Chris Hipkins, I have the solution to the teacher supply crisis!

Today, Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, announced an extention to the programme to recruit 850 teachers from overseas, up from the original 400 teachers, hoping to attract New Zealand teachers currently teaching off shore. This follows the MOE asking Immigration NZ to put teaching on the skills shortage list on Friday.

This plan has a fatal flaw however. As NZEI president Lynda Stuart pointed out in the NZEI press release today, "Overseas recruitment may be necessary given this crisis point, but it's a bandaid solution - there's a global shortage of teachers, and if we don't do something about the workload and remuneration of teachers, overseas teachers won't last in the system any longer than our homegrown teachers."

Everyday in the last two weeks I have heard of teachers quiting teaching to do something else in New Zealand or leaving New Zealand to be a teacher overseas.  I've also heard repeated stories from teachers who came home from teaching overseas to New Zealand, only to discover they worked such long hours in New Zealand for such poor pay they never saw their families, so they have gone back overseas for worklife balance.

On top of all this is the last National led government's Minister of Education, Nikki Kaye, telling the current Minister, Mr Hipkins, that he is not doing enough.  See this press release via Voxy.  A complete act of hypocrisy considering during nine long years of National, teachers were villified for "failing students", given 1% pay rises and had increasing teacher workloads amongst all the GERM battles.

So my message to Minister Hipkins is this - the fastest way to get teachers into our classrooms is to attract those who have recently left back. How can that happen:

• a pay jolt.
• reduce workload (get ERO to pull their head in and stop insisting on useless data and let schools use their small data to drive the learning).
• reduce class sizes.
• increase classroom release - teachers shouldn't have to be using their weekends and evenings to do work in preparation for school and dealing with data input and writing reports.
• give us more help for children with special needs - a SENCO in every school.

Solve all these issues and we wouldn't be hemorrhaging teachers from our schools.

In regards to teachers required to do the Teacher Refresher Course to retain a practicing certificate, I believe we should be approaching that differently and with a more cost effective programme. Instead of doing the course:

• those returning to the classroom in either a fulltime or part-time role should be getting an advice and guidance programme for a minimum of one term.
• relief teachers should have a base school with which they can do PLD and receive guidance and appraisal to meet the conditions for being a reliever. 

Then we have the problem of attracting people to the profession via training programmes.  Over the last ten years universities have been under pressure to put bums on seats.... but teaching has become unattractive.  

Universities have slashed and burned their faculties that do initial teacher education.  The Faculty of Education at Waikato University is unloved, nothing has changed physically since I did my initial teacher education in the 1990s.  Add to that the fact Prof Neil Quigley has gutted the Faculty of staff, it is even grimmer.

Now we have the University of Auckland cutting most of its initial teacher education programmes and staff and its advisory service.  How will this help with the need to train new teachers?

I understand that the current negotiations with primary teachers and principals and secondary teachers mean that co-operation between the Minister's office and unions has taken a battering and is on hold, but we really need to suck it up on both sides to work together to solve these issues.  

The Ministry of Education continuing to offer teachers pay rises without addressing the issues of workload (class sizes, classroom release, etc.), recruitment and retention, and special education is not helping.  

Tracey Martin is doing great work in special education, but that is a proposal currently.  Teachers have seen working party after working party over the last two decades with nothing achieved and won't wait anymore for this issue to be addressed.  Hence why it is in our pay claim.  

Until the Minister gets ERO to pull their heads in, principals have their hands tied to reduce workload and teachers continue to collect data that does not necessarily mean much.

Without classroom release, teachers will continue to be forced to use their family time to work in the evenings and at weekends.  Chris Hipkins will claim we don't have enough release teachers because we have a teacher shortage.  I think the teachers will emerge from the woodwork to do the release if they increase classroom release.

So Chris, how far are you prepared to come to solve the teacher crisis?

You should have hired me when you had the chance, but I went back to teaching.  But if you ask my current boss Nigel nicely, I'm sure he'll let me pop down to Wellington to help you out.  Jacinda has his contact details.  But then again, I'm pretty sure you have mine.  😁😁😁

Are you being paid to attend that Teacher Only Day?

I wrote this post in 2018 because this is an eternal problem for teachers.  It affects beginning teachers, teachers returning from unpaid leave and maternity leave, teachers returning to the profession and teachers who have come off a fixed term position the previous year.

It comes around every year, the time when teacher only days and the set up of classes in preparation for school beginning.

Every year new teachers enter the profession and teachers who were out of the profession or are on fixed term contracts come into new schools.  And every year these teachers have a similar problem: getting paid for teacher only days.

The issue is that the Ministry of Education says the education year begins on the 28th of January.  But schools begin their year with new staff before this date.  New teachers to a school are required to attend induction days, teacher only days, team meetings and set up their classrooms - and most of this is done before they are officially on the payroll on the 28th of January.

This year my school begins teacher only days on the 22nd of January, yet I am not officially on the payroll until the 28th of January.  But as a teacher who has come off a fixed term, and has had all the meager holiday pay I am due, am I now expected to attend several days of teacher only days and then set up my classroom ready for the new school year without getting paid?

