limit our interactions and co-operation with EDUCANZ to send a message, such as not participating in the audits of appraisals and development of their procedures and Code of Conduct.  Please feel free to add more in the comments.
This week I had the pleasure of hearing Andrew Little speak twice, once to Labour party members in Hamilton and once to the Affco Horotiu workers at the Meat Workers Union meeting in Ngaruawahia.  Andrew believes in constructive negotiation.  He likes to see win:win situations.

But one piece of advice that he gave the Affco workers was this:  Half the battle is in your head.  If you think that you have lost before you even begin, then you have.  You have to keep the faith and keep the goal foremost in your mind and keep working towards it.  You have to keep your collective group working towards the same goal  together.

So let's not think that the fight for a democratic EDUCANZ is over.  Let's not think that a Code of Conduct is already done and dusted.  We have the power together to speed things up, slow things down and complicate it for the EDUCANZ body.  We just need to share a joint vision, work together, keep the goal in mind and be positive.

It's up to NZEI, PPTA and NZPF to get together and sort that joint vision and goal out so we can get in behind it and work to achieve it.

To not do this is to fail the standard.  And lets's face it, this legislation has already failed a big standard.

Labour's Education Policy - An antidote to the GERM infection of the last six years.

The first weekend of July saw the Labour Party well and truly launch its 2014 election campaign.  They had a three day Congress in Wellington, and I attended the Sunday when David Cunliffe made his keynote speech and laid out the bones of some very important policy Labour wants to base its campaign on.  And education was at the core of it.

I was very far away from the middle, coughing my germs I had to the empty space on the edge of the auditorium, hence this terrible photograph I took.

As a teacher, any announcements on education are of great interest to me, particularly if they are going to get rid of what I think is detrimental in education (GERM policies, National Standards, Charter Schools, performance pay, IES roles, no teacher representation on EDUCANZ) and will promote and/or improve what teachers know to be valuable in education (teacher education pre-service and for those in practice, special education, class sizes, work load, New Zealand Curriculum, and so on).

I was not disappointed.

But please do not think that I am merely basing who I will vote for on education.  Education will be the first thing I think about though because I work in it, I'm passionate for learning and children, and it pays for the important things I do like eating and shopping and the internet - the priorities in life.

However, I do also consider other things like the following:

• the economy - will they balance the books and be responsible?
• employment - will their policies create jobs or put people out of jobs?  Will they make it fairer to the employee so they have job security?  Will the Living Wage happen so that we don't have the working poor living in poverty?
• housing - will I be able to buy a house before I truly get wrinkles?  Will rental houses be warm and dry and healthy?  Will all those families living in cars and garages get a state house?
• environment - will they improve the health of our waterways so I can swim in the Waikato and Waihou Rivers with confidence?  Will the kauri survive the kauri die back disease?  Will our native birds be protected?  Will 1080 be used in the bush?  Will the Maui dolphin be protected?  Will oil drilling and fracking be placed under much tougher regulations?
• Christchurch - will those poor people get a fair deal from their insurance companies?  Will the rebuild meet what a modern city should/could be?
• manufacturing - will there will be manufacturing in New Zealand?  Will people be encouraged to invest in improving our primary goods (e.g. milk, wood, wool, etc) before exporting rather than sending off the raw product?
• the regions - will the people of the regions be able to stay and have a good standard of living with a job close to home, or will they have to move to Auckland?
• health - will they make the waiting list process more transparent rather than the lie it currently is?  Will more people get their operations sooner so they can become productive members of society again?  Will more get put into addiction services?  Will nurses get paid better and get more nurses in wards to reduce their workload and improve patient care?  Will care in our rest homes be upgraded for the elderly?
• welfare - will we see children of beneficiaries taken care of?  Will solo parents get a fair shake of the stick when it comes to improving their education and work prospects?  Will WINZ go back to having caseworkers who know what's going on with each client so they don't waste time?
• TPPA - will they give away our rights and freedoms to run our lives and our country free from foreign companies dictating what should happen in New Zealand?

So as you can see, I have a few issues to consider.  They may not be the same as yours, or we may have some in common, but it is our responsibility as voters in a democracy to consider who we will vote for and why.

So on Sunday as I listened to David Cunliffe's speech (you can watch his speech here, along with other speeches from other Labour MPs), I did have cause to be happy about a number of things.  Consequently I tweeted and retweeted things, and then I put it all together with Storify (please excuse the places where my fingers and the smartphone disagreed on what letter I pushed).  So here is what I heard and saw:

You can now see why I was a happy teacher.  And now I want to go and look more in depth at the education policy.

