World Teachers Day - It's Time!

It's time!  Kua tae te wa!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it really is time.  Kua tae te wa!

A tale of two Hekia Parata speeches.

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

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

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

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

So what prompted this?

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

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

Join the dots from Sunday night to Monday afternoon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

So some other issues to raise my ire:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDUCANZ members announced.

The members of EDUCANZ have just been announced by the Minister of Education Hekia Parata this afternoon and the D-Day for EDUCANZ taking effect is 1st of July 2015 - yep, just a matter of four weeks away.  The Council members are:

• Barbara Ala’alatoa (Chairperson)
• Anthony Mackay (Deputy Chairperson)
• Claire Amos
• Simon Heath
• Ripeka Lessels
• Iva Ropati
• Lynda Stuart
• Helen Timperley
• Clare Wells

Hekia Parata's statement said,

The council will be chaired by highly-regarded Auckland principal Barbara Ala’alatoa, and comprise eight other leading educationalists, all but one of whom emerged from an exhaustive public nomination process.

”The nine members of the Council are leaders in the education sector who bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the new body,” Ms Parata says. “I’m delighted we’ve got a group of such outstanding calibre.”

Note that she said all but one of whom emerged from an exhaustive public nomination process.  Who was the one?  That would be Anthony Mackay.

“Of the council members, all but Mr Mackay, who is based in Melbourne, emerged through the public nomination process. Six are registered teachers which will ensure teachers are well-represented on their new professional body,” Ms Parata says.

Who is Anthony Mackay?  Anthony Mackay is CEO, Centre for Strategic Education (CSE) in Melbourne.  You can read more about what he is into here.

Tony is one of our Board of Directors. His work specialises in the areas of school and system leadership, improvement and innovation and he is currently working on a number of ‘Next Practice Projects' on school leadership and school improvement and reform around the world.

I have to wonder about why Anthony Mackay was selected by Hekia Parata and the costs to EDUCANZ of one of the members not being based in New Zealand.  Because ultimately the costs will fall on teachers.
Ms Parata says Ms Ala’alatoa, who was last year awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education, is an energetic leader, who brings a combination of vision and pragmatism to the position. She sees the big picture while understanding the issues teachers face on the ground.

“Deputy chair Anthony Mackay is an internationally recognised education expert whose name is synonymous with school and system leadership, improvement and innovation.

“The other members of the council are among New Zealand’s foremost practitioners and education experts.

So here are some short facts and some links to the people Hekia has chosen for us:

Barbara Ala'alatoa, from the Sylvia Park
School website.

Barbara Ala'alatoa is the principal of Sylvia Park School in Auckland.  Sylvia Part School is part of their local Community of Schools and in this article, Schools eager to share expertise, (Stuff, 1/5/15) demonstrates her keenness on the IES model.  "Sylvia Park principal Barbara Alaalatoa has one response for the people who've said the COS concept with its lead teachers and principals won't work."  Ala'alatoa was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2014 Queen's Birthday honours for her services to education.  When Meteria Turei last year asked John Key in Parliament about hungry children in school needing lunches supplied, Ms Ala'alatoa was one of three principals whom Ms Parata rang to ask:

Metiria Turei: Which of the decile 1 and 2 schools that John Key visited—Māngere Central, Waimate Main, Flaxmere, Huntly, Huntly College, Manaia View, Pt England—told him that only one or two of their kids needed feeding every day, when each of those schools have a lunch programme provided by either KidsCan or some other charity in their community?  