Many will say, well that is how it has always been.

But I say, just because that is how it has always been, it doesn't mean it is the way it should be!!

I am not saying I will not be setting up my classroom, I just choose to do it when I am actually being paid for it.

We teachers are professionals, and we should be paid for every day we are in school and we should be treated as professionals, not as volunteers.  Some people, particularly beginning teachers, may have to give up some actual paid employment to attend these days in school.  Others may need to pay for child care.  Therefore these days can be at a cost financially to new teachers to the school.

And in how many other professions are you expected to work up to a week in advance of officially being on the payroll and set up your work space without being paid?  It is an insult to the teaching profession to treat teachers in such an unprofessional manner.

And here is the clanger: what if you are onsite working before you are officially on the payroll and you are injured in anyway?  Will ACC cover you and call it a workplace accident?  It really is a health and safety issue.  What other employment laws will I and my new employer be breaking by me being onsite and working before my official contract of employment commences?  (I mention this because the youngest victim of Pike River was not on the payroll officially when the disaster happened - not that something that bad is likely to happen in a school, it's just his family was not compensated fully for losing their precious son as a result).

This year, 2018, the 28th falls on a Saturday.  The Saturday of Auckland Anniversary weekend.  Should I spend the weekend setting up my class so I am worn out and tired for when school starts on Wednesday?  Why should teachers work so many weekends anyway?

Currently it is rather hit and miss if staff new to a school are paid.  I've been teaching for 22 years.  I've started a new school at the beginning of the year a number of times after a break in my service to study/relief teach.  I only remember one new school paying me once for attending these meetings.  I was younger then and less bolshy and less aware.  So now I am more prepared to stand up and say we should be paid.

Add to the fact that, particularly for a beginning teacher, it is expensive to set up a classroom.  Mostly teachers buy many things to set up the class themselves.  Sometimes they can claim items back through their classroom/team budgets.  But often they are buying items over and above what is necessary and creating resources from their own money to use in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning that the school may not reimburse at all.

I personally think there is a simple solution to solving this issue every year.  Move the date of the education year start a week forward.  That way it will fully encompasses the full week before school starts and ensures new staff to a school are paid for the teacher only days, meeting and classroom set ups they will be doing.

I would like to see NZEI and PPTA back this and take it to the Ministry of Education in the collective agreement negotiations this year.  I would like to see Education Minister Chris Hipkins take some leadership on this very small change to the calendar that would demonstrate good will to new and returning teachers in years to come, especially in a time when we have a shortage of teachers to start the school year.

Disclaimer:  I am not taking a dig at any school, especially my new employer.  I'm just stating this is a problem nationwide that needs addressing.  And I have no idea how my school is approaching this issue.

UPDATE:  the PPTA have a distinct clause in their STCA for this situation.  This is their clause:
3.2A.1 Regardless of the first day schools are open for instruction in Term 1, for normal pay and employment purposes the start of the school year is 28 January for those teachers that are employed for that year, except that for teachers being employed for the first time in a state or integrated school, or being employed after a break in service, their start day is as advised to payroll by the employer.

After some help we have found a similar clause in the PTCA which many teachers and principals may be unaware of (I know I certainly was and so were many of my NZEI friends including principals):

So if you find your school is not paying you for those teacher only days and meetings before the 28th of January, you now know where to find the right clause to sort that out.  

But it would make it easier in my eyes if the MOE start of year changed so no one missed out.

UPDATE TWO:  NZEI has approached the Ministry of Education for clarity, particularly as some principals have found some Novopay workers will action this and others have found some Novopay workers will not action these clauses, stating it would muck up holiday pay.  I would like to see the School Trustees Association also come on board to deliver clear instructions to schools to use the above clauses to ensure people are appropriately paid.

Edited: 17/1/21

Special Education - Let's Change the Name and Solve Everything!!

Somewhere, in the dark depths of the Beehive:
 
"If we change the name of the outfit, Minister, it will look like we've fixed everything thing!" grovelled an MOE official.

"Hmmmmm...." mused the Minister. "I've heard of this strategy before... but where...?"

"Well, Minister, it's a strategy Mrs Tolley is using with her portfolio."
 
On Friday the Special Education Update (aka Review) was released... with a new fangled name, Learning Support Update.  You can view the report here and also the Cabinet Paper here.
 
By releasing it on a Friday, the Ministry of Education was trying to sneak it in under the radar.  But as many people have been awaiting it and also contributed through submissions and speaking at Select Committee meeting, with widespread consensus that many children are missing out and the funding is inadequate, this was never going to slip into obscurity.  Over the weekend, people have become more aware of this report, especially in light of the debate over another large pot of money, covering the Operations Grants of schools, with the looming threat of a form of Bulk Funding called Global Funding.

While Hekia Parata talks up the Update, Chris Hipkins from Labour and Catherine Delahunty from the Greens raised concerns they saw in the final report about the lack of financial resourcing and shifting money from other students with needs.  (See 'Special needs'' term singles out students and will be scrapped, NZ Herald, 22/8/16).
 