Early Childhood Education and Families:

You may remember back in the end of January David Cunliffe did his own State of the Nation speech and he announced some key policy for families and pre-schoolers, the Best Start for Our Kids policy:

• All families earning under $150,000 per year will receive $60 per week for a baby’s first year of life. For parents who are eligible for paid parental leave, the payment will kick in once this comes to an end. Low and modest income families will also receive $60 per week between the child’s first and third birthdays.
• Free early childhood education for three, four and five year old children will be extended from 20 to 25 hours a week
• Paid parental leave will be extended from 14 to 26 weeks as set out in Sue Moroney’s Member’s Bill.
• Free antenatal classes for all parents who want them and extra visits from organisations like Plunket for those who need it most.

This caught people's attention and the paid parental leave bill promoted by Sue Moroney is a particularly popular policy.  This bill has received support across the House - except from National who want to veto it and put up their own half-baked 18 week scheme in Budget 2014.  Hopefully after 20 September, Sue's Bill will be passed and enacted.

Labour will also do the following for pre-schoolers:

• From July 2017 (the tenth anniversary of 20 Hours Free), Labour will extend the Free ECE policy to 25 hours for three and four year old children. The policy will also apply to those five year olds still in early childhood education services. (Extending Free ECE to 25 Hours)
• Labour will restore over time National’s funding for highly qualified ECE centres. We will work with the sector to reinstate the policy of 100 percent qualified staff in all teacher-led services.  The first phase of restoring funding for 100 percent qualified ECEC centres will be provided in Labour’s first Budget in 2015 and come into effect from January 2016.
• We will build more ECE centres in high-need areas so there are enough places for kids who need them.

And Labour has committed to the following by establishing a Ministry for Children:

• We will do away with the Families Commission and focus funding on an independent Children’s Commissioner.
• We will also implement a plan to measure and set targets to reduce child poverty that would be backed up by legislation, and report on progress every budget.

These are important steps in the early years.  For every $1 spent on children in the first five years of their lives, we save $11 later on for each child.  Getting in early saves money and creates a healthier individual in all ways as a citizen, and a healthier community.  I think that it is important that ECE services are teacher led and employ fully trained and registered teachers who understand how young children develop and to ensure their learning needs are meet alongside the growth of their social skills and physical development.

Schools - Years 0-13:

Now this was the part that was especially important to me, being a teacher of primary aged students.

Labour will back quality education and invest in 21st Century Schools by:

• Hire 2,000 more teachers
• Reduce the average size of secondary school classes from 26+ down to 23.
• Reduce the size of senior primary school classes (Years 4-8) from 29+ down to 26.
• Invest $104 million in new classrooms.
• Support professional development for our teachers.
• Put in place a programme that provides an affordable option, available to all schools, for Year 5-13 students to have access to a portable digital device, in the classroom and at home.
• Commit $25 million to provide teachers with professional development during the 2016 and 2017 school years to assist them to make the most effective use of digital devices in the classroom.
• Partner with schools, local government and communities to put in place infrastructure that will allow students, particularly those from low-decile schools, who do not currently have internet connections to use their portable devices to access the internet at home.
• Develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding out-dated and worn-out school buildings, so that every school has access to modern learning environments by 2030.

So far so good.  Every teacher will tell you that a few less kids in their class means more time for the remaining students, a relief from some paperwork those few more kids create.  It can mean the difference between teaching and crowd control.  And when you consider how big a 12 year old is, a few less bodies in the room creates space.

Teachers have been left in the wilderness since the Advisory Services were dismantled in 2009.  Professional Development for many teachers became a distant memory as the new arrangement has often been too expensive, so only selected people get to attend PD courses.  Also, it means that if you have a weakness in science, there were no advisors to come and advise you anymore.  Consequently teachers and principals are welcoming the long waited proposed return of the Advisory Service so schools can again access quality advice and cost-effective PD.

A digital device for all Year 5-13 students is music to my ears, probably because it would make what I want to do as a teacher who loves teaching digitally more of a reality in more schools.  It is good that Labour are also planning on backing this with PD for teachers (because plenty will need it) and internet access in the home.  The internet access solution will be interesting to put into practise as I can see there may be many pitfalls to overcome and it won't happen overnight.

And just this weekend I was with a friend who teaches in a decile one school in Porirua.  She told me her classroom was straight out of the 70s.  So an upgrade of her and her student's working/learning conditions is desperately in need.

Labour will also:

• Fund schools $100 per student per year if they don’t demand donations from parents.
• Scrap National Standards and return schools’ focus back to teaching the full breadth of New Zealand’s internationally acclaimed curriculum.
• Require schools to report student progress to parents in all areas of their learning.
• Ensure every child develops the basic foundations for further learning by extending Reading Recovery so kids falling behind can catch-up.
• Re-direct resources spent forcing ‘National Standards’ on schools into teacher professional development programmes to assist students who are underachieving.
• We will repeal charter school legislation and no more charter schools will be created under Labour. 

