Thank you Chris Hipkins!! Goodbye National Standards. But....

Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins.
Sourced from stuff.co.nz

Labour campaigned on it.

New Zealand First campaigned on it.

The Green Party campaigned on it.

Last Monday, the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, finally announced it.

From 2018, Primary schools will no longer have to report on National Standards to parents or the Ministry of Education from the new year.  Education Minister Chris Hipkins said reporting would shift from the standards to reporting on children's progress. Reports would be written in "plain English", he said.  Read more here:  Government confirms primary schools to scrap National Standards (NZ Herald 11/12/17).

He also said parents and teachers had lost confidence in the "narrow policy" that he called "nothing more than a compliance exercise" and a "major distraction to schools".  (Government scraps National Standards, Newshub, 12/12/17)

I'm stoked that National Standards will not be compulsory, Chris Hipkins.  Thank you very much.

I've been campaigning against them since the legislation was enacted under urgency in December 2008.  I've joined Facebook groups, commented on numerous forums, written blogs opposing National Standards, attended protests, lobbied politicians, informed colleagues, friends, family, parents of students and the general public of the futile and stigmatising nature of National Standards.  I became a co-admin of Save Our Schools New Zealand and upped my involvement in NZEI.

Personally, over the years, while I have met the requirements of my job description as a teacher in regards to National Standards, I've mostly ignored them.  Here's how:

• the original National Standards document I received is still unopened in the plastic it arrived in.
• that document is buried in my storage locker with 99% of what I own - that's how little I value it.
• I actively ignored National Standards as a teacher and minimalised my involvement in doing anything involving them.
• I minimalised my discussion of the National Standards with students and talked to them about where they sat according to age norms and the curriculum and the progress they were making from a certain point to that point. 
• I taught with good practice to encourage the love of learning, not the need to need an 'aspirational' standard that did not meet with how we know children learn.
• I avoided putting anything on display or in the student's books that referred to the Standards.

Then I decided I needed to do more:

• I joined the Labour party and began having the conversations with various politicians from not only Labour, but the Greens and NZ First, to push the need to see National Standards gone.
• I assisted with campaigning in the 2014 election.
• at the end of 2015 I decided I really could not stomach National Standards anymore.  After a whole term of testing instead of teaching and writing labourious reports to the Standards and crying over the 'Well Below' children and consuming far too much chocolate and bourbon, I called it quits.  I decided not to teach again under a National government.
• I began my Masters of Education focusing on Global Education Policy.  Just the dissertation to go.
• I protested Hekia Parata, the former Minister of Education, at the largest education conference in New Zealand, ULearn.  Out of hundreds of messages and personal conversations and likes, only two people called me disrespectful and disagreed with my protest.  Over a year later, I'm still getting people thanking me for taking my lone protest to the middle of ULearn during the Minister's speech, right in her line of sight.
• 2017 was all about my goal to #ChangeTheGovt - this involved becoming even more involved in the Labour party and managing the Taranaki-King Country Labour campaign and assisting in the campaign thoughout the Waikato as well as supporting the campaigns in the Rangitikei, New Plymouth and Te Tai Hauauru electorates.

So imagine my excitement that night that Winston Peters announced that New Zealand First would be going into coalition with Labour and that the Greens also had a supply and agreement document with Labour.  All three parties would not let National Standards continue.  No more National Standards!

So once again, Chris Hipkins, thank you very much for saying that National Standards will not be a requirement in 2018.

However, what I'm not pleased about is that you will still allow schools to "choose" to use them as a tool.  

Schools who still want to use National Standards to report a child’s progress to parents can continue to do so – despite the Government saying they’d scrap them.  Education Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed National Standards would no longer exist, but any school that wanted to use them as a tool to report progress wouldn’t be forced to stop doing so.  “We’re going to require schools to report child progress against the curriculum.  What tools they use to do that is up to them.”  From National Standards will no long exist but schools can still use them - Chris Hipkins (Stuff, 14/11/17)

That just makes a mockery of your announcement.  When my principal heard this he was dismayed.  He thinks you have stumbled at the final hurdle and given BOTs the opportunity to continue this folly, overriding the teaching staff and principals.  

This is a man who was hanging out for a change of government prior to the election because he knows National Standards has not done his students or staff any favours over the years.