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, by definition, I suppose, if they already have lunch provided, then actually they would not raise the fact that they need lunch, so that is rather self-defeating. Secondly, it may be lost on the member, but I have been the Prime Minister since the end of 2008. The question the member asked was for the 1 year from 2013. But in the interests of trying to get to the bottom of this debate, at 1.41 this afternoon I took the liberty of ringing the Minister of Education. I said: “Please ring for me three schools that are decile 1 or 2 and ask them how many kids have not come to school today with lunch.” That was done completely randomly and with no information. Here are the facts. Phillip Heeney of Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Waiu o Ngati Porou, Ruatōria, a decile 1 school—people are free to ring the school—

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said, at 1.41 p.m., with absolutely no knowledge, these are the facts. At Te Waiu o Ngati Porou school, Ruatoria, decile 1, how many children came to school today without lunch—answer, zero. Barbara Ala’Alatoa, Sylvia Park School, decile 2—one to two kids, maybe. Iain Taylor, Manurewa Intermediate—decile 1 school, roll of 711—maybe 12. Yes, there is an issue where some children come to school without lunch. That number of children is relatively low.

Claire Amos - from her website.

Claire Amos is a deputy principal at Hobsonville Secondary School and was last year elected as the secondary teacher's representative on the current Teachers Council.  I have had the pleasure of sharing a table with Claire at various ULearn workshops and breakouts and discussions via Twitter and blogs.  While we do not always agree, Claire is a very astute and passionate teaching professional.  No where is this more evident than on her blog post Why I am standing for EDUCANZ anyway, where Claire describes the conflict she has gone through to make her decision to stand and received a lot of flack from various members of the profession (including me).  Claire said in this blog post, "I am also disappointed that in choosing to stand for EDUCANZ anyway it means I am forced to step down from the PPTA. I am a person who has deeply and passionately supported the PPTA as a member and as a part of the PPTA ICT Advisory Group. But I respect PPTA has made a decision, so I will leave, for now at least....   I believe I could bring an articulate and positive secondary voice to EDUCANZ. I am passionate and well informed about educational issues and constantly seek ways to support and challenge NZ educators to be future-focused, open and reflective, as well as being recognised as the hardworking professionals they are."

Simon Heath is the principal of Renwick School in Marlborough since 2008.  He was a recipient of a Woolf Fisher Trust Fellowship in 2012.  This article Renwick principal Simon Heath appointed to Education Council (Stuff 3/2/15) stated:  "Heath has been involved in numerous education working groups.  He is a past - president of the Marlborough Principals Association, and has been a member of the Marlborough e-Learning Project, and involved in the Eco Schools project at Renwick School.  He is currently chairman of the Mistletoe Bay Trust, and is on the Education Ministry's Principals Reference Group."

Ripeka Lessels is the principal of Te Whata Tau o Putauaki (which I would link to the website, but there is no real information from Ms Lessels to give you a feel for her), part of the Principals Council for NZEI and is well known in the Kawerau district.

 

Iva Ropati is the a former rugby league player for the Kiwis, Paramatta Eels, the Warriors and various English league clubs.  Laterly he has been the principal of what is now One Tree Hill College (formerly Penrose High School) and now is the principal at Howick College.

Lynda Stuart is the principal of May Road School in Auckland and a member of the NZEI National poverty and other issues low decile schools face.  She is also on the NZEI Principal's Council and is the current NZEI representative on the Teachers Council.

Lynda Stuart.  Photo sourced from Voxy.

Executive.  Her school is a low decile school, so she is often a spokesperson for NZEI on matters regarding poverty and issues that affect low decile schools.

Professor Helen Timperley is based at the University of Auckland and is well known for her research on classroom practice, assessment, inquiry cycles, self review and professional learning.  Every school in New Zealand will have at least one copy of a publication which Prof Timperley has contributed to and she is held in high regard in the teaching profession.

Clare Wells is the one representative from the early childhood sector on EDUCANZ.  She is the CEO of New Zealand Kindergartens Inc.

Ms Parata's release also included the following:

“The selection process was thorough, rigorous and robust, and conducted according to State Services Commission guidelines.

“145 nominations were received and the 24 nominees shortlisted were  interviewed by a panel comprising Education Review Office chief executive, Iona Holsted, the former principal of Wellington High Prue Kelly, who was  recently appointed to oversee new teacher and principal positions in Communities of Schools, and Institute of Directors Board Service Advisor Kelly McGregor.

“The field of candidates was extremely impressive and I want to thank everyone who participated in the process,” Ms Parata says.