Essentially, this is what the Learning Support Update boils down to:

• there is no more money.
• there are more kids who need assistance.
• a younger age band of children will be targeted to tackle issues earlier.
• the money to do this will come from the older age band of children.

Can you see any educator or parent of a child who needs extra support satisfied with this?
 
While I agree that it is sensible and vital to target children as early as possible, it should not be to the detriment of the older children who are struggling to learn and achieve.  To do so it to fail these children yet again.  They already missed out due to a lack of an appropriate professional resources in their early years, such as a speech language therapist or a consultation at the Child Development Centre, and now they are being punished for being too old to fix by this change! 
 
We should be adequately resourcing all children to access appropriate support rather than rationing it and playing God over who should receive the help they need!!
 
Within the Cabinet Paper, the Minister discusses:

• how there has been an increase in the school age population,
• an increase in students requiring learning support,
• approximately 10% of the school population requires learning support,  
• that 95% of those receiving learning support are in mainstream schools,
• and that there will be no extra funding until she has determined if the current funding is adequate or not and it is being used efficiently.

She also discusses redesigning how learning support is delivered and accessed.  Below is a Service Delivery Model for an Individual from page 13 of the Cabinet Paper:
 

And this is the Service Delivery Model through using Communities of Learning, also from page 13 of the Cabinet Paper:
 

Now the fact that there is a Service Delivery Model through the Communities of Learning (CoLs) concerns me.  Is the Minister considering pooling money for learning support with CoLs with a contestable pool for each school to compete for access to from their CoL?  Will individual schools, principals and teachers be over ruled or dictated to as to how to support the learners in their school?

While the above models talks about it as having a role of analysing and reviewing learning support provision and providing professional learning for classroom teachers, I am wary of putting learning support under the CoLs umbrella.
 
This phrase also concerns me:  "Improving investment decisions using social investment analysis".  It concerns me because it is taking indicators like the mother's lack of education, a parent being in prison, or being a long term beneficiary and labelling a child as at risk without actually looking at the child themselves.  The Minister often chastises teachers as having deficit thinking towards certain students - well Minister, this is the pot calling the kettle black, because using these indicators is deficit thinking too.

Another aspect that concerns me about this phrase the way it looks at children as their learning potential as an investment, that it all boils down to money, almost like widgets off the production line.  I baulk at this view.  While I agree we need to be prudent with money and we need to ensure it is used efficiently because there is not an unlimited budget, as a teacher it is off putting to think of children as an investment, that their achievement outcomes are all that matters.  We are not just there to ensure they can read, write and do maths.  We are there to ensure these children become effective communicators, are co-operative, can think critically and problem solve, and are kind people who can contribute and function in our society.

I am also concerned about where the support for students who do slip through the earlier interventions will come from.  Some children do not show their learning needs until after their first year at school.  By the time it is realised there is a deficit in their learning they may have moved out of the age band targeted for early intervention and therefore miss out.

I have grave concerns that money will be taken from the current Special Education Budget for use by the Ministry of Social Development to be used for vulnerable children.  With another Ministry using MOE money that reduces the slice of the pie for schools and MOE specialists.

As Chris Hipkins said about the money in the Operations Grant pool on Q&A on TV1 on Sunday, when more people are eating the pie there is less for all of them and more of them will go away hungry.

While I can see that the Minister has the intention of trying to improve how learning support is delivered to children, I can see many fish hooks and concerns.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not an answer.  Not adequately resourcing it so all students can be effectively helped to achieve is a concern.  The role of CoLs and MSD having access to MOE funds is a concern.  Changing the name from Special Education to Learning Support is a minor consideration and just creates confusion.
  
Quite frankly, I do not think the Minister has met the standard with this Learning Support Update.

The Ongoing Saga of Novopay and the Minister of Misinformation

This morning I was cruising through all the news apps on my phone and I spotted this wee story from late yesterday afternoon from 3 News:  Ministry chasing Novopay overpayments.

Steven Joyce, the Minister of Misinformation, is at it again telling us that Novopay is settling in.

Bullshit Minister!

It has been 20 months since Novopay went live thanks to being signed off by Hekia Parata, Craig Foss and Bill English and it is still a dog with fleas throwing up new issues frequently.

At our last NZEI branch primary teachers PUM (paid union meeting), with maybe 70 odd attendees, 90% put up their hands to show they continued to have ongoing issues with Novopay personally. These ran from not being paid, to not being paid correctly (not at right level, under or overpaid, not paid units & allowances), to stuff ups with sick leave, maternity leave, unpaid or study leave. 

 

And that doesn't include principals, support staff or caretakers and/or cleaners.

 

In early March I was talking to a principal of a city school.  She is a strong character and doesn't take things lying down.  She told me one of the Novopay stories at her school: 

 

At the end of 2012, just as they were breaking up for the end of term four, Novopay made an overpayment of $17,000 to support staff, some teachers, and a teacher who hadn't worked at the school for months.  That $17,000 sent the school bank account into the red.

