Why didn't teachers strike when National was in? I'll tell you what we did!!

Why were teachers so quiet when National was the government?  They didn't kick up a fuss then.

Why didn't teachers go on strike when National was the government?

They've been offered heaps more that National offered.  So why are teachers being so unreasonable?

Teachers get so many holidays and only work from 9 until 3, so why are they complaining about workload?

If teachers don't pull their head in, Labour will be a one term government.  Then where will that leave them?

You know, I've seen these statements and questions a lot.  I've heard them from Labour party members.  I've seen them on the NZ Teachers Facebook page.  I've seen them on various Facebook pages.  I've seen them in the Stuff/Herald comments.  I've even seen and heard it from teachers themselves.

This blog post aims to put that to bed.  Because teachers did not sit quietly during National's tenure.  They, with the NZEI and PPTA, stood strong against #GERM neoliberal policies set up to destroy our free quality public education system.  Because of teachers, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and the coalition government have the bones and a bit of flesh still left.

Teachers opposed National Standards - this could have evolved into a national testing system like in the UK or Australia or the US, all countries sliding down educational world rankings.  NAPLAN in Australia, Key Stage Testing in the UK and the plethora of testing across the US has dragged those countries down.  National had a national testing regime on their radar back in the 1990s and it was only a Labour led government being formed in 1999 and continued union opposition alongside quality academic information that prevented it from coming to fruition then.

We stood firm against allowing PaCT to take traction within our education system.  This tool would have been used to monitor teachers and as a gateway to introduce performance pay.

Our teachers, with the unions, stood firm against performance pay - this system does not work.  It does not promote a core value of teaching: collaboration.  It is ripe for fraud by teachers and being used by senior leaders unethically, clearly demonstrated in the US and UK.

Teachers opposed privatisation of our state schools - how many more charter schools and public private partnerships would have been established without the teachers standing firm against these measures that have devastated the English education system and the education systems of US cities like New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit?  NZEI and PPTA led the opposition to charter schools.  But really, the evidence from overseas speaks for itself.

Remember that time in 2012 when Hekia Parata had the brilliant idea of increasing class sizes?  Remember the impact that was going to have, particularly on intermediate schools and their specialist teachers?  That was a campaign led by NZEI, PPTA and AIMS (Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools) to raise public awareness and get the parents onside.  And it worked.  Poll numbers showed National losing core support from middle New Zealand, from the "Mums and Dads" John Key always blah blahhed on about.  So he made the call to Hekia from Europe, and nek minute, the back downs of all back downs saw Ms Parata back down.

Teachers, through NZEI and PPTA, vehemently opposed many of the changes to the Teachers' Council.  Hekia Parata, despite 90+% of submissions opposing, changed it to the Education Council and removed the right of teachers to vote on their own representatives to their professional bodies.  Other changes made by the new Education Council have also directly led to the issues we face with a shortage of teachers and relief teachers.  We are incredibly thrilled to see the changes go back through Parliament during September to return the democratic right of teachers to elect their own representatives to our governing body.

Us teachers not only thwarted efforts by previous Education Minister Hekia Parata to increase class sizes, but also her attempt to reintroduce the failed policy of the 1990s, bulk funding (disguised as global funding).  That took a concerted effort.  In fact we can thank Hekia for doing something no Education Minister had previously achieved: uniting NZEI and the PPTA in a common cause.  Add in E Tu, who represent cleaners and caretakers in our schools, and we ran a formidable campaign that forced Ms Parata to back down from global funding including the #betterfunding for #betterlearning bus and campervan tours.  NZEI and PPTA remain close and united while advancing their own kaupapa.

We were not quiet during the National years; we were considerate. 

Considerate that the country was suffering from the Global Financial Collapse.

Considerate of the country needing to put Christchurch first after the September 2010 earthquake and the February 2011 earthquake and all the aftershocks. 

We saw the Rockstar Economy proclaimed and received none of the benefits promised to us. 

We saw the silverware sold off and John Key's promises that the asset sales would benefit health and education.... but nothing.

The decision was made last year, well before the election and endorsed by members at our Annual Conference in early October before the new coalition government was established, that no matter the hue of the government, we would no longer be patient.  We would fight for our profession and our students because we are at crisis point. 

We've warned for several years we were in a state of a shortage of teachers. 