I'm also rather concerned by this line:  "We will take the next few months to work with the sector, students, parents, whanau and iwi to develop a new approach for understanding progress across the curricula that will meet their needs, and contribute to the education system supporting the success of all students."  (NZ Herald, 11/12/17 - as linked above).

During the election campaign, Mr Hipkins repeatedly said that there would be no replacement because we have a world leading curriculum which should inspire learning and be the baseline for assessment.  I am therefore concerned about the need to 'replace' National Standards.  I believe that Mr Hipkins is very sincere when he says he will work with the sector and relevant interest groups.  However, I believe he has forgotten why Finland had a successful education system and how it got it: by copying the world leading child centred education system New Zealand had prior to the formation of Tomorrow's Schools.

I've made the decision to step back into full time teaching in 2018.  I did this on the basis of having a Labour led coalition that was disposing of National Standards and returning our New Zealand Curriculum to the front and centre of our education landscape.

I will be watching this very carefully.   I will be advocating for my students, colleagues and the system.  I am not going to accept any neoliberal programme over the top of our world leading curriculum.  

Thank you Rod Emmerson for saying it how it really is!!

So Mr Hipkins, let's get that National Standards legislation repealed once and for all.  Let's ensure the New Zealand Curriculum is front and centre.  And let's ditch National Standards into the history books (aka rubbish bin).  Completely.  Nothing less will be acceptable.

We need to end poverty for New Zealand families

During the last week, both Labour and the Greens have released their policies for families, their incomes and how to end poverty in New Zealand.  It comes partly in response to the tax cuts announced by the National led government duing the Budget bribery in May, but mostly has an inducement by all three parties to woo the voter for the general election on the 23rd of September.

 

The stark reality is that too many of our nation's children and their families are in poverty, as this infographic below illustrates:

 

Source:  www.childpoverty.co.nz

 

Poverty is something that successive governments in New Zealand have battled to overcome since it began to govern itself with a parliament.  After the Great Depression, a constructive decision by consecutive governments for nearly five decades meant that New Zealand engaged in a policy of full employment via the public sector and public works to ensure every man was able to support his family and children would not be subjected to the poverty they endured during the Depression and war years.

 

However, with the event of Rogernomics during the fourth Labour government in the 1980s and then the subsequent National government duing the 1990s with agressive New Right policies implemented by then Finance Minister, Ruthless Ruth Richardson, poverty was once again well and truly ingrained in the framework of New Zealand society and has developed to a point where it can no longer be ignored and swept under the carpet by any political party leading up to the 2017 election.

 

The following is an exert from my Masters essay last year that I blogged in the post How does child poverty affect access to education and success in achievement for New Zealand children?

 

In 1972, the Royal Commission on Social Security had reinforced the role of welfare as “to ensure, within limitations which may be imposed by physical or other disabilities, that everyone is able to enjoy a standard of living much like that of the rest of the community, and thus is able to feel a sense of participation in and belonging to the community” (Kelsey, 1995, p.271).  The new National government of 1990 decimated this social contract in 1991.

 

Treasury’s Social Policy Branch decided they needed to determine what American economists called a minimum income standard – a poverty line.  They contracted some home economy researchers in Dunedin, who investigated four dietary budgets on which to feed a man, woman and several children of various ages for a week.  They came up with four budgets: liberal, moderate, basic and low.  At the low end, the researchers determined it would take careful shopping and considerable time and cooking skill to ensure a healthy diet, but that it was not healthy or sustainable long term.

 

Treasury took the lowest plan, without telling researchers, and reduced it by 20%.  They called this the New Zealand Income Adequacy Standard and used it as the recommendation for the new beneficiary payment levels.  The unemployment benefit was cut by one quarter.  Jenny Shipley, the Minister of Social Welfare, claimed it was required to “create a gap between work and welfare” (In a Land of Plenty, 2002).  The family benefit was also stopped and merged into a means-tested family support tax credit (Baker, 2011).

 

The impact of this move was devastating across the country and plunged families below the poverty line.  If Porirua alone had $400,000 a week slashed from its local economy, other communities around the country also faced similar circumstances, including the flow on of businesses closing and further job losses. 