Donations have always been a bone of contention, and I can see many schools will be winning with this piece of policy.  I can see how schools like Auckland Boys' Grammar and the like will not be keen on this policy, but parents will like it.  For many schools the funding created by the donations system is the difference between having sports gear for the kids at lunch time to play with or not having any sports gear at lunch time; the difference between having a digital camera in each syndicate or not having a digital camera at all; the difference between having a school production or not having a school production.  Different schools rely on that money for many things that the Ops Grant does not pay for.

 

You many have noticed that I have bolded and highlighted in red two very important policies: getting rid of National Standards and Charter Schools.  These represent the cornerstone of GERM philosophy, of creating a crisis in education and then privatising our quality public education system.  Prior to National enacting National Standards, New Zealand was ranked in the top five of the questionable PISA rankings.  Since National Standards were introduced we have slid down the ranks.  Infact each country which has introduced policies like National Standards (i.e. Common Core in the US, Naplan in Australia, Key Stage Testing in the UK) and consequently Charter Schools, have slid down the international rankings in more that just PISA. 

 

Labour will require teachers to focus on our world leading and much acclaimed New Zealand Curriculum, on all learning areas, and to report to parents on all the learning areas.  This is great for children, because it means we can celebrate those children who also excel in art, physical education, science, music, drama, dance.... not just reading, writing and maths.

 

And I am really pleased to see that Reading Recovery will get a boost and that the National Standards budget will be redirected to help those kids that don't receive ORS funding but need extra help.  Reading Recovery funding has been tightly squeezed each year, and definitely there was less money for the end of 2012.  The earlier we can get in and help students with their learning, the sooner they will be able to become independent and confident learners.  One way the Professional Development could help is teaching teachers how to recognise dyslexia and help children with dyslexia overcome the obstacles that dyslexia likes to create.

 

"Every week 40,000 kids turn up to school without breakfast or without lunch and are fed by charities. But there a more kids who need help. The last nationwide survey of children’s nutrition undertaken by the Ministry of Health found 83,000 children aged 5 to 14, sometimes or often went to school without breakfast.
"Labour will partner with community and voluntary organisations, incorporating the most cost-effective approaches currently operating, to provide free food in every decile 1-3 primary, intermediate school that needs and wants it."

There are schools that see kids turning up day after day without having had breakfast and a poor lunch if any.  I recently read of a teacher who brings bread, butter and spreads to school to feed the kids without lunch - until her principal told her to stop doing it (so she had to get sneakier at feeding these kids).  I have a friend who teaches at a decile 6 high school.  She has a toaster, bread, butter, spreads, jug, milk and milo ready for any kid who needs it in her class.  And it is well used, and she gets better work out of the kids who ate than the kids who came hungry and did not use the food and facilities she provided.

 

Tertiary Education:

 

"The National Party is removing the right of students, staff and other community groups to be represented on university councils. It follows the Government’s introduction of voluntary student association membership and is a further silencing of students.
"Labour is making a commitment to students that when we are elected to government we will ensure they are represented on university councils and have strong student associations.
"We believe having those who are involved in learning and teaching on the governing bodies of universities is a good thing and adds value to the decisions being made."

This is not a good move for universities as it takes their accountability to students, staff and the community away.

There will be more tertiary education policy announced in the lead up to the election.

 

Adult Education:

Labour has committed to reinstating adult education:

• Restore $13m per year for Adult and Community Education
• Another $9m per year on top of that from 2018
• $1m per year of extra funding for ACE English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)

"It’s a cornerstone of New Zealand communities and offers pathways for New Zealanders looking to retrain and reengage with education, and for new New Zealanders to gain the skills and community connections to grow and establish their new lives in New Zealand.  Labour recognises that a lot has changed since the National Government cut ACE funding, which is why the allocation of this funding will be made in close consultation with the adult education sector. We believe that to get the best results for all New Zealanders who want to access ACE we need to work alongside the sector."

I think that reinstating Adult Community Education is a win:win.  It was a conduit for people to get skills and further their education.  But not just for those people, I have taken my fair share of night classes: te reo Maori (excellent for increasing my te reo use in the classroom) and Spanish (I had two Uruguayan students whose English wasn't flash, and learning Spanish helped build my relationship with them and understand their frustrations).

These are the policies that have been released so far to do with education at the time of publishing this post (14/07/14).

I personally am pleased with the direction Labour is taking with education.  It is clear that it has consulted and actually listened to stakeholders and intends on being collaborative in the true sense once it takes over the government benches (fingers crossed) in late September.

I think Labour is meeting the standard when it comes to education policy.  I will endeavour to update when future education policy is released, and when Labour becomes the lead partner in government I will be reminding them of their policy promises and monitoring their follow through.