We've warned for many years that teachers were burning out under the workload. 

We've warned for many years that too many students are falling through the systematic cracks and teachers are powerless to prevent it.

We made the decision that now #ItsTimeNZEI #KuaTaeTeWa.  Thats why we decided to strike on Wednesday 15 August for a full day.  It's why we are now planning action geographical rolling strikes for the week beginning Monday 12 November.

Many of us worked to put this government in.  They promised to fix things. 

There's more wrong than they knew (but we knew that and have been saying it for years) and it is harder than they expected - but everyone knows Labour coming into government always has to fix a complete disastrous mess created by National. 

But when you have the country's leading economists saying, " Bugger the Budget Responsibility Rules - borrowing is currently cheap and education and health need fixing"... then don't you think that might be a good idea?

Otherwise we condemn yet another election cycle of children to not receiving the Education they are entitled to and we increase the crisis in our teacher workforce.

Global Funding - Bulk Funding in fancy dress - why it's a bloody bad idea.

On Tuesday 9 August a momentus event happened.  NZEI and PPTA launched a joint campaign to educate the wider public about the Education Funding Review.  They also announced there will be fifty joint Paid Union Meetings held around the country from Monday 5 September.  We are currently in the middle of them.
 

And I will be attending my Paid Union Meeting in Hamilton with bells on this Monday 12 September.

The review was set up by the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, due to the decile funding system currently used to fund schools being seen as "a blunt object".  Many different groups were asked to participate in the review, including Louise Green the NZEI Te Riu Roa president and Angela Roberts the PPTA president.

To date, no one from the Education Funding Review Panel has stood up and said publicly: "Global Funding is great and we support it".  Absolutely no one.

 

Hekia Parata is disappointed in this action and she told journalists that no decisions have yet been made, that consultation is continuing.  She claimed that NZEI and PPTA had left the Review table.  A no point did either Louise or Angela say that either organisation was withdrawing from the Review. 

 

On the Paul Henry breakfast show (8/9/16) Hekia said that teachers had had many opportunities to be consulted as the Ministry of Education had run 80 roadshows around the country outside of school time.  Where was my personal invitation Ms Parata?  I was aware of a couple of meetings - during school time when no working teacher could attend.  Teachers simply were not enabled to attend these meetings, so Hekia is once again reinventing the reality of the situation (not unlike how she "has the  support of the Special Education Association").  These Paid Union Meetings have been the only opportunity for teachers to be consulted.

 

Watch Hekia Parata with Paul Henry here.  And Paul Henry, these are Paid Union Meetings, not strikes.

 

When the Education Funding Review was announced, Hekia Parata said that the panel would be reporting back to her before the end of August/first week of September.  We expected an announcement from Ms Parata over this at the end of last week. 

 

No announcement.

 

She said on Paul Henry's show she was still awaiting the report and recommendations.

 

I had been suspecting the Education Funding Review panel had reported back last week (not that she only received the report last night or this morning as she claims in the House today) and recommended that her proposals were rubbish and the panel would not support them.  Hekia Parata has engaging in a round of PR opportunities over the last two days (Paul Henry 8/9/16, Radio NZ's Nine to Noon 7/9/16) trying to swing public support her way as NZEI and PPTA have garnered the lion's share of the media over the last few days.

 

As I was in the middle of writing this, Hekia Parata released the recommendations of the Education Funding Review panel in Parliament during Question Time this afternoon, which I will discuss further down.

While Hekia claims that NZEI and PPTA are being silly in holding these meetings, this is the two education unions being proactive because we don't trust Hekia and we want to make sure our voices are heard before it is too late.  Louise and Angela sit on that working party that is to advise the Minister and are obviously concerned by what is being presented to them and what is being said.  Hekia can say that nothing is set in concrete, but that is not the case.  We can not afford to wait as Hekia suggests, because to do nothing is to let the public think we agree with these proposals.
 

Teachers and support staff gather at Nelson College hall to hear from union representatives against government funding plans. 
(http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/84023412/education-unions-blast-global-funding-proposal-at-nelson-meeting 8/9/16)

 

These meetings were planned for school time to send a very strong message to the Government as well as the wider community about the seriousness of the concerns NZEI and PPTA hold about Global Funding.  It was considered that the inconvenience to parents and students for two to three hours was better than the long term, over a generation, that Global Funding would create due to under funding, higher class numbers and less teachers.