 

The changes to the employment laws, continued restructuring and redundancies, plus the impacts of less money in the local economies caused unemployment to rise to over 11%, as can be seen in the graph below (Trading Economics, 2016).  This was key to poverty gaining a foothold in many communities who had lost significant and large, long term employers forever.

As a result, both Labour and the Greens have released their policies.  You can access their policies from this links:

• Labour: A Families Package that delivers
• Greens: Mending the Safety Net

Essentially both will cancel the tax cuts and amendments to the tax thresholds that National has proposed.  Instead they will put in place interventions to support families to be able to pay for the necessities of life.  These policies will allow both parties to enact change and opportunities in other areas in order for families to earn more and become independent from state interventions.  Naturally, the Green's policy reaches further than the Labour policy, but that is expected considering the Greens sit further to the left than Labour on the political spectrum. 

 

And I think that is a good thing, as these two parties have strongly shown they intend to form the next government and therefore they both need strong policy platforms that both complement each other and differentiate from each other.  Part of a coalition government is being able to find the common ground and then compromise on other aspects to get the best outcome for the voters, New Zealand's wider society and the balancing the economy.

 

I'm not going to sit here and compare the merits of these two policies to each other, I leave that to you as a voter.  But I do want you to compare which of these sits with you better in comparison to what National has done for nearly nine years.  I want to consider:

• Is New Zealand the better for the policies of beneficiary bashing and sactions this government has enacted? 
• Is it more economic to persue the benefit fraudsters or those who avoid tax - considering that tax avoidance is costing our economy far more but is rarely persued to recoup the loss or convict the avoider?
• And is our welfare system still delivering the goal set in 1972, that everyone is able to enjoy a standard of living much like that of the rest of the community or is it condemning generation after generation to a life entrapped in poverty?

I want you to consider if the situation today is something you are comfortable with and what are the consequences for your children and grandchildren in years to come if we allow poverty to further entrench in our society.


I want to refer you to two other blog posts I have written about my experience and reflections with our welfare system:

• When Life Gives You Lemons, Dealing With WINZ Sucks Even More
• An Open Letter to Anne Tolley, the Minister for Social Development - a Ministry that is systematically broken

I acknowledge that Rod Emmerson drew this very poignant illustration of the reality of family poverty.
Thanks for being such an awesome commentator of New Zealand, Rod.

And from the essay I quoted previously, I leave you with the symptoms and consequences of poverty....
The symptoms of poverty are clear: acute and chronic health conditions, poor quality housing, low attainment of education success, a greater potential to be either a victim or a perpetrator of crime (or both), increased risk of mental health issues, increased chance of abuse.


And the solutions to solve child poverty....
The solutions to poverty are clear: put children at the centre of all policy developments and implementation plans; stop using the unemployment rate as a mechanism to control inflation and keep wages low; increase all benefits to a level which enables a healthy diet to be maintained; increase the minimum wage to the level of the living wage; ensure free universal access to health, dental care and education; and improve the housing stock of New Zealand by demanding a minimum standard for state and private rentals.

The TPPA - why I oppose it.

Tomorrow the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) will be signed in Auckland by the twelve participartory countries, maybe at Sky City... or maybe that's just a diversionary distination to waylay the protester, and I am pretty bloody pissed off about it.

Why?

Well first of all it has not even been through our parliament for debate, as the full and final text really only became available once the last parliamentary year finished.  Before that it was all leaks and conjectures about what the TPPA contained.  But those leaks and conjectures were a worry... and not too far from the truth as it turns out.

A couple of nights ago, I asked on a page operated by NZEI if there was an organised group attending the march in Auckland tomorrow.  I wanted to be with like minded friends to participate. 

One of the responses was this:   Is there a depth of understanding about the TPPA ??? What about advantages?

And I responded with this:

Tariff reductions are a great advantage. Opening up new markets is a great advantage. 

But this is why I don't support the TPPA:

• It was negotiated in secret. Unlike previous FTAs, there was no bipartisan consultation with other political parties, no consultation with Tangata Whenua and little consultation with our own business leaders and academics. 