On July 1 the new council will take over responsibility for all matters to do with the registration and disciplining of the teaching profession from the Teachers Council. But it also has a wider mandate to lead the teaching profession and raise its status.

This is just a quick overview of who Ms Parata has appointed.  While some names are familiar, others are not, and I look forward to more information about each member becoming more available in the coming weeks to the teaching profession.  After all, we have to pay for this body which had 99% of submissions opposing its formation.

Am I the only person thinking this about the teaching profession?

I've been wondering.... wondering if we're becoming so obsessed with professionalising teaching we're losing sight of the individual teacher.

This may be controversial.  But I think if someone is not willing to stop and challenge this road we seem to be travelling, we may go too far down the road of no return.

New can be great; change and innovation is vital.  But we need to carefully balance this.  We need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this drive to professionalise the teaching profession.

I say this because we individualise, personalise learning for our students, but the currently climate is trying to make teachers uniform, cookie-cutter versions of what is supposedly a 'professional teacher'.  And I worry about this because I think we are beginning to squeeze what makes each teacher special out of them and consequently the joy of teaching.  I worry that we are not appreciating what makes each teacher special - their talents, their strengths, their weaknesses and even their own failings.

And some of the current generation of principals seem to be inadvertently leading this.  Some of them seem more intent on ticking the boxes the MOE demands than forming strong relationships with their staff, finding out what makes them tick.  As a result some of them are not always utilising the strengths and talents of the individuals on staff.  Parental expectations and pressures also put these principals in a difficult position, often in opposition to supporting their staff.

As a generation of old school principals retire I feel that the essence of teaching and the 'history' of the New Zealand education system is being pushed into the junk room in favour of the 'sanitising' of teaching into a profession of tick boxes rather than relationships.  Many old school principals tended to have an understanding of their staff and what made them tick, what balance of people were needed to having a dynamic learning school.  Some often made concessions or created opportunities to keep the best people in their school (not to say that many of the current generation of principals don't do this, because each principal is their own individual).

In the effort to create cookie-cutter professionals we also have created an issue with one size fits all whole staff Professional Learning Development (PLD).  Again this does not take into account the strengths or weaknesses each individual teacher has.  Whole school PLD has been the norm for the last ten years or so, and the current government killed other PLD options in 2009 when they cut funding to the Teacher Advisory Service meaning that the teacher who had a weakness in science could no long access a science advisor or attend a science course run by Advisory.

In the face of PLD becoming an expensive option for schools with the government's focus on outside providers (who charged an arm and a leg due to being private providers), teachers have fought back in providing PLD for themselves in what interests them, the needs that they have, and forming their own networks.  Educamps and Eduignites have sprung up.  These are based on the unconference format, which means anyone on the day (present or virtually) can present for five minutes on a topic - it may be an app, a website, an event, a product, a classroom programme, a learning experience.... there are no limits.  Educamps tend to focus on what will impact learning and the classroom, whereas Eduignites will broaden out into personal learning, sharing experiences that make the teacher the person they are, new opportunities, political thinking....

In 2013 @MissDtheTeacher established #edchatnz on Twitter fortnightly on a Thursday night.  It created a formal opportunity for teachers on Twitter to meet virtually and discuss various education topics.  This hashtag has enabled random conversations at any other point in time to spontaneously erupt.  This gives educators the opportunity to learn from each other as well.  Personally, I have learned heaps from this forum that has never come to my attention before and I have made new connections, networks and friends as a result of Twitter, Educamps and Eduignites.

From #edchatnz has come many other hashtags for specialist areas in New Zealand education, such as for science teachers, geography teachers, English teachers, PE teachers, primary teachers, principals..... schools are creating their own hashtags to encourage professional discussion.... There was even a conference (in an unconference style) held in early term 3 at Hobsonville Point Secondary School.  This is real time learning, real time PLD, driven by the people interacting with each other.

Yet is this form of PLD recognised in this current drive for professionalism that teaching is experiencing?  Is the individualisation of what each teacher needs allowed to breath?