 

The eighteen members of the Education Funding Review Panel went into the first meeting expecting a blank slate and the ability to brainstorm proposals.

 

What they got was a wad of paper on the table by the Ministry of Education representative who said "This is what we will be looking at.  That is the proposal."

 

Hekia Parata can protest all she likes and say what she says to the media, but that was the reality of our representatives on that Education Funding Review Panel.

This is about the government abandoning their commitment to staff schools appropriately and provide the best education for all children. 

 

Under the current system there are formulas for staffing according to the roll. Under Global Funding that goes. The result is that teachers will be seen as a fiscal risk and no new teacher appointments will be permanent - every teacher will have to reapply for their position every year and have no job security. 

 

Think about how this will impact any teacher's ability to get a mortgage to buy a home or plan a family. 

 

It also means that as an experienced teacher at the top of the scale I would be unemployable as I would be considered expensive. 

 

This will result in less teachers so then there will be a higher number of kids in every class as teacher:student ratios would go out the door. Less teachers mean a narrowing of the Curriculum. 
 

 

Hekia Parata argues that she is not wedded to anything yet, that how it will work has not been worked out.  It is fully expected that Hekia will be taking her recommendations to Cabinet in October.  How can she take a half baked proposal to Cabinet?  How do I know it is half baked?  Because every question asked to her by one of her political opponents or a journalist asking the detail gets the reply that details have not been worked out yet!  This is the typical National Party approach to developing policy:  put forward a half baked idea and make it up as we go - that's how we got National Standards, Charter Schools, Investing in Educational Success not to mention the current housing crisis, climate change, employment law, health and safety....

 

As I mentioned further up, as I was writing this, Hekia Parata released the recommendations from the Education Funding Review panel (which I bet she has been sitting on for a week).  This was published by the Education Review magazine (8/9/16):

 

Six out of seven of the School Funding Review proposals will go forward for further work following the Funding Advisory Group's report on the proposals. The unpopular global budget proposal was rejected by the group, following intense opposition from teachers who feared a return to the days of bulk funding. 

The six proposals the majority of the Group agree should proceed for further work are:

• Taking a per-child approach to funding
• Additional funding for those most at risk of underachievement
• Supplementary funding for small and isolated schools
• Proposals over the way property funding is delivered
• Better accountability for student achievement
• Supporting a diversity of education options

Education Minister Hekia Parata says she was ‘not surprised’ by the Group’s recommendation that the proposed global budget not proceed to the next stage of policy development.
“The Group’s report, and together with feedback from around 90 regional meetings with teachers and principals, will help inform my report to Cabinet on the options to take forward. The insight from staff right on the frontline of education is invaluable”, says Ms Parata.
“I want to make sure that we take the time to get these vitally important decisions right. That is why our timeline for implementation at the earliest would be 2019.”

Well there is a surprise - NOT.  No one wants Global Funding that was on the group.

It was announced during Question Time in Parliament today.  Here is the video, with an initial patsy question from David Seymour, ACT's only MP and the Under Secretary for Education, so watch if you have a strong government.  Bright note was The Speaker telling David Seymour his questions slagging off our Paid Union Meetings were out of line.

You can read what the wider media has reported on the release of the Funding Review recommendations here:

• New Zealand Herald: 'Return of bulk funding' proposal rejected by education sector
• Stuff.co.nz: Government plans for 'global budget' at schools should not go ahead, advisory committee says
• Newshub: Govt advised against global funding for schools

Even though Global Funding was not in the recommendations to the Minister, this section from the above Newshub coverage should cause the education sector to continue to be wary:

And the Funding Advisory Group agrees say in its report that it'd be too costly and risky. 

"Schooling sector representatives of the Advisory Group do not support the introduction of global funding for state and state-integrated schools and consider any potential benefits are outweighed by the costs and risks of implementation."

However some of the group did note that with tweaks the plan could work and alternatives couldn't be ruled out in future.  

"If the risks around loss of clarity around staffing entitlement could be addressed in the global budget, there may be merit in exploring an alternative." 