• The Treaty of Waitangi is not mentioned in it. This is a defining piece of NZ law. There is precedence for it to be included. It was part of the FTA Phil Goff negotiated with China.
• Unlike Australia or Singapore or a few other nations, we have no rights to invoke protections as to who can come in and buy land and houses from overseas. Even implementing something as simple as requiring a foreigner to build a new home rather than buy an existing house would not be allowed. 
• The increased lengths of patents on biomedications and the like will blow our health budget out of the water and continue delays and denials of access to the best treatments for people suffering from health conditions. 
• Copyright law changes will makes books more expensive - not great for public libraries and schools and the like.
• The fact that when our government wants to change a law, they will have to allow foreign nationals and corporates to make submissions. Stop and think about how that will likely have a negative effect on environmental or employment law for example. If you think I'm not realistic, did you know the company that runs Auckland's trains, Veolia, has sued Egypt for raising the minimum wage? Now think about how Peter Jackson and Warner Bros has already influenced employment law for actors and film workers in NZ.
• Tim Groser promised us a gold plated deal and that he wouldn't bow down to continued tariffs and restrictions on our dairy trade. Then he made us eat dead rats over that, and American and Canadian dairy farmers breathed a Collective sigh of relief when Groser rolled over. The benefits to the dairy industry are minimal, as they are over all. Tufts University predicts without the TPPA NZ would have a 46% increase in GPD by 2030; with it the increase would be 47% - consequently, business wise, the TPPA is negligible. 
• And this is the complete deal breaker for me: the impact on our quality public education system in NZ. Let's say a company from the US arrives called XYZ Ed. They can demand that the NZ government give them money to set up a charter school in NZ. Despite the fact that where they set it up doesn't need a new school. With our tax payer dollars. And we all know NZ charter schools aren't subjected to the scrutiny that state schools are. And why? Because the TPPA allows it. Singapore's negotiators didn't agree to that one and had it written out of their part of the agreement. 

Which then begs the question: what bloody use was Tim Groser as a negotiator? 

 

The fish hooks are too many!

 

And finally let me put it this way, if I offered you a chicken sandwich made with fresh bread and fresh cooked chicken with a lovely chutney but laced with rat poison, would you take it and eat it? Because that's what the TPPA effectively is.

 

Another contributor also added this in support:

 

When our government signed up to the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975 we accepted three fundamental principles of the Treaty: Partnership, Protection and Participation. (The Act doesn't actually say that but that it is how it is interpreted and implemented in the public service.) 

The TPPA hardly embodies these: no Maori have been partners in the negotiation; there are severe concerns that our assets and sovereignty will not be protected; and there has been no participation in what has been an entirely secret set of dealing and wheeling. smile emoticon

If we value the Treaty of Waitangi, we need to value it every day of the year. It seems to me that John Key has ignored it 364 days of the year and then wants to be valued and honoured on the one day that is Waitangi Day. 

Sorry - that doesn't wash with me.

 

So tomorrow I intend to march with thousands of other New Zealanders because I simply do not believe that this deal is in the best interests of New Zealand and its people long term in its current format.

 

Like Andrew Little said last week, I support Free Trade but I do not support our sovereignty being pulled from under us and I believe that the best deal for New Zealand is not in the TPPA.

 

I like the fact that Labour waited for the full text to be available before making a declaration on its TPPA stand.  It is what Andrew Little said they would do - read the text and talk to experts and get advice and then make a decision about how it met Labour's stated five bottom lines it released in mid 2015..

 

I respect that the Greens and New Zealand First made the decision long before seeing the text.  Fletcher Tabuteau, an economics lecturer in his former life, was able to clearly show how the numbers just do not stack up greatly for New Zealand under the TPPA during the Auckland Town Hall meeting last week.  Metiria Turei was able to show the impacts on sovereignty, workers, the environment and many other things Kiwis value.

 

Marama Fox from the Maori Party also demonstrated how the TPPA will impact on the Treaty of Waitangi and how that breaches the needs of Maori and continues to make Maori victims of colonisation.  Of course, Maori will not be the only indigenous people of the countries participating to be affected, but Maori are unique due to the recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand law in 1975.

 

Lori Wallach pointed out at the Town Hall meeting that the TPPA in its current form would not make it through Congress in the US.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans support it.  The Republicans view clauses in it to be even weaker than what George W Bush managed to negotiate in his FTAs when it comes to the environment.  In fact, here is a tweet published by Elizabeth Warren's Official twitter account today.  Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat Senator from Massachusetts and an academic of commercial and bankruptcy law, formerly of Harvard University.