 

No reimbursement was made throughout 2013, despite numerous phone calls and letters and emails to Novopay and the Ministry of Education. 

 

As 2013 progressed, our heroine principal decided on a new plan of attack.  The local MP, a back bencher who doesn't get a lot of noticing outside the local city newspaper (he's really seen in the region's major newspaper, let alone in National media), was approached to help solve the problem.  This principal applied substantial pressure on this MP to advocate for the return of the monies owed to her school.  She applied this pressure regularly, so regularly that he decided that to get some peace he would get the MOE to reimburse this city school.

 

So early in 2014, the money was finally returned to this city school.  Then the MOE tried to tell the heroine principal that it was "just a loan" until Novopay paid back the money.  Back to the MP she went.... and he got the MOE to retract that statement.

  

I have another friend with a wife, several children and a mortgage who wakes up every second Wednesday and wonders if the Novopay Lottery has come through for him that morning.  Each fortnight throws up new wonders for him.  One week no pay, the next fortnight underpaid, the following correct, the next one overpaid....  Every fortnight brings new stress for him and his family.  It has an impact on him paying his mortgage, putting petrol in the car, child support payments....  It impacts his principal and office staff who deal with the fact that Novopay has stuffed up yet again.

 

So if you or a fellow staff member are still being given the short end of the stick 20 months after its implementation this is what you need to do:

• inform your principal/admin staff responsible for Novopay in your school asap each time. 
• ring NZEI on 0800 NZEI HELP (or the PPTA one if you're a secondary teacher) to get their support, but also so they can keep tabs on the problem and create general pressure.
• keep a record of every Novopay stuff up and how it has affected you and what's been done to resolve it. Keep adding to the record each time a stuff up happens.  Make sure you have dates and even screen shots of your payslips and missed payments and extra charges from your bank accounts.
• email that record of stuff ups to your local MP, Steven Joyce, Hekia Parata and even John Key and Nikki Kaye (Associate Minister of Education who seems to have a better grasp of the portfolio than Hekia) to show them that there is still a problem and it's ongoing.
• send a copy to opposition education spokespeople like Chris Hipkins, Catherine Delahunty and Tracey Martin so they can keep the acid on the government.

 

I've said it before and I will continue to say it over and over again:  Novopay is a dog with fleas and should be dumped Steven Joyce.  Hekia Parata, Craig Foss and Bill English should have lost their jobs for signing off this project, and Hekia and Craig as well as Anne Tolley should have lost their jobs for not monitoring the project as it was developed effectively.

Essentially, these ministers, Mr Joyce, Ms Parata, Mr Foss and Mrs Tolley have failed the standard.

Hekia is reviewing the decile system... ohhh oh.

So Hekia is reviewing the decile system.  We all know it is clumsy as a form of funding and that it is also not an accurate reflection on individual schools at times, but how should funding be allocated to schools?  How was it done pre 1995 (anyone remember)?  Was the system better then, or better with the decile rating?

This announcement on Sunday will cause a flurry of concern.

School decile ratings could be scrapped by Education Minister Hekia Parata, who says they are sometimes used "to explain or excuse everything".

Deciles represent the average number of socially and economically disadvantaged students at a school, with decile 1 being the most disadvantaged and decile 10 the least. Low-decile schools receive more government funding.

Parata said the ratings, introduced in 1995, were well intentioned, but also "really clumsy". She has asked the ministry to explore new options for funding because, at present, deciles did not account for differentiation within schools.

"There are some significantly disadvantaged kids and families in deciles seven, eight, nine and 10 schools, but overall the average masks that," she said.

"Deciles one, two and three are where the economic disadvantage is used to explain or excuse everything."

The ministry is expected to report back in the next couple of months. (Stuff, 8/8/13)

Comments on forums are already flowing in from concerned teachers, principals and parents.  One teacher has the following to say:

Sadly this has little or nothing to do about improving the funding system, this is simply a cost cutting measure.  Education has been identified as a area which needs major trimmings, so Hekia would have been told by cabinet to find areas   Looking more carefully at the issue is the governments focus on reviewing the governance of schools   I would suggest at times the government's senior ministers have not been impressed how schools - including BOT's - have stood up to current policy.

Concerns are mounting that the changes will be at the expense of children, vulnerable children in particular.

One wonders how they will decide the new model will work and who will make the decisions about allocating the funding.

Consider this idea:  with PaCT (Progress and Consistency Tool to "help" teachers make "better OTJs" about childrens' National Standards levels) the MOE will be able to access the data of each class who uses it, trace each child, trace each teacher.  It is proposed that local bodies (city and district councils) will also have access (and who knows who else!).

The idea that PaCT information will be available to councils and the review of the decile funding system and the rumours around the future of BOTs makes me wonder if this government is looking to put councils in charge of education for their localities. 

This is what happens in countries like the UK and the USA.  Now consider the wider implications of this:  many schools have been shut by American city leaders in poor "underachieving" neighbourhoods; many English schools that are seen as failing have been closed by Mr Gove, the British Secretary of Education, or local councils.  So what happens then?  American and British councils have devolved local schooling to charter schools and academies.  Charter schools and academies are seen by the right in politics to be an effective way to control the burgeoning education budget, bring in free market philosophies to education and abdicate responsibility for social spending to the private/business sector.