This portion of the above Stuff article should also have the education sector on continued alert:

Parata acknowledged strong opposition to the measure but was not prepared to take global budgets off the table ahead of a discussion by Cabinet. 
"We all know that children are different, therefore there will be different challenges in different schools, so the underlying theme is how do we give schools choices and flexibility.
"The global budget is purely a mechanism for paying. It isn't about how we put together how much a school should get."
Asked if it was too soon to say global budgets were "dead and buried", Parata responded: "Yes it would, because that isn't consistent with Cabinet process."

I do not believe for a second that Global Funding is dead and buried in Hekia Parata's mind as indicated in the NZ Herald.  That writer must be very naïve to take what Hekia says to be gospel.

For Hekia Parata to push forward with Global Funding any further would be a folly.  It is not just teachers wanting to have a "row" with the government as John Key implied on his morning breakfast TV rounds on Monday, it is a whole sector backed by parents who are not happy at the potential outcomes of Global Funding being implemented. 

I love Rod Emmerson cartoons.  They cut to the core of the issue.  This one is from 2012.

If Hekia Parata has not learned from her failed battle with class sizes in 2012, she really has failed the standard as a Minister of Education.

My biggest fear is that the drama over Global Funding is a smokescreen to bring in performance pay and make PaCT and Communities of Learning compulsory... but that's another post another day...

Hekia had 46 kids in her class and she was taught well - how would that go in today's classrooms?

On Sunday morning I woke up to this article in my Twitter feed, an opinion piece from Jonathan Milne titled: A good teacher can inspire anywhere - but small classes help (4/9/16, www.stuff.co.nz).

A read through soon showed me a bunch of out of date clichés, such as the outdated phrase "stop work meeting", but this one from Minister Hekia Parata was particularly galling:

"I went to Manutahi School in Ruatoria," she told me. "I got in touch with my old teacher there recently, and he told me there were 46 children in my class, and that wasn't the biggest class in the school. We got taught well."

This is a classic that is often thrown out by people who think they are experts in how school should be because they went to school.  My grandmother went to school in the 1920s and often told me she had 50 odd kids in her class.  But to know that the Minister of Education is saying this is horrifying because that shows she understands so little of what goes on in schools today and how teaching works.

Minister Parata is currently 57 years old (I checked, thanks Wikipedia) so began school I expect in November 1963 when she turned 5 years old.  Back then I assume it was not to dissimilar to when I started school in late 1978, wooden tables, wooden chairs.  As you moved through the school you got a wooden desk with the lift up lid and the hole where predecessors put their ink bottles, and an incredibly uncomfortable wooden chair.  My teacher had our class sitting in our year groups.  Maybe Hekia's teacher did too.  Maybe her teacher had them lined up in rows.

Today I walk into a class and there are not enough desks and chairs for all the students - on purpose.  In a modern learning environment, students do not necessarily have to sit at the desk.  They may be on cushions on the floor or standing at a standing desk, all their possessions stored in a cubby or tote tray.

I just thought though after reading Mr Milne's opinion piece that Ms Parata needed a reminder of what having 46 students in a class today would be like - she needed a reality check.  So I tweeted her, 34 times, to get my thoughts across.

So let's look at what is different from the 1960s when Hekia was at primary school to 50 years later when my first nephew started school, following by another nephew and niece.  Let's compare their realities to Hekia's golden memories of her school days.

Well first of all, the biggest change, is we have a lot of assessment now compared to the 1960s and we have National Standards which means more reporting and graphs and stuff and it's all very intense compared to what Hekia's teacher did 50 years ago when s/he was teaching Hekia.  And I did a bit of maths to explain this.

Running records to assess reading were not around when Hekia began school.  But imagine if her teacher had to do 46 quality accurate running records for 46 students.  I estimated, conservatively, that this would take up more than a week of teaching time.

Then there is gathering writing samples.  The assessment and moderation with colleagues could eat up at least a week of teaching time if you all had 46 kids, because that would be 138 assessments to moderate.  And some schools expect you to do this twice a term, which would be up to two weeks of teaching time to do a quality assessment of a student's writing ability.

I reckon it would take at least another week to get through 46 kids to do either the full Numeracy assessment or JAM or Gloss accurately on every child... plus the time to monitor an IKAN assessment and mark and level those.

Plus there are the administration of assessments like spelling, basic facts, Burt Word Test, PATs, STAR, and possibly e-asTTle for triangulation purposes and the time to mark and level all these assessment and record the data in a Student Management System (SMS) along with the data from the reading, writing and maths.  That is at least another week of teaching time.  And don't tell me PaCT will make life easier Hekia, because that will still be just as time consuming and an 'add on' rather than an 'instead of'.