As part of the Registered Teacher Criteria (RTCs), we are now expected to do a Teacher Inquiry.  How many of us actually know how to do this?  This has stepped up in the last couple of years, more schools are paying attention to this as they recognise it as needing to be part of the appraisal process for each teacher.  But I have an issue with this.  I don't know how to do this.  Has any PLD on this been supplied in any school I have been in?  Not while I've been there.  I think I should make my teacher inquiry "what is a teacher inquiry and how do I do one?"

Then there are the companies that are helping schools to revolutionise their appraisal systems and provide the teachers guidelines in how do teacher inquiries and evaluate their professionalism and skills against the RTCs.  I heard about one such company this week.  I am not going to name the company, because there is still so much I have yet to learn about them and the system they have, so these are my initial responses from the little I've heard and comprehended. 

There is a matrix of sorts that a teacher is assessed on.  Let's say they were poor at replying to emails.  This could drop that teacher from being considered an advanced teacher to an amateur teacher despite the relationships they have with students, their planning and programmes and how effective they are and the teacher's contribution to the 'corporate life' (I hate that term in the school setting) of the school.  If you are not doing professional reading, you are considered an amateur.  And then there were a variety of other things from any individual's life outside of school in their personal and family lives that could reduce your professionalism to amateur level.

This came through my Facebook feed on Sunday morning from a group I belong to called Badass Teachers or BATs (the USA group).  And this is where I see these appraisal systems leading to, making value judgements on teachers using student assessment data and scores from teacher performance matrixes to give an evaluation score and label to a teacher that is completely separate from the reality of the classroom interactions, relationships and learning.

 

So I have an issue with where we are going into New Zealand in how we evaluate teacher performance and why, because teaching is an art, not a science.  It is about relationships that are formed, bonds of trust and affection and respect that make a classroom an effective learning and teaching space for students and teachers.  When we sanitise and cookie-cut the art of teaching, not only does the joy of teaching disappear, but the relationships will suffer: teacher:student, teacher:teacher.  Do I spend all my time on returning emails so I am judged to be a professional, or do I take the time to interact with students and observe their interactions in that time before the morning bell goes off?  Should I never read a Wilbur Smith novel or a Women's Weekly magazine again?  Should I go home and be a hermit and never have any personal life experiences where I may ruin my professional reputation by accident?

 

And where will these evaluations lead in the long term?  We all know that Hekia Parata (Minister of Education) has performance pay in her sights, despite denials after her initial slip of the tongue.  Do we want to help advance her vision of performance pay in education?

 

As teachers, are we failing ourselves, our own standards, by letting the art of teaching become a science of teaching?  Are we down trading from the joy of teaching to the professionalism of teaching?  Are we ceding that being a teacher is more important than being a family member, a friend, a participant in any sporting/cultural aspect of the community, union/political activist?  Are we "blanding" the teaching profession?



I leave you with a few pictures to inspire your own thinking, whether you agree with me or not, and some of these pictures may be contrary to what I have written even.  The whole purpose of this post is to ignite thinking, ignite discussion and conversation, to challenge the reader's thoughts.

World Teachers Day 2014 - celebrating teachers who have inspired us

Last year marked the start of the year of the Teacher and I blogged about why I am a teacher in the post World Teachers' Day - why I am a teacher and as I sit here reflecting on the past year and that post, I am also reflecting upon the teachers who inspired me as a learner and as a teacher. 

Teachers are not teachers for the money.  Teachers are teachers because they love to learn and to see others catch the learning bug.

I've caught up with a few friends and family in the last week who are teachers.  For ten weeks we have been head down bum up in our own classrooms, our own schools.  This term break is when teachers have traditionally held their annual meetings of their unions.  NZEI (primary & intermediate & ECE teachers and support staff) held their meeting in Rotorua and PPTA (secondary teachers) held their meeting in Wellington.  Even though I was not an official attendee to the NZEI Annual Conference, I did gate crash one day to hear three fabulous speakers, Dr Richie Poulton on self-control, Deborah Morris-Travers (CEO of Unicef) on child poverty and Efeso Collins on talanoa.  See the end of this post for the Storifys of the tweets I've made for Deborah and Efeso's presentations.