So what is the background to decile funding?  According to a definition from Wikipedia:  Socio-economic decile (also known as Socio-economic decile band or simply decile) is a widely used measure of socioeconomic status in New Zealand education, primarily used to target funding and support to more needy schools.

A school's socio-economic decile is recalculated every five years, after each Census of Population and Dwellings using data collected during the census. Current deciles came into force in 2008 following the 2006 census.

Before the deciles are calculated, Statistics New Zealand calculates the following factors in each individual meshblock (the smallest census unit, consisting of about 50 households each), disregarding any household in the meshblock that does not have school-aged children:^[1]

• Household income: the proportion of households whose total income, adjusted for householder composition, is in the bottom 20 percent nationally.
• Occupation: the proportion of employed parents who work in low skilled or unskilled occupations, specifically those that are skill levels 4 and 5 on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO)
• Household crowding: the proportion of households in which the number of householders exceeds the number of bedrooms, adjusting for couples and children under 10.
• Educational qualifications: the proportion of parents who have no formal qualifications.
• Income support: the proportion of parents who receive the Domestic Purposes Benefit, Unemployment Benefit, Sickness Benefit or Invalid's Benefit.
  

So why do some schools, communities, parents, teachers and principals and the Minister of Education have issues with the current funding through decile ratings for schools?

First let's start with Hekia's point of view.  She sees (because Bill and Steven told her so) that the education budget is huge and needs some trimming and the best place to do that (apart from cutting the cost of salaries for teachers) is to severely trim the money that goes into the Operations Grants for schools.... and so getting rid of deciles and funding schools the same across the board would fix her little financial dilemma.

Also, decile ratings of schools are a blatant acknowledgement of how poor some communities are and that poverty is alive and raging in New Zealand, child poverty in particular.  If one was to get rid of the decile ratings for schools, one wouldn't have to acknowledge that poverty exists in certain communities.  Therefore poverty and low decile ratings can be eliminated (cough, cough, choke, choke) as an excuse for schools not meeting the standards and teachers can truly be blamed as awful.

Communities and parents don't want to be seen as living in a poor neighbourhood, with their child attending a school that only has poor people, most likely brown people (low decile schools tend to have a higher proportion of Maori and Pasifica students than high decile schools) and who don't meet the standards.  These things colour how a school is seen by its community, alas.

Schools, teachers and principals have a variety of concerns and things to value due to decile ratings. 

If you have a high decile school, your school is seen as desirable, more likely to meet the standards, have a better class of children (darling, another latte!!), have better teachers, have better facilities.  The reality of a high decile school is that it is so popular it has larger class sizes and often not enough classes to fit all the children in physically and teachablely; they tend to have less access to ICT equipment unless the school has a BYOD policy and capacity in place; swimming pools and other facilities are unlikely to meet the demands of the size of the school; the kids do better because they tend to come from warm homes, with full bellies, appropriate clothing and footware, access to good health support and if they need help with their learning their parents are very likely to be able to afford to pay for it; parents are usually very financially supportive and do well with fundraisers for the school.  Higher decile schools also get the opportunity to have BOT members that may have greater financial literacy and influence in fundraising.  The big kicker from decile ratings though is the higher the decile the less funding your school gets.

If you have a low decile school, your school is not seen as desirable. 

The decile system has come in for criticism from teacher and principal associations in recent years for fomenting destructive competition between schools and the exacerbation of white flight. Data from the Ministry of Education indicated that 60,000 Pakeha/NZ European students attended low-decile schools in 2000, but that number had halved by 2010, while high-decile schools had a corresponding increase in Pakeha students.  The Ministry claimed demographic changes were behind the shifts, but the Secondary Principals Association and PPTA have attributed white flight to racial and class stigmas of low-decile schools, which commonly have majority Maori and Pacific Islander rolls.

So consequently white flight from low decile schools has occurred, and a significant number of Maori and Pacific families, with the means, have also enabled their children to attend schools with higher deciles.

And while the lower the decile you are, the more funding you get in your operation the less benefit you will get from fundraising.  Children are less likely to have access to ICT and internet at home, so the school needs to provide it (making the school a target for burglaries), are more likely to have poverty issues (hence lower decile schools have food in schools programmes, social workers, more likely to have the public health nurse involved....), are more likely to live in an overcrowded home, are more likely to have parents that work in low income jobs (often more that one job) and have limited time to spend with their families.  Lower decile schools often struggle to get people with the skills and experience to serve on their BOTs.

But those schools in the middle of the deciles have issues too that vary.  Mercury Bay Area School, the largest area school in New Zealand, serves a community that has a wide range of families in their community:  farmers, fish factory workers, service and food workers, orchardists, hippies..... however their decile rating is influenced by the people who do not live in the district or send children to the school.  How?  MBAS is situated in Whitianga on the Coromandel.  This town is the home of many holiday homes and baches, some of these houses well into the million dollar mark or more.  Absentee holiday home owners have influenced the decile of the school as well as the rates being charged by the Thames Coromandel District Council.  A couple of years ago, in an attempt to have their decile rating put at a more realistic rate to the families the school serves, MBAS embarked on a massive survey of families to present a truer picture of their school community to the MOE.