So far I think we have racked up four weeks of quality assessment of 46 students (conservatively) taking up important learning time.  Who is going to release a teacher for four weeks to do assessment every term?  Imagine trying to get quality assessment for that many students AND manage the class learning and behaviour at the same time!!

So times for some times tables.  If it takes me four weeks every term to get the assessment done for 46 students, that would be 4x4=16 weeks over the year of assessing instead of teaching.  A teaching year is roughly 40 weeks, so 40-16=24, so that is only 24/40 weeks used for learning and teaching to get my 46 students to the Standard.

Here is some more maths, putting those weeks into actual days:  I have 200 (approximately) real whole days to teach.  If I am assessing for 5x16=80 days and only teaching for 120 then I am using up 60% of my time with these children on assessment.  It should only be 10% maximum.

Now I have already mentioned that a teacher has to input the data collected on the SMS for their school.  But there is a heap of other stuff you have to consider would get bigger if they have 46 students: there is collating the data, report writing, planning, updating records, PaCT (if you get it past the gate, but that is another story)...

Then there are the meetings.  Teachers are always going to have staff, syndicate, curriculum and appraisal meetings, but do not forget about the meetings they have with parents and caregivers, RTLBs, RTLits, Special Education staff, speech language therapists (if you can get one!), and other outside agencies.  Several years ago my class of 19 Year 4-8 students had six students with special education needs - Downs Syndrome, Global Development Delays, Dyslexia - a third of my class and this is not unusual in many other classes!  With 46 students I would estimate 15 students would have special learning needs - that is a lot of meetings with parents and supporting agencies and a lot of writing and assessing of IEPs.

Hattie, Hekia's favourite academic, argues that class size is irrelevant and quality feedback is what counts.  So I am supposed to give all 46 students quality feedback every day.  Good luck with that!  When will I have time to develop my relationships with them, develop trust and know their little quirks and what they need when I have 46 students at once?  How do I support the wellbeing of 46 individuals?  How fair is that on the students?

Speaking of wellbeing, let's talk about the wellbeing of teachers.  Teachers are wilting under the workload of their current classes.  Imagine the chaos of teachers collapsing under the workload of 46 students.  Imagine the damage to their mental health, let alone the damage to their relationships with family and friends. 

In December 2012 a mental health worker told me she had seen five teachers that last week alone.  It's progressively becoming a bigger issue.  Every week I see posts on NZ Teachers of people who are over worked and worn out, seeking support or claiming they are leaving the profession due to the workload.  Personally, I am happier not to be doing the workload this year - studying is hard enough.  We are losing great teachers out of the profession because the workload has become what two teachers should be doing - yet you think we could have 46 in a class!

So how will one of your Teach First NZ teachers with their eight weeks of intensive training to be a teacher cope with 46 students in their class Hekia?

So back to the classroom furniture we talked about earlier.  Most schools struggle to fit 30 students and their associated desks and chairs into a standard classroom, let alone 46 students!  And I'm not sure that you noticed Hekia that kids are generally bigger than what they were 50 years ago, so fitting 46 students in would be a big challenge.... but I guess you will solve that with Communities of Online Learning, aye Hekia.

Ultimately, you need to remember that the teaching conditions of a teacher are the learning conditions of a child.  So if we flipped all of these arguments to the child's view, it means less individual time with the teacher, as teacher who is not teaching as much, too many assessments, lost in a crowd of other students and having a teacher who is stressed out to the max.

And this is what Global Funding could present to our schools.

But that's ok according to Hekia.  She was in a class of 46 and she was taught well.

Thanks to the fabulous cartoonists of New Zealand for the illustrations.  Hekia is giving you a lot of material, that's for sure.  Love your work.

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.

How I think we could make NZ's quality public education system better.

National and Act have spent the last however many years telling you and I that there is a crisis in education. 

They will tell you that one in five children leave school without being able to read and write.  They will tell you that the unions are protecting bad teachers.  They will tell you teachers are only in teaching for the money and holidays (sorry.... just choking a bit on that one).  They will tell you that the state system in New Zealand is not doing a good enough job for Maori and Pacific Island children. 