But there is also the time for that collegial aspect of sharing a meal or a drink and discussing with your friends and whanau who are teachers about the funnier aspects of teaching, the trials, the successes, the frustrations.... that you can truly appreciate in the term break.

Then there is the catching up on housework, car maintenance, dentist/doctor/vet visits, marking, professional reading, class tidying... all those things you were too busy to do during the previous 10 weeks crammed into 2 weeks.

And while I do bemoan the fact that teachers are under attack from our own government and society (that's for another post), Sunday was all about celebrating the teachers that have inspired us as learners.  These are the teachers who inspired me as a learner at primary and secondary school:

This is my 6th Form Certificate Máori class at Melville High in Hamilton in 1990 with our teacher, Te Pirihi Whiu (known as Bill to the other teachers).  We had had Te Pirihi as our teacher since third form, where he put us all out of our comfort zone.  But we stuck with him.  The teacher that petrified us as turds, was beloved by our sixth form year.  "Jump" he said to us in 1987 and we did.  By 1990, it was like "Whatever, TP" but we learned so much.  Four of us became teachers, the fifth a lawyer.

I think that the above quote is true of the teachers I have worked with and I also want to celebrate the teachers I have worked with who have inspired me as a professional.

I am so lucky to count these people as friends as well as colleagues.

So today I challenge you to tell the teachers who have inspired you as a learner or as a professional (no matter what profession you are in) that they have had an impact on you.  Celebrate what teachers have helped you achieve, and celebrate that they were your teacher.  Celebrate our quality public education system and World Teachers' Day.  I want you to celebrate the teachers who met your standard of a great teacher.

And below, be inspired by Deborah Morris-Travers and Efeso Collins, who spent a small amount of time this last week inspiring teachers, principals and support staff at the NZEI Annual Conference.  I certainly got a lot out of their wise words and recorded what I could.

Novopay: A dog with fleas, a bad case of fleas.

Novopay is a dog with fleas.  Steven Joyce said that in February 2013 a couple of weeks after John Key gave him the responsibility of fixing Novopay aka Nopay, Novopain or Nevapay... we in the education profession have found the only fun in Novopay, apart from the surprise of actually being paid, is making up new names to describe its poor performance.

Here we are 18 months later and Steven makes this announcement:

After pouring $45 million in to fix Novopay, the teachers' payroll system is no longer a "dog" and teachers will be thankful that the Government has taken it over, Prime Minister John Key says.

Senior Cabinet Minister Steven Joyce, who last year described Novopay as "a dog" today said a Government-owned company would assume management of the system from Australian company Talent2 from October this year.

He said "pretty good progress" had been made in recent months to fix the system which has been plagued with problems including large numbers of over and under payments to teachers since it was introduced in 2012.

However, remaining issues prompted contractual issues in recent weeks and Talent2 had not been prepared to provide extra resources necessary for further development of the system.

It had become clear "that the best outcome would be a change in the provider relationship".

Opposition parties seized on today's announcement as yet another admission from the Government that the system had been a costly disaster, but Mr Key defended the decision.

"If you look forward, the sector will take quite a lot of confidence that effectively the Government is taking over the programme and the project. They'll know it will be properly resourced and properly looked after."

When reminded that Mr Joyce had called it a dog he said, "Yeah, but I think it's come a long way since then".

"It's actually fundamentally operating pretty well. This is a very complex sector there's a lot of different pay scales for teachers it's not an easy thing. But the Government has stabilized it and got it working reasonably effectively and I think a lot of teachers will say thank goodness the Government now has some control over the process."

He said it was possible to make the argument the Government should have assumed control earlier, "and hindsight's a wonderful thing".

However the Government had now made "the right call" over the system which he said was originally signed up to by the previous Labour Government.

President of the New Zealand Principals' Federation Philip Harding said his members were encouraged that Talent2 had withdrawn from managing the system, but warned "there is a long way to go before principals will have any confidence in the system".