MBAS is not alone in this quandary.  Many rural primary schools are also affected by who their neighbours are.  Farm owners, who may not necessarily have children at the school anymore if they did, influence the decile of the school by simply owning the farms in the district.

What is the funding difference between deciles currently?

Decile ratings account for about 13 per cent of all operational funding. The decile funding examples below are based on a secondary school with a roll of 1000.  Does anyone know how it works for primary/intermediate schools?  Is it different?

Decile 1: $979,884.69 of decile-based funding
Decile 2: $699,354.69
Decile 3: $435,034.69
Decile 4: $266,984.69
Decile 8: $107,354.69
Decile 9: $85,324.69
Decile 10: $52,734.69  As you can see, a decile 10 school gets considerably less than a decile 1 school.  There are considerable reasons why.

If you would like to see a more detailed break down of how the Operations Grant is worked out in 2013, click here to go to the MOE page that lays it all out.

So what may be ahead for school funding?

Hekia's officials may report back that the current system is the fairest system and it just needs a tweak or two.  But don't hold your breath.  I won't be.

Another possibility that has just been floated today is that the new Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes, is in the midst of preparing a proposal for bulk funding of primary school....  Yes, back to the 1990s.  When will the Nats realise that model didn't work then and won't work now.

So here is my prediction:  I think that after the review is done, Hekia will recommend that all schools be funded the same, possibly at the rate for a decile 5 or 6 school, with say a 3% increase to make her look generous.  At this rate it looks good for parents in previously decile 10 schools in the blue belt of National voting territory... but in the formerly known low decile communities... well, does National really care about them?

My next prediction is that this will be rushed through without due consideration to actual facts and the people it will affect.  The decision will be made (by Hekia) with her personal opinions, bias and gut feeling driving it, along with the fact that Bill and Steven told her to do it.  How do I know this?  Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, has just released a report where he summarised: "Government policy-makers are using gut instincts instead of hard evidence to make decisions that influence New Zealanders' lives, the prime minister's chief science adviser warns."  (Dominion Post, 9/9/13).

I can not pronounce that Hekia has failed the standard on this yet, however, I predict she will.

Charter Schools, Partnership Schools, Kura Hourua - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

As I began writing this blog, rumour had it that Destiny Church's application to run a Partnership School aka Charter School aka Kura Hourua had been denied.

And guess what - it has, yippee!!  But who has been accepted?  That will soon be announced by our Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, sometime in August on a day something else big happens so she can drop it in on the quiet.

It worries me who will run a Charter School.  And for all Hekia's tantrums that they are actually Partnership Schools or Kura Hourua, you can't mistake a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I'll be pretty pleased not to see Destiny running a Charter School.  And here is why:

• They'd get to set their own curriculum - now considering the clap trap that comes out of the Destiny Church is regards to doctrine and how they expect their congregations to cough up large tithes, I don't consider Destiny to be true to the word of Christ.
• Charter Schools are meant to be open to all who come, not just a specific group of people, therefore this gives Destiny an opportunity to evangelise to a captive audience.  I'm not opposed to the preaching of faith... just not to a captive audience, it should be for those who seek comfort and are exploring their spirituality.
• Without the comfort of the OIA we will not be able to see how Destiny would spend those education dollars they have been gifted or how their students are succeeding, or not, as the case may be.  That is very concerning.

Politically it would not be a good choice for Hekia Parata to include Destiny in the first intake of Charter Schools.  The vast majority of the country would be greatly opposed to seeing a religious organisation with some cult-like characteristics receive tax payers dollars to possibly indoctrinate young and impressionable children.

John Banks, Associate Minister of Education and ACT leader who supposedly required the establishment of Charter Schools as part of his coalition deal with John Key's National government, favours the KIPP model from the US. 

KIPP moved into the void created by Hurricane Katrina when the schools of New Orleans were damaged and destroyed.  In fact choice has been mostly eliminated in New Orleans because where once public schools stood and served each community, it was replaced by a KIPP school.

So what is KIPP?  The following comes from their website:

KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public charter schools with a track record of preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and in life.

There are currently 125 KIPP schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia serving more than 41,000 students. More than 86 percent of our students are from low-income families and eligible for the federal free or reduced-price meals program, and 95 percent are African American or Latino. Nationally, more than 93 percent of KIPP middle school students have graduated high school, and more than 83 percent of KIPP alumni have gone on to college.

Since our founding, it has been our core belief that all students, regardless of their zip code or demographics, will learn and achieve. We are committed to serving the students who need us most and refuse to accept anything less than an excellent college-preparatory education for students from low-income communities. 

Essential to creating a great system of schools is having our eyes on the same goal: college graduation. At KIPP, teachers, leaders, students, and parents are all united around this goal.  By providing outstanding educators, more time in school learning, and a strong culture of achievement, KIPP is helping all students build the skills needed to make it not only to, but through, college.