They will tell you that National Standards will raise your child's achievement levels.  They will tell you that teachers do not make good assessments of where your child is at, so we need a new tool called PaCT (Progress and Consistency Tool).  They will tell you that Charter Schools with unregistered and untrained teachers will provide you with more choice and will solve our tail of underachievement and low achievement rates for Maori and Pacifica children.

 

So now that I have told you everything that National and Act have had to say about what is wrong with our quality public education system, I am going to tell you how we could improve our quality public education system even more (in my view) using the monies currently being spent on National Standards, PaCT and other testing regimes in progress, and Charter Schools.

 

We need to cap all class sizes.  We need to make sure that all junior classes, years 1-3, are no larger than 18 students, and year 4-8 classes have no more than 25 students. Schools may be staffed for that now, but by the time you take out a walking principal and one or two or more DPs that bumps up the number of kids in each class.  So senior management staffing should be over and above the teaching staff once a certain roll number kicks in.

We need more teacher aides and they need quality training and they should get paid better.  Teacher aides are important in individual classrooms as they are that extra pair of eyes when a teacher is focused in on an ability group.  A teacher aide can support the struggling students while the teacher concentrates on the whole class.  A teacher aide can take individuals and small groups for targeted learning designed by the teacher. 

 

Before you say that that is what a teacher is supposed to do consider this:  the teacher is responsible for delivering all these learning areas - English (reading, writing, oral language), mathematics (with numeracy as the focus but statistics, geometry, measurement and algebra have become poor cousins), science, social science, the Arts (music, visual art, dance, drama), te reo Maori, technology, physical education (PE and health), and then there are other focuses like learning a foreign language, sex education, financial literacy, enviro studies......

A good teacher aide helps a teacher ensure that no child is left behind, that all children get the best possible education they can get, that everything possible has been done to help each child learn to the best of their ability.  A good teacher aide is worth their weight in gold.

 

Probably the most important parts of a day for a teacher is running the ability groups for reading, writing and numeracy.  Yes they set up activities and work for the other kids to do while they are running these programmes, but while the teacher is focused on one group or an individual, who is helping the rest of the kids when they need it?  That's where a teacher aide is worth their weight in gold - they help keep the other kids on track meaning learning continues and behaviour management issues are minimised.

 

Teacher aides are paid poorly, have poor job security and very rarely get training officially.  They do a hard job, often working with the slowest kids every day, and sometimes with kids that have behavioural problems or communication or soiling issues.  They are the like that old adage "the woman behind the man" because they often do a lot of things to make a classroom successful and a teacher do a good job and kids learn.

 

The kids that are diagnosed with a learning disability need better special needs support.  Over the years I have taught plenty of kids who struggle with learning.  It is not necessarily because a teacher has failed them, because most of the individual children who have come into my class with this struggle already have had numerous IEPs, teacher aide help, targeted teaching, referrals to RTLBs and RTLits and are likely to or have been referred to CDC (Child Development Centre at Waikato Hospital).  Some have also been to Speld and other after school learning centres like Kip McGrath or Numberworks.

 

Currently I have a number of students with special learning needs .  One is ORS (Ongoing Resourse Scheme) as he has Downs Syndrome.  He has a full time teacher's aide, support from Special Education (although this is so watered down it is not funny), and his parents pay for private speech language therapy as he doesn't talk like other kids.  There is funding and support for him, which is great, even though we still have to push to get things.

 

And then I have two children diagnosed by CDC as intellectually impaired.  Their academic performance is five years below their age, but because they can feed, dress, toilet themselves and sit there nicely there is no additional funding or help for them.  They have been through the RTLB/RTLit thing and we are doing it again.  However, they require a lot of input, and that means I am not with the other groups or the rest of the class, because their needs are time consuming.

 

And then I have three other strugglers.  They cause me great concern too.  Their parents have put love and time into them.  They have had help at school through programmes like reading recovery and teacher aide time.  One of them goes to Speld because the parents believe it is worth it (and I fully support them because they bring another element to learning that I can not provide in a school setting).  But there is no funding to do what I would really like to do to boost them.  They are not considered serious enough for a referral to RTLB or RTLit.  But again, these kids require targeted teaching, time consuming teaching, which again takes me away from other learners.