"'The announcement does not cure the Novopay shambles that the sector has been battling for the last three years."

"The same challenges of random errors, frustratingly slow problem resolution, inaccurate personnel data, and significantly increased workload will continue," he said.

"Success will be determined by the way the new entity is managed, and more importantly, resourced to deal to these priorities."

Meanwhile, Mr Joyce earlier confirmed Talent2 will pay the Ministry of Education between $18 million and $22 million including $7m cash and other considerations such as license to use the core software by way of a settlement.

That sum was set against the $45 million the Government had paid to address the problems with the system. Overall Novopay had cost $110 million to date.

Mr Joyce said the agreement for the Government to take over should ''not necessarily be seen as failure on anyone's part any more than it had been''.

It was, he said, ''the next logical step''.

''This decision has been made in the best interests of all parties - staff administrators, schools and the Government.''

Talent2 said the "mutual agreement" settled a "flawed contractual arrangement" between itself and the Ministry of Education.

"This change allows Talent2 to better focus resources and investment on its core payroll business and broader New Zealand client base."

Labour's education spokesman Chris Hipkins said the announcement today would be "cold comfort to teachers and school staff still struggling with Novopay" and Talent2 was "dropping a hot potato in the taxpayer's lap".

"Goodness knows how much more (money) will be shovelled down this black hole before the problems are finally fixed."

He questioned why Education Minister Hekia Parata signed off on the system and why it had taken Mr Joyce so long "to finally decide to take action".

"Teachers and school staff have waited long enough for Novopay to be fixed. It has taken up their valuable teaching time, as well as hours and hours of school administration. Students and parents have also paid the price for this ongoing uncertainty."

NZ First education spokeswoman Tracey Martin said Mr Joyce had "admitted defeat" in cutting Talent2 loose.

"Mr Joyce cannot fix a system that National got so wrong in the first place, and has wasted tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars on."
(Novopay no longer a 'dog' - PM NZ Herald 30 July 2014)

Steven, we'll believe it when we see it mate.

You could talk to a cluster of schools and find that a significant portion of those schools are still experiencing issues.  Personally I believe Novopay has completely stuffed up my sick leave entitlements somehow and their pay slips would frazzle the mind of a top mathematician because they are incomprehensible.  But my concerns are minor in comparison to the people who still play Novopay Lotto every second Wednesday as they check their bank accounts to see if they have been paid or not.

But this also puts fear into principals and support staff who deal with the fall out of Novopay on a daily basis.  How will this new organisation cope with the End of Year actions that Novopay has failed so badly at for the last two Decembers?

And Metiria Turei raised an excellent point on One News Tonight and on Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint (sorry I couldn't get a link to the clip with Metiria on the late news but here is the one without her from One News at Six) about if National were to win the Treasury Benches on 20 September, is this move a step backwards into the 1990s to reintroduce the bulk funding of teachers' salaries and devolving pay roll responsibilities to schools? 

When Corin Dann asked John Key if it did mean bulk funding was on the horizon, John Key said no.  But teachers have heard John Key say no about a lot of things in education and then watch those things being introduced.  So teachers do not trust John Key.

Another concerning aspect is the government's adamant demand that the teacher pay roll has to be simplified.  Good luck.  It is not simple because teachers are not one size fits all.  Some teachers take on many more roles within their schools and consequently have to be adequately recompensed.  During our last primary teachers collective agreement negotiations, the MOE tried to have many of our hard fought for allowances scrapped.  We would not agree to that.  People deserved to be paid for the extra responsibilities they take on and the effort they put in.  Schools wouldn't function with out that effort and kids would miss out.

A member of Stand up for kids - protect our schools  on Facebook posted this copy of an email from Peter Hughes, the Secretary of Education, which was sent out today.

From: Peter Hughes <Peter.Hughes@minedu.govt.nz>
Date: 30 July 2014 12:45:15 pm NZST
Subject: Message from Peter Hughes

Good afternoon,

Earlier today the Minister Responsible for Novopay, Hon Steven Joyce, announced that school payroll services will transfer to Crown management on 17 October. I have provided a link to Minister Joyce’s press release here.