 

And when you look at this tweet in the context of those before an after, it speaks volumes about the position that Congress is taking.

 

There have been protests in Malaysia in regards to losing control of their economy, the impacts on small and medium sized business and the costs of medicine under the TPPA in Malaysia. Other countries in South America have also had protests against the TPPA and the Pacific Island countries, who relied on New Zealand to protect and promote their interests, are not happy with the outcome.  The lead negotiator from Japan has had to resign his positions after corruption and bribery allegations have been made against him.

 

And in response to detractors of Dr Jane Kelsey, New Zealand's foremost knowledgeable academic on the TPPA and Auckland University professor, it is her job as an academic to investigate such deals and put them under the microscope, to put them up for rigorous debate.  She knows New Zealand law by the back of her hand.  And Dr Kelsey is not alone, as many of her fellow academics have contributed to the analysis of what the TPPA would mean to New Zealand.

 

Even Tufts University in Massachusetts USA has cast shade on some of the claims to emerge from the TPPA.  Their analysis proves that the propaganda being put about by our National led government is folly and fantasy.  Click here for one such analysis.

 

In my view, Tim Groser failed to meet the standard as a negotiator and a protector of New Zealand's best interests.  John Key has failed to meet the standard of being the Prime Minister of New Zealand by failing to protect the best interests of the New Zealand people, its businesses and economy.

 

If you are wanting to find out more for yourself to help you form your own view, here are some links to some vital information:

• For a link to the full TPPA text released by MFAT on January 26 2016 click here.  It is interesting to note that the Spanish and French versions were only released yesterday, February 2 2016.
• For the official government propaganda... opps.... cough, cough.... official analysis of the benefits of the TPPA, click here.
• To view the full Auckland Town Hall meeting held on Tuesday 26 January 2016, click here.
• And to view the academic analysis of the TPPA, click here for links to each one.
• Government silent over TPPA threat to public education – NZEI  -  by Save Our Schools NZ
• The dangers of TPPA to the New Zealand school system  -  by Save Our Schools NZ
• Paul Goulter: TPP puts profit ahead of quality education  -  Paul Goulter is the NZEI National Secretary and pretty much everything I've heard Paul say about GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) has come to pass in one form or another.
• And, in a late edit, a video from NZ Stop TPPA's Facebook page that simply explains about the TPPA.

Meeting the candidates for election 2014

It's election year.  There are election hoardings competing for space on every fence and scrap of green grass facing a busy thoroughfare.  There are politicians up and down the country door knocking, pressing the flesh and kissing babies.  And the television debates have started.

Different groups are also holding meet the candidate breakfasts, lunches and evening meetings.

On Monday 4 August, Matamata NZEI Branch held a meet the candidates night at the Matamata Club.  In attendance were the following candidates and representatives:

• Susan Cullen - Maori Party candidate for Hauraki-Waikato electorate
• Tracy Martin - New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Education Spokesperson and current List MP
• Dr Ron Smith - ACT candidate for Hamilton East
• Lindsay Tisch - National candidate for Waikato and current MP for Waikato
• Catherine Delahunty - Green Party Education Spokesperson and candidate for Coromandel electorate and current List MP
• Christine Greer - Labour Party candidate for Waikato electorate

All the speakers were wonderful participants, and you can read the Storify below to see how the night went.

On Tuesday 19 August, the Waikato NZEI Branch held a meet the candidates night at the Methodist Hall in Hamilton.  In attendance were the following candidates and representatives:

• David Bennett - National candidate for Hamilton East and current MP
• Nanaia Mahuta - Labour candidate for Hauraki-Waikato and current MP
• Sue Moroney - Labour candidate for Hamilton West and current List MP
• Cliff Allen - Labour candidate for Hamilton East
• Mark Servian - Green Party candidate for Hamilton East
• Katrina Day - Conservatives candidate for Hamilton East
• Ray Calver - Internet Mana candidate for Hamilton East
• Carolyn McKenzie - Democrats for Social Credit candidate for Hamilton East

Sadly Tim McIndoe was not present and no representatives attended from New Zealand First, ACT or the Mäori Party.