 

These kids are not like this because of bad teaching.  These kids are like this because this is who they are.  This is how their brains work.  These children have their own individual issues that the 'system' is unable to cater to due to lack of money/resources/personnel.

 

That is six children out of nineteen in a multi-level year 4-8 class.  That is one third of my class.  I have only had these children a few months.  I am still getting to know them.  I have done testing up to their gills.  I am implementing programmes and activities based on their needs.  And it takes up more than half my teaching and prep time.  But each one of these children needs more time than I have to give.  I still have thirteen other children and their education to consider.

 

So how do we solve this?  Well more teacher aides, as I have discussed above, would be great.  More RTLBs and RTLits and actually having them work with the individuals (like they did originally, but that has been swept away with ongoing restructuring).  Widen the ORS funding (or any funding) for kids who are going to have ongoing issues due to learning needs that won't change.  My two students with an intellectual impairment are not going to lose that impairment over night.... it is permanent!

 

Schools need better ICT funding.  Parents expect computers in classrooms.  Now they expect to see I-pads or tablets and/or laptops.  They cost money, but they are needed so that these children have access to information and can present their learning in a variety of ways. 

Data projectors have become essential teaching and learning tools.  You can learn anything on You Tube now!  The other day we looked up how to make sock puppets and got a fantastic tip!  Data projectors have also almost made the old OHPs obsolete (but I would still use one)!!  Now you can scan your worksheets and have them on your computer to shine up on a screen to discuss with the kids. 

Cameras are essential to allow the teacher to capture learning moments and for students to create learning moments.  Some classes can use I-pads, I-pods, tablets and smart phones to do this.  Students and teachers are capturing these moments as either still pictures or as video.  They manipulate these using their computers into wonderful multi-media presentations.

Interactive whiteboards, i.e. ActivBoard and Smart Boards and the like, are becoming more common.  The applications of this are way more than a digital white board or a place to show a movie.  All sorts of exciting learning can come from these boards... too many things to list here.  ,

There are many other exciting things to be used in a classroom for ICT as well.... but like the money each school has to spend on ICT, but time is limited to wax lyrical about ICT.  The government should just fork out for in direct ICT funding.  Unfortunately they do not do this currently.  They merely pay lip service as to how important ICT is in learning.... but don't stump up with actual cash.

 

Teachers need quality professional learning opportunities.  In the '90s the National government of the day dismantled the advisory service.  Labour reinstated it when they came back in in 1999.  It didn't take long for National to destroy it in a nuclear way after they got back in in 2008.  Choice for individual teachers to up skill in areas like science, the arts, social sciences, languages, health and physical education has been removed in favour of school wide delivery of literacy and numeracy screwed in emphasis to the National Standards.  I think that developing people's ability to teach literacy and numeracy is important, but for better teaching... not to reach some dodgy ill informed standard.

 

Teachers need time to do quality testing and assessment -  that means more release time.  When two days/ten hours per term of CRT (classroom release time) was established for primary teachers in 2003 it was planned to be the beginning the of winning further release time for teachers to plan, test, do boring paperwork, take time to observe other teachers demonstrating good practice, etc.  Ten years later we still have the same amount of time for CRT, no increase.  My two days of CRT a term are used solely for testing.  I don't get through all the kids.  I don't get time to record the results and feed back to the kids like I would like.  Planning doesn't happen, neither does boring paperwork and I don't get to go into other classes.  I work like crazy to get through all the kids and spend one-on-one time with each child to make them feel comfortable about the process.  Rushing tests doesn't bring out the best in children.

 

Children need good food in their stomachs to learn.  Therefore a school lunch programme should be implemented.  I am encouraged by the breakfast programme announced recently by John Key in conjunction with Fonterra and Sanitarium.  However I feel that a mere $9.5 million by the government over five years is pitiful.  That's less than $2 million a year! 

I taught in England for a year and the majority of schools provided an option for children to get a school lunch.  Scandanavian countries, including Sweden, have school lunch programmes.  Japan has a school lunch programme.  Yet in New Zealand we hear calls that it should be the parents responsibility.

One school in Putaruru, Te Wharekura O Te Kaokaoroa O Patetere, provides breakfast and lunch to its students for $10 a week per student.  The principal, Keith Silveira said providing meals was not a response to poverty but to make sure children were eating well. He said a major benefit was the students having among the lowest rate of tooth decay and dental work in the Waikato because they were not exposed to junk food. He said it also made life easier for parents and instilled responsibility in the children, who were also rostered on either set-up or clean-up duties.