I thought it would be useful if I explained to you the reason for this change.

As you are probably aware, our plan was always to have a fully outsourced payroll system for the Education sector. The Ministry wanted to focus on its core business – supporting you to raise student achievement.

We ran into some major problems with Novopay. It meant that the Ministry had to get back involved to try and make things right and ensure you were getting the levels of service you are entitled to expect.

We have come a long way, with a steady pay period to pay period performance that is now well within the acceptable error levels defined by the Novopay technical review. However, to deliver on your expectations, we need to go further. At the moment we have a model where responsibilities and accountabilities are split across two organisations, and the Ministry is diverting time and energy away from what we should be focussing on.

From 17 October there will be a single Government-owned company solely focussed on managing school payroll services end-to-end. There will be clear accountability and expectations from the Government on ensuring staff get paid correctly on time, every time. It will be a company that is service-driven, not focussing on a commercial bottom line.

We will make sure the new company supports schools in the right way and we will focus on what we should be focussing on - raising student achievement and improving educational support to your schools.

We intend to transition Talent2 staff working on schools payroll into the new company to ensure the handover goes smoothly.

This new model will allow us to further improve payroll delivery and school support. The new arrangements will help us deliver the simpler, more user friendly service that you’ve been asking for. This change is in the best interests of the Ministry, of Talent 2 and most importantly of you and your teams.

I’ll keep you all up to date as the transition progresses. If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with me directly, or with your local Director of Education.

Kind regards,

Peter

Peter Hughes | Secretary for Education | Office of the Secretary for Education

This email is soothing to the naked eye, however I still feel unease that staff from the existing organisation will still be involved.  Yes, I understand they know the system, however, they have consistently provided a not positive experience for the last two years, so you question them naturally.

And naturally the unions have something to say.

In this press release, Government Novopay buy-out too late and schools still paying, NZEI makes a valid point about the monies still owing to some schools, some of that money from 2012, and there is also the issue of the extra workload on the principal and admin support staff.

Chris Hipkins in his post Taxpayer to fork out millions for Novopay rescue points out who signed off  this dog with fleas.  He also pointed out how much money has already been wasted on Novopay and how much it was costing to buy Talent2 out of the Novopay and future running costs.  I can tell you that Chris Hipkins says that Labour is discussing the Novopay issue and believes that something has to change from the current system.  Chris has said it may mean dumping the system completely and starting again.

In the Herald this morning there is an accusation that the government is trying to appease teachers by announcing these changes now in the lead up to the election.  Novopay move slated as a diversion says "Chris Hipkins, Labour's education spokesman, said the Government was trying to divert attention from Novopay before the election campaign because "teachers will be confronting National MPs and candidates with the clear message that Novopay hasn't been fixed"."  Which John Key countered with "the education sector "will take quite a lot of confidence that effectively the Government is taking over the program and the project. They'll know it will be properly resourced and properly looked after.""

Well Mr Key, the education sector does not trust your government.  You guys made Novopay go live despite the fact their were close to 200 flaws identified that weren't remedied when the go ahead was given (see Why Hekia Parata (and Anne, Craig and Bill) should go, Novopay - or Nevapay, Bullshit John Key says, Why Steven Joyce should just man up and dump Novopay) and then the buck passing and incompetence that has followed.

Teachers also don't believe or trust you Mr Key because your government has not consulted or listened to the education sector about anything in your education policy - National Standards, Charter Schools, truancy services, special education, residential schools, Te Kotahitanga, performance pay, IES roles, class sizes, professional development/Advisory Services..... the list goes on.

Mr Key says Novopay is not so much of a dog anymore, but teachers, principals and support staff will be more reserved.  While pleased that Talent2 will be taken out of the equation somewhat, we are wary.  Quite frankly, teachers will be watching from October to see if this new crown enterprise to take on Novopay will meet the standard or not.  I'll report back later in the year.