Below is a Storify of the tweets I sent out and received that night and after reflection the next morning.  There is also some commentary I have put in to round out the night.

Meet the candidate nights are all very well to get a gage of the person who may well be representing you in parliament after the election, but it is also vital that you do the following:

• Read the policies of the parties different parties, including National (who has released stuff all policy so far) and ACT and the Conservatives (who have scary ideas about education!).
• Meet any and all of the candidates in your electorate
• Most NZEI branches are organising meet the candidates nights, so are many other groups.  So find one and go to it.
• Find out where/how you can meet your candidates. Follow them on fb and/or Twitter.  Read their blogs.
• Go to the party websites and read the policies.  Follow their blogs, fb pages and Twitter feeds.  Labour even has an Instagram account now.
• Don't rely on the media to tell you what each party stands for. All you'll get is John Key & co telling you that everyone else is wrong and the personality sideshow of Colin Craig & Dotcom.  So dig a little deeper.

I have published this blog much later than I intended.  This was due to a lot of events happening including a busy time at school and moving house.  Thanks for reading anyway, and I hope it was helpful.

Kids at the Heart of Education Nationwide Tour - Hamilton Public Library

I think that it is pretty much not a secret that I am in no way of fan of this National led government and the choices they have made and the policies they have followed.  Some of you may have detected a rather obvious leaning towards Labour.  However, they too do not have all of the answers. 

I've always liked the Greens in some areas because they have a real social conscious and a lot of what they talk about when it comes to the environment makes sense.  I've been disappointed that during Helen Clark's time as Prime Minister with Labour the Greens were not inside the tent, but I respect their reasons for why and why not.

But I think 2014 is the year that the Greens and Labour can work it out.  They have a lot they agree on.  I think they have lots of areas they can work together and compromise on either side on.  I think there will be some big areas where they may have to agree to disagree, but I think, on the whole, these two parties have the talent, expertise and determination to form a very effective government with a social conscious.

I've seen Catherine Delahunty speak previously at NZEI's Annual Meetings and I love her enthusiasm.  She and Metiria Turei have been vocal in their opposition to National Standards, Charter Schools and the GERM infestation of our education system, so I was excited to hear they were doing a tour of the country to discuss education and their policy of Schools as Community Hubs.  I was even more excited to know Professor Martin Thrupp, a leading academic on education from the University of Waikato, would also be speaking.

As a teacher I am stoked to know that the Green Party would not have performance pay for teachers, can National Standards and Charter Schools, and reinstate our quality public education system to be the best it can be.

Martin Thrupp was very clear that our quality public education system is on the precipice.  This election will either be the death of it under a third term National led government, or it will be saved by a government from the Left.

Below is the Storify of the tweets I tweeted and received that night (by the way, I apologise for my fingers and the smartphone keyboard not always agreeing on the letter I actually wanted to type):

Reflecting back on this evening, I remember thinking that Catherine and Metiria really understand how important the school is in every community, that it is not just about the relationships teachers have with the children, but with the families and extended families - and the actual school itself as a focal point for all.

I have mostly taught in rural schools, where the school really is the focal point.  It disseminates the news for all the community - when tennis is starting, when the Anzac service is, when the community church will have a service, when the local clay bird shoot competition is, when the rugby muster is, what's happening at the play centre and so on.  It means that not only the families with students at school are in the know, but the wider community also knows.

And that is the beauty of the Schools as Community Hubs - it draws the community together even more.  By bringing early childhood services, health and social services onto the school site, a tighter community unit can be established earlier on.  The idea of it takes a village to raise a child will be reinstated in the public consciousness.

Victory School in Nelson have been doing this concept for a decade already.  They are in a low socio economic area, but have seen community relationships build, family health improve and educational outcomes exceed schools with similar demographics.

Metiria said that each school community would have to mould what they wanted their Hub to look like, that you just can not take the Victory model and implant it as the solution for each and every community.  The Hubs are all about making local solutions for local challenges.

The election on the 20 of September is an important election.  It is a choice we all have to make as voters about whether or not we want to continue with National's no social consciousness or do we want to make New Zealand the fair and better society we aspire for our children of now and the future.