Clearly though, well nourished children will have a better capacity to learn and a child with a full stomach will tend to have less behaviour problems.  Low dental decay is an obvious bonus.  Also another bonus is how the scheme is able to instill in the children a sense of service to the school and their school mates by participating in preparing and cleaning up from the meals.  Eating at school can also develop the students' social skills. 

Don't go down the standardised testing line and get rid of National Standards.  Part of the GERM agenda is to tell you that students are failing, leaving school without basic skills like reading, writing and numeracy.  The GERMers will also tell you that teachers are ineffective, lazy and their unions are just protecting their jobs.  The GERMers will tell you that we need to measure childrens' learning, and therefore measure how effective the practice of a teacher is.

Look, I could give you all the reasons why National Standards are a complete waste of time in a short list:

• It labels children, especially children who struggle.
• By publishing the data, individual children risk having their privacy breached.
• The government insists that even special needs children should be assessed using the Standards, and even Special Schools should produce data against the Standards.  What is the point of an ORS funded student being assessed against the Standards?  It's not like their Downs Syndrome (or whatever) is going to be cured by the National Standards!!!  It is just plain stupidness on so many levels!!!  Grrrr!!!
• It doesn't tell teachers anything they didn't already know and doesn't really inform future learning.
• It allows schools to be ranked and labelled on the basis of data that is not standardise and means schools of different socio-economic areas are compared to each other, thus creating loser and winner schools, failing schools and magnet schools.
• It does not take account of where each individual child has come from, how much progress they have made or their individual learning challenges.
• It narrows the school curriculum and kills creativity.  The teaching of science, social sciences, technology, health, PE, the arts and languages have truly taken a battering over this.
• Critical thinking is lost in the classroom as it is more important to pass the tests.
• Teaching to the test becomes the modus operandi in schools rather than teaching to the individual needs of each child.
• The creation of failing schools opens the door to the charter/partnership school model which then commercialises schooling, opening up children to an untried curriculum and unqualified/unregistered teachers.  There is no conclusive evidence that shows charter schools are better than public schools.  In fact the evidence shows their effectiveness is the same or worse than public schools.
• The use of the data to assess the effectiveness of teachers opening the door to performance pay - which has been shown not to improve the outcomes of students, but has been shown to squash collegiality which consequently isolates teachers and means they can not support each other to become better teachers or improve student outcomes.
• National Standards is the door opener to national testing like NAPLAN in Australia (which people are now waking up to what a clanger that is), and national testing in the US and UK.  The PaCT tool is the next step National is making in the move towards national testing.  Again this will narrow the curriculum, create teaching to the test scenarios (which I witnessed blatantly in the UK) and undermines the professionalism of teachers to be able to teach to the needs of the individual child.

Well, I tried to make the list short.  I guess I failed the standard on short lists.

For more reading on why National Standards, national testing, charter schools, performance pay and lots of other educational things of interest check out Dianne's blog Save Our Schools New Zealand, Allan Alach's blogs on The Daily Blog and The Treehorn Express, Education Aotearoa (for a variety of education focused musings), Kelvin Smythe's Networkonnet and Bruce Hammond's Leading the Learning (which Allan Alach also contributes too and covers a wide area of educational interests).

Refocus on our world leading, well researched and trialled, New Zealand Curriculum!!  This really is a no brainer.  It has been hailed throughout the world as one of the best curriculums around.... but before it could truly be implemented and bedded it, it was pushed to the side-lines by that stupid idea of National Standards. 

This curriculum aims to develop the whole child, not just in literacy and numeracy, but in the arts and sciences.... and so on.  It's aim was to develop a person with critical thinking skills, who could problem solve and work independently or as part of a group - a person who could contribute to wider society and help to improve society for the better.

Instead we got National Standards forced upon us, which disregards critical thinking, has a basis of everyone for themselves and will turn out fodder for employers who want people who will just do as they are told and work for peanuts.

This little blog baby has been brewing for several months.  These are my opinions, but I would appreciate your constructive evaluation of these opinions and any other suggestions you have for how we can make our quality public education system even better!!  (Please play the ball and not the man in being constructive).