And those who oppose the KIPP invasion say:

• This blog Schools Matter: A former KIPP teacher shares her story tells of a foreign languages teacher being recruited from teaching a college class to teach in a Year 9-12 KIPP school.  She was at 5.00am, at work by 6.40am and did not leave before 6.30pm, had an hour to eat her dinner before she started grading papers until 9.30pm.  During her evening she was also on call for parents and students.  She worked a 90 hour week and had no social life.  By the end of the school year the majority of the start of year staff, 70%, had resigned or been fired, and her job was gone as they cut her subject.

I asked about learning the rules like standing up against the wall and the imposed silence in many KIPP lunchrooms.  She said the rules were communicated during in-services, as part of the Big List. 

Big list? I asked.

         . . . . The big list is basically anything and everything because in low income schools . . . [it’s] sort of  the methodology behind teaching in low income schools. . . .The big list is every system or procedure that we have in place so that basically it’s controlling every variable in an environment, which is generally uncontrollable.  For example, where teachers are in the morning.  Where teachers are when they greet students in their classroom.  What time you need to have all your copies and everything done and ready.  What students should dress like when they come into the building.  And some of it we just went all off those and we created this big list.  And that was something we did during in service and then we did also while we were at KIPP summit.  You set an expectation and the kids have to meet that expectation every day all day without prompters. 

          INT:  Without fail.

R:  Without fail.  And that’s the KIPP culture that’s supposed to be the KIPP culture.  Now it varies from school to school because you have different school leaders and KIPP sort of  does this let the stallions run things, where it’s like let the principal run the school how they see fit.

[Other former KIPP teachers talked about children learning to ride the bus the KIPP way, getting off the bus, going to the bathroom the KIPP way, sitting in a desk the KIPP way, and walking in the hall all according to KIPP, how to act when visitors were in the building, and how to accept punishment.]

• This news article by a Nashville television station identifies a long known secret: getting rid of the problem students out of Charter Schools right before testing time and sending them back to the public schools.  In fact, KIPP is known to have the highest exclusion rate across the US, and the public schools end up soaking these kids back up.

  
However, Kipp Academy is also one of the leaders in another stat that is not something to crow about.
When it comes to the net loss of students this year, charter schools are the top eight losers of students.
In fact, the only schools that have net losses of 10 to 33 percent are charter schools.
MNPS feels it's unacceptable as well, because not only are they getting kids from charter schools, but they are also getting troubled kids and then getting them right before testing time.
Nineteen of the last 20 children to leave Kipp Academy had multiple out-of-school suspensions. Eleven of the 19 are classified as special needs, and all of them took their TCAPs at Metro zoned schools, so their scores won't count against Kipp.

• KIPP schools require parents and students to sign a pledge to abide by KIPP’s strict behavioral code and their rigorous curriculum. Drug-addicted, sexual and physically abusive parents, and dysfunctional families need not apply.  Public schools have almost a 50 percent higher percentage of handicapped children than KIPP does.  Approximately 60% of public school children have transferred (changed schools during the year), but KIPP solves this problem by not allowing children to transfer into their schools after the start of their school year.  It is hard to compare results of KIPP schools to local public schools as many of KIPP’s less able students have dropped out.  (source)

Recently Catherine Isaac, former ACT party president and candidate who was gifted the plum job of heading the Partnership School Advisory Group by her good mate John Banks, wrote an opinion piece for The Australian entitled Education's Fresh Charter. 

Released from many of the major constraints of regular state schools, the schools have one central requirement: they must attract and enable educational success for students underserved by the country's school system, notably Maori and Pasifika....  While there is some flexibility and devolution of management, and provision for special character and Maori language immersion schools, it is largely a tightly regulated, one-size-fits-all approach.

Ms Isaac then goes on to extoll the virtues of the Swedish Free Schools, after condemning the opposition in New Zealand by many including NZEI and PPTA:

Interestingly, when Sweden moved 20 years ago to introduce a form of charter school, now a highly successful mainstream feature of its school network, its teacher unions did not oppose it. Instead they saw it as an opportunity for teachers to gain professionally from more alternatives and innovation in education.
Subsequent surveys have shown this to be true, with significantly higher teacher satisfaction rates for teachers in "free" schools, compared with their regular state school counterparts.

Isaac then says there "has been a clear demonstration of support for the initiative from the communities across the country for whom it was designed" citing one body, the Iwi Education Authority.

Well here is a bit of rebuttal to this:

•  New Zealand schools have a lot of flexibility to introduce learning opportunities for students.  Some schools have farms, some have business schools, some have adventure/outdoor ed schools, some have sports academies, some focus on enviro issues, some teach bilingually or full immersion in Maori or another language, some have an awesome focus on the arts....  really the only constraint is National introducing National Standards and narrowing the curriculum and not allowing the New Zealand Curriculum to shine to its full potential.
• New Zealand schools have lots of great programmes to improve the outcomes of students.  Sadly the Ministry of Education has axed or restricted the funding to a number of these great programmes.  Reading Recovery is a successful programme... however the funding for this has decreased over the last few years, just ask your local primary principal.  There is a follow on programme for kids who need further support after Reading Recovery, but I've rarely seen a school funded for it.  The MOE began funding ALIM and ALL last year to give a boost to those 'just below the standard' in numeracy and literacy.... they funded the beginning, and just when schools get going they cut the funding and expect schools to fund it from... yeah, where?  The biggest kicker is that the MOE cut the funding to Te Kotahitangata programme that has been successful in improving the relationships between students and teachers, improving the teachers' ability to teach and communicate with students, and the students' self belief as learners.  It's been replaced with a programme from the USA.  That's culturally sensitive to our Pacific Island and Maori students isn't it.
• Are Sweden's Free Schools all they are cracked up to be?  In May it was announced that one provider was closing a number of schools, meaning hundreds of kids would no longer have a school.  It was closing them because they couldn't cover the economic loss any longer.  That is why education should not be a business.  Many in Sweden are now looking at their sliding rankings internationally and are questioning whether or not Free Schools are working.
• And as for Isaac's assertion that there has been a clear demonstration of support for Charter Schools, she was obviously deaf and blind when the submissions to the Education Amendment Act happened at the Science and Education Select Committee meetings.  I know a number of people who personally attended and listened, and the majority of submissions were overwhelmingly opposing Charter Schools and they had well thought out and researched submissions.  Isaac quoting the Iwi Education Authority, one loan voice from Maori and Pacifica groups, needs to remember that this group was only established in June last year, and even though there are some well regarded educationalists on this group (including Iria Whiu, former NZEI national president), how many people does this group really represent?
• Finally, only five applications to initiate Charter Schools were received by the Minister.  This number hardly screams and outstanding need for Charter Schools in New Zealand.

Just now I have seen that the ombudsman has released a report saying that the public does what transparency over the Charter Schools issue and that there clearly is not enough clarity.  In a press statement released by NZEI it says:  "In a ruling just released, the Ombudsman, Prof Ron Paterson, has found that the Ministry of Education had “no good reason” for refusing to release the names of organisations expressing an interest in setting up a charter school."  Remember that Catherine Isaac was in charge of this process.  She even made commitments to two organisations responding to the call for applications that the process would be confidential.  This is public money we are talking about and the public wants to know how it is being spent and by whom.

 

This policy is a huge fail.  It fails public accountability.  It fails our already quality public education system.  It fails the group of students, Maori and Pacifica in particular, that it aims to improve outcomes for.  It fails because it has not captured the imagination of the New Zealand public.

 

In short, it fails the standard.

Privacy will be breeched by publishing National Standards data.

An announcement has been made that National Standards data from 2012 will be published at the end of May.  It will be broken down into percentages for each year group and likely by gender and ethnicity too.

 

This concerns me greatly.

 

This is the data of children's learning at one point in a year.  It is not the weight of pigs.  It is not how much milk a cow produced.  It is not the number of metres gained by a rugby player as they broke the defensive line.  It is not how many widgets were produced and sold.  This is our children! 

 

I work in a small school.  A very small school.  We currently have 36 students, we started the year with 28 students.  I've been there only since January, so the results that are going to be released are influenced by the previous teacher in my class.  When I look back to last year's class photo more than half my class are not in the photo.

 

I have five year groups in my class.  I have five year fours, seven year fives, five year sixes, one year seven (a very recent addition) and one year eight.  Within my nineteen students one is ORS, two are intellectually delayed and I have serious concerns about the learning of three other students.

 

With the fact that my year groups are so small, I am very concerned for their privacy and their belief in themselves as learners.

 

I believe that where they are in their learning is not for public consumption.  This information is for the student, their parents and the teacher.  The principal and BOT would use this information to plan for resources and staffing.  Bob down the road does not need to know about how this child is doing.

 

The Ministry of Education expects the data to be sent to them in full, but without breaking privacy.  Recently a principal posted this in a Facebook forum about National Standards:

 

NAG2a annual reporting requirement. The email today reminding us to send the data with the annual reports and make sure we remove data that might break privacy issues. Today I emailed the Ministry asking them to advise me on whether or not the data i sent earlier had the potential to break the privacy laws. I worded it that as the authors of the excel spreadsheet they were in the best position to analyse our data as to the risk to schools in regard to the privacy issues.

 

The reply he received was to look at the advice and guidance sheet.  I asked him if the advice and guidance sheet was helpful, because in my experience that is the answer someone using gives when they do not have an answer.  He then said:

 

No. Already knew... 4 is the magic number for a group... Just wanted to see what they said and try make them accountable

 

I was astounded about the number 4 as the magic number for a group, because as you can see above, I have a number of small year group sizes in my class.  I believe that every member of our community will be able to identify each and every child if the data is published.  And I said that to the principal I was discussing this with.  He replied:

 

That means you take the year group reporting out of the report and only send in the whole school results

 

As I have no control over this, I hope this is what my departed principal has done.