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).

Privacy will be breeched by publishing National Standards data.

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

 

This concerns me greatly.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

The mockery of the Christchurch school closures and the Ombudsman

Dame Beverly Wakem of the Ombudsman's
office making the announcement.

In March it was announced that the Ombudsman would be taking a fresh look into the process of the proposed closures and mergers of Christchurch schools as part of the review of education in Christchurch post earthquakes.

Here is the link to the video on TV1 News:  http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/christchurch-school-closures-come-under-fresh-scrutiny-5382830/video

The Ombudsman said they would investigate the process of consultation process used last year.

This investigation will focus on how information was not released or was not released in a timely manner to allow schools to use and respond to it when presenting their submissions against the closure.  The results of this investigation will not be known until the second half of 2013.

After the announcement was made, Hekia Parata, the Minister of Education, said that it would not delay her decision making.  Hekia Parata said the government and the Ministry of Education had acted properly in their consultation.  She is expected to announce her final decisions to be actioned before the 2014 school year begins later this month.

What is truly galling about this investigation however is that the decisions and actions of the Minister will not be investigated.  Only the actions of the Ministry of Education will be investigated.

I truly believe this makes a mockery of the Ombudsman's office when they can not properly assess the whole process.  The MOE acts on the directives of the Minister, so surely the Minister's actions should be taken into account.

And if the Ombudsman does find discrepancies in how the consultation process was managed, it will be far too late, because the Minister will have already made her decisions and the process of the changes being made will be in action.

I believe that the process should be delayed until the outcome of the Ombudsman's investigation is complete and reported on.  I believe that the actions and the decisions of the Minister should also be included in the review for the sake of fairness and transparency.

After all, once the changes are made, it will be too late for some schools when they find they have been acted against unfairly.

The law surrounding the powers of the Ombudsman are well below the standard on this occasion.

Am I about to be Novopained?

It's the term break. I've got the car serviced, sorted some insurance for future circumstances, and I've been working on probably the biggest decision personally and financially I have made in my life yet!

Tonight I've arrived at the beach to spend time with cousins and catch up with old work colleagues and friends. I was at quiz and I thought, during a break, "I'll check that Twitter message that came while I was driving. "

Everyone was talking about Novopay. I checked my email. No payslip.

I asked if others had received payslips.

Someone retweeted a message to me saying that the payslips would come out at lunch time tomorrow but we'd still get paid on time.

I bank with Westpac.  While other banks may show you the money on Tuesday night, Westpac don't - well not in my account they don't.

I write this just before 1:00am on Wednesday morning. As of yet, my bank account does not show a deposit.

Is it my turn to be Novopained?

What new bug means that we haven't had our payslips yet?

Why now?

The anticipation is killing me.

I could well wake in the morning to find the usual deposit in my bank.

Or I might awaken unable to pay my rent, insurances, loan and bills.

What will happen remains to be seen.

The next morning: whew! Pay went in.

But for many others it did not.   My mate Beven can't even buy a $4 box of tea this morning.  His card declined.

This has gone on long enough.

The Novopay issue is well below standard.

Man up Steven Joyce and dump it.  We want Datacom back.

Beware the bullies who don't want you to excercise your democratic rights

This post is all about exercising your democratic rights to speak freely, to have an opinion and the right to express that opinion.  But before I get to that, I need to explain some other stuff....

GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) was a term coined by Pasi Sahlberg, leading educationalist from Finland, to describe the reforms touted by neo-liberalists to fix education systems they claim are in crisis.

Since the 2008 election campaign National has been claiming that New Zealand has a broken education system.  That the system is failing with 1/5 students leaving school unable to read and write or do basic maths without NCEA Level 2

National and Act having been ramming these "facts" down the throats of the electing public for nearly six years now.  Do you know where they got these facts from?

Below is a screen shot from The Daily Blog where you can read more about how National pulled the wool in regards to education:

So here we have National manufacturing "facts" to get National Standards legislation through parliament with little regard to the truth, and this has set the tone for what we have now: a government trying to force through yet another piece of legislation (Charter Schools/Partnership Schools/Hourua Kura) which was not even mentioned in passing in the 2011 pre election manifestos by either National or Act and yet they claim they have a mandate to do so!

Earlier this week Save Our Schools NZ posted a poll asking several questions gauging how successful you think the Charter Schools policy will be.  This poll was advertised on the SOSNZ blog, SOSNZ facebook page, and then shared on other group facebook pages and by supporters. 

Voting on the poll was tracking a long.... and then a certain oily blogger found out about it.

As you can see from the screen shot above (and I am not supplying a link to this bully's page) he called it a "union organised opposition".  The commenters were venomous and downright bully-like with their comments, then they went on to vote in the poll, and then made every effort to have the blog and facebook pages for SOSNZ reported and labelled as spam in order to stymy the debate and derail opposition.   

Let me assure you that the person who runs the SOSNZ blog is a stay at home full time mum of a pre-schooler who is deeply concerned about the direction of education in New Zealand.  She is also a qualified teacher, is a member of NZEI as she does the occasional bit of relief teaching, but is currently focusing on being a mum, and until the class size issue last year was not paying a lot of attention to education issues.

But one of National's mistakes last year was to announce increasing class sizes.  If one thing is going to upset parents it is the idea that their child will get even less attention from a teacher than what they already do.  Parents did a great job of making themselves heard over that issue, and it means that they are now paying more attention to education issues all round.  It has also ignited more organised opposition from not only parents and teachers (and their unions), but from grandparents, aunties and uncles, and just plain concerned citizens.

And now the Whale and his followers have ignited even more opposition due to their behaviour this week.

We live in a democracy.  One of the basic tenets of a democracy is free speech and the right to protest.  My disclosure statement at the top of this blog explicitly says that these are my views that I am expressing because I live in a democracy.  I am open to express my views and to protest against those things that I do not agree with.

I believe that I support the right for all people to do the same.

However I do not agree with bullying and telling blatant lies and not checking your facts.

The Whale however is known, in my opinion and the opinion of many who have been oiled, for all these things.

He has been to court for breaking suppression orders for at least three cases (although I actually agreed with him on this count) so we know he isn't that worried about breaking the law.

Last year when the Ports of Auckland dispute was at its zenith he released the personal details of one of the wharfies, lambasting him as being a malcontent who earned an exorbitant sum of money (exaggerated by the Whale), had had mega amount of leave (the man's wife was dying of cancer) and accused him of all sorts of things.... and it turned out he had accepted money to champion the case of the Ports of Auckland.  If you want to read more of this behaviour critiqued in regards to this issue click here.

Whale has a long history of targeting individuals.  I know of two principals who were very active in opposing the GERM.  One has since withdrawn her activism in order to protect her professionalism, school, community and family.  The other has increased his activism and retired from the teaching profession.  Why should one man's vitriol have so much influence?

And now I look at the lead up to NZEI's day of action and his lack of accuracy:

I have blanked out the names and pictures of the people concerned.  They have suffered enough from this bully.

The second person was particularly upset to be oiