When Life Gives You Lemons, Dealing With WINZ Sucks Even More

Sometimes life gives you lemons... things don't go the way you plan... life is hard.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you do not have a job.

In 1930 the first unemployment benefit was established in New Zealand.  The Unemployment Act promised relief payments to those who registered as unemployed and then it followed that there would be no payments made without work, meaning those registered would have to participate in government 'make work' schemes such as building roads and working on farms or in forestry projects.  The Social Security Act of 1938 followed and made it that the benefit was "payable to a person 16 years of age and over who has been in New Zealand for at least 12 months and is unemployed, is capable of and willing to undertake suitable work, and has taken reasonable steps to secure employment".  (Wikipedia - Welfare in New Zealand).  And since then more benefits have been added and many changes have occurred.

You can have all the qualifications and work experience in the world... but you may not be the person for that organisation or another one, and the next thing you know you are unemployed, leaving bills unopened on the table, getting inventive with food (or inviting yourself to other people's places to eat), popping $10 in the petrol tank, scraping together enough to pay the rent so you won't be homeless, scouring the net for jobs to apply for (including those out of the sphere of your qualifications and experiences).

This is the reality many people find themselves in at least once in their lives.  Suddenly the rug is pulled out from under them (they are made redundant, the company goes into liquidation, a contract comes to an end and another doesn't materialise, or you stuff up big time and get the "don't come Monday") and they think "It's ok, I'll find another job, and if I have to I'll go to WINZ for help."

If you haven't been there... count yourself lucky.  It's not a place I want to be ever again... but this was my life twice during 2010.

I had a fixed term position and I had not secured a new position so I knew that my pay was coming to an end, and I reduced expenditure in accordance.... but money only lasts so long, and then it is gone.  For nearly two months I was on the bones of my bum.

It was scary, demoralising, depressing, soul destroying.... and that was before I dealt with WINZ.

Dealing with WINZ I was made to feel the lowest of the low, like filth on the bottom of one's shoe.  Like I was an uneducated lay about who was feckless and without gumption.

I was ridiculed because I did not come to WINZ as soon as I became unemployed  -  I honestly thought I could secure another job, or earn enough as a reliever, the eternal optimist.  I was told to sell possessions, which I refused to do as most of what I owned was second hand already when I got it so it wouldn't yield much, and then it would cost me more to replace them later on.  I was told to move to a cheaper house.  From experience, as I have moved a lot, I can tell you it would have been more expensive for me to move than to stay where I was.  I was told to cancel all my insurances  -  I refused as I reckoned as soon as I did that I'd crash into a brand new BMW, my house would burn down and I would need a major operation - never cancel your insurance!!

The day I went to WINZ I actually opened a power bill to find it was a notice of disconnection.  That sent me into a mad panic.

I had to pull the tears out to the lady at WINZ.  To her credit, she probably deals with a lot of sad cases each day who know all the ways to manipulate the system.  But I was at desperation stage.  I had no money left to pay the next lot of rent.  My power, phone, internet and gas were about to be disconnected.  I couldn't put petrol in my car to drive the 90km back to where I lived (no public transport in a rural district where the townships are isolated from each other by geographical land features of a large size).

Luckily for me though, I had been to a job interview the day before and secured the job.  Unfortunately it would be about six weeks before I started the job (the nature of my profession), and another two and a half weeks after that until I would be paid.

I have found before that having a job to start means WINZ is more likely to help you.  They can see that you are a short term project, that you'll be quickly off the books.  If you are going to stick around for a much longer period of time then they will put as many road blocks in the way to them helping you as they possibly can.

So because I was going to be starting a job, WINZ reluctantly agreed to pay my power and gas bills and a contribution towards my phone and internet bills and the next rent.  No money to get the 90km home though.  And I'd be paying them back these advances (this was to take me about two years to do this, as more was later added to the total during the second time as a 'government employee'). 

I was granted the Unemployment Benefit and an Accommodation allowance.  It all came out at close to $240 per week.  My rent at the time was $300 a week (living in a popular coastal town, that I'd moved to because of my previous position, is expensive) which meant I still had a shortfall.

The position was a fixed term position, with the possibility of extending it... which didn't happen, and again I found myself suddenly without employment.  I went to an interview prior to finishing, but another worthy applicant won that position.

This time I didn't wait as long to visit WINZ.  I was back after my last pay went through.  This time I had to do one of their "job seeker seminars" where they taught me to suck eggs on how to apply for a job.  They showed me the jobs they had available.... they were very few and not where I lived.

But I was no slouch.  I investigated several options.  I had interviews for two very different positions loosely linked to my expertise.... came extraordinarily close to taking one, which would have led me out of the country for a while.... and then a new opportunity came along.  I applied on a Friday, was rung that afternoon to come for an interview on Monday, got the job to start Friday (someone else was in a hurry to leave, and this is a short time frame for my profession).

This brought in new complications for dealing with WINZ.  The job wasn't in the area I lived in, but just over two hours away.  I had accommodation with family close to the job.... but I didn't have the dosh to physically get to the job - I needed petrol in the car. 

I made an emergency appointment with the local WINZ office to sort this out.  I turned up at the appropriate time to find all the staff had gone home sick!!!  This was too much.  I raged at the poor person at the other end of the 0800 number, who then put me onto the main district office 90km away.  I was never going to make it to that office to get it all sorted, so they sent me to the local community centre who gave me petrol money to get to the new job.

That was my 2010 experience. 

This week Paula Bennett, the Minister of Social Development (or whatever they are calling it this year!) introduced changes to the beneficiary system - not just the unemployment benefit, but ALL benefits.

On Monday 15 July, the following came into being:

• the DPB, Unemployment and Sickness Benefits won’t exist.
• Replacing a complex system of seven categories are three main benefits:

            -  Jobseeker Support for those actively seeking and available for work            
            -  Sole Parent Support for sole parents with children under 14 years           
            -  Supported Living Payment for people significantly restricted by sickness, injury or
               disability.

• all beneficiary parents will have to ensure their children:

            -  attend 15 hours a week in ECE from 3-5yrs           
            -  attend school from age five or six           
            -  enrol with a PHO, Integrated Family Health Centre or GP

            -  complete WellChild/Tamariki Ora checks

 

• The changes also require anyone with work expectations to be drug-free, and benefits can now be stopped if people fail to clear outstanding arrest warrants. 
• From October 2012, changes for sole parent beneficiaries introduced expectations to be available for part-time work when their youngest is school-age and full-time work when their youngest turns 14.

Some of these reforms look like good ideas.  I think those with outstanding arrest warrants should not be getting my tax payers dollars, particularly if it is for something more significant that parking fines.  Getting more kids enrolled with a GP for consistent health care and enrolled in early childhood education is great too.  I also agree that it is a good thing to get people back into work for their own self worth as well has for their ability to earn more money and be contributing members of society. 

But here is where I have some problems (like many others):

• Show me the jobs!!!  Those ghost jobs.....  most part time work for solo parents does not fit into school or ECE hours... so then there is the problem of childcare and the expense of it and the safety of it.  Until you address those issues, this is not going to fly.
• Forcing people into work when they have valid health reasons for not working is going to be problematic.  Who makes that decision?  The individual's own GP, or is this going to be like the ACC debacle of the last few years where some contracted doctor reviews the paperwork without meeting the client and declares they are fit for work.  Then what happens if one (or more) of these people goes back to work and they end up in a worse condition as a result, or go postal?  This is going to be a huge problem, and it will blow up in Paula's face if she has not done this properly, which knowing National, it won't have.
• Duh - it's already a legal requirement to have your child enrolled at school by age 6.  That is a dumb one.
• 15 hours of ECE for children of beneficiaries - another problematic issue.  For starters, this takes choice away from the parents.  Is anyone forcing a family with one working parent and one stay at home parent into a minimum number of ECE hours?  What makes that stay at home parent any better at educating a pre-schooler than a stay at home beneficiary parent?  What if there is no appropriate provider in your area where you live?  What if you do not have the transportation to the ECE provider?  And for three year olds, most kindergartens don't offer sessions meeting 15 hours, in fact in some areas you are lucky if you get your child into a kindi before they turn four... and playcentres don't count under this policy... so again the beneficiary parents are denied choice for how their pre-schooler receives their pre-school education.
• Children in ECE last year were given an identification number.  While the article Kindy kids to have ID numbers in the NZ Herald proclaims it is for children of beneficiaries, all children received one on enrolment (or if they were already enrolled).  However this raises questions about how these numbers and the data collected will be used as well as privacy issues.  Will these numbers be used to monitor and dob in beneficiaries?
• While doctors visits for under 5s are supposed to be free, that is not the case in every area.  And children under 5 do not always wait for business hours to need a doctor.  Consequently parents fork out big time when they have to do an out of hours doctors visit.  Just this week a case in Hamilton was highlighted of a parent leaving a doctor's surgery as there was a $35 cost for her ten month old baby to be seen as she was from out of town.  So make ALL consultations free for under 5s even out of normal hours and even when it is not their actual doctor or clinic (provided they are enrolled).
• Not every parent is a fan of vaccinations.  Part of being a parent is making those decisions.  I do not think it right for the state to force the parents of a child into giving them a vaccination that they fundamentally don't agree with.  If that is the parent's choice, then get them to sign a document stating that they made the decision not to vaccinate after researching thoroughly.  Then be it on their heads if something unfortunate happens.
• Drug testing - while I agree that being drugged out on the job is not a good thing I do have an issue with making beneficiaries do a drug test and pay for it themselves.  If you have a history of drug taking, lost a previous job as a result of drug taking, or are applying for a job in an industry that requires a clear drug screen, sure, go for testing them... and in the first two instances, make the beneficiary pay.  But I see this as a slippery slide into all beneficiaries having to pass drug tests to get a benefit very regularly, and if you have no history of taking drugs, then this would be on the nose.  Just because you are a beneficiary does not mean you take drugs.  If I had been asked to do this I would have been highly offended. 
• WINZ says it will continue your benefit  "If you agree to take part in an approved activity for at least six weeks and you are still entitled to your benefit, it will be restarted."  (http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/benefit-changes/pre-employment-drug-testing.html).  That's great.  But we have a significant lack of drug and alcohol programmes in New Zealand, and the ones we do have are struggling to keep up with demand and gain appropriate funding.  Providers are sounding a warning.

Of course if you don't comply with the changes, your benefit gets cut.  If you are a parent, how do you feed your kids then?  Do these changes really benefit children in the long run?

I was watching a documentary a few weeks ago late at night A Civilised Society.  The synopsis is as follows:

This documentary looks at the new right ideology that transformed public education in the 80s and 90s and the schism it caused with teachers. Interviews with parents, teachers and unionists are cut together with archive footage of treasury officials and politicians advocating that schools be run as businesses. There are vexed board of trustees' meetings, an infamous deal between Avondale College and Pepsi, and teachers take their opposition from the classroom to the streets. The film is the third in Alister Barry's series critical of neo-liberal reform in NZ.

In the fourth segment, from memory, it shows a principal from an Auckland school saying that children were coming to school hungry, the only meal of the day of consequence was what her school was providing that day, and the children would go home to a cup of tea and some bread for dinner that night.

New Zealand has an epidemic of rheumatic fever.  Other western countries have eliminated this disease.  It is rife here.  Why? 

Rheumatic fever primarily affects children between ages 5 and 17 years with only 20% of first-time attacks occurring in adults, and occurs approximately 20 days after strep throat. In up to a third of cases, the underlying strep infection may not have caused any symptoms.  The illness is so named because of its similarity in presentation to rheumatism.  (Wikipedia)

Rheumatic fever in New Zealand has been shown to be predominant within Maori and Pacific Island groups and with poor people.  Over crowding within the home is one significant factor, as is cold and damp homes.  It causes heart problems when left undiagnosed and untreated.

Last November, Professor Norman Sharpe, the medical director of the National Heart Foundation, said, "I feel ashamed, I feel it is intolerable - we have people coming here from overseas, young doctors from the UK and they can't believe we have rheumatic fever. It scarcely exists in the UK."  He praised the Government's sore-throat swabbing programme in schools, which he expected would control rheumatic fever, but it was a "bandaid" and the problem needed to be addressed "upstream" too, by dealing with poverty, overcrowding and poor quality housing.  (NZ Herald 9/11/12)

There is a programme in South Auckland aiming to eradicate rheumatic fever, and even they are surprised by its extent.  Nurses have found higher rates than expected of streptococcal throat infections in a mass South Auckland programme aimed at cutting the high rates of rheumatic fever in the region.  Because overcrowding is a major factor in strep-throat contraction the coalition is also looking to grow the programme so that housing needs are addressed by Whanau Ora workers or Housing New Zealand.  Nurse Lynn Vasquez, 27, works at East Tamaki and Dawson Road Primary Schools. Her work also includes treatment for serious skin infections such as scabies - which have been eradicated from her schools - boils, infected eczema, cellulitis and school sores. Across the region 2404 children have been treated for skin conditions.  "Overcrowding is a massive, massive issue," she says.  (NZ Herald 17/7/13)

And how will these welfare changes improve things for kids like these? Because I predict a rise in rheumatic fever and serious skin infections and other respiratory ailments like asthma (cold, damp and mouldy houses contribute to this) due to these welfare changes, because overcrowding in houses will increase, people won't be able to afford to go to the doctor or pay for their power bills to get heating (thus increasing sickness), and there will be considerable problems arising from a lack of appropriate diet affecting how children perform in schools so therefore a comprehensive food in schools programme is essential.

But what sticks in my craw the most about these changes and the previous changes to the welfare system since November 2008, particularly the ones against solo parents trying to better themselves, is the hypocrite that Paula Bennett truly is.

Credit where credit is due, Paula Bennett has pulled herself up by her bootstraps... but every piece of help provided to her under the beneficiary system has since been scrapped by her.

Is Paula Bennett even human?  Because I see no compassion for children or their parents in any of these policies.

Her track record in how she deals with those who oppose her is on par with her colleagues (in particular Judith Collins reworking events and reports to suit her, Hekia Parata breaching privacy and Anne Tolley being the bully), but to breach the privacy of WINZ clients and bully them is beneath the level of behaviour expected for a Minister of the Crown.  Ms Bennett clearly doesn't see anything wrong with herself breaching privacy of WINZ clients, that she is above the law.  And then to claim that she won't rule out doing it again is to further question how ethical Ms Bennett is.

I contend then that Paula Bennett fails the standard for the following reasons:

• She is a hypocrite - she wouldn't be where she was today if it wasn't for all the programmes she axed in 2009.
• She is clearly not putting children at the centre of her policies, because all these policies will have an adverse affect on children whether she likes it or not.
• These policies will lead to more people being trapped in a cycle of poverty, and consequently poverty related illnesses (e.g. respiratory conditions, lack of nutrition, mental illnesses).
• Paula thinks that families slip in and out of poverty on any given day, so does not recognise that poverty is a huge factor in the current New Zealand society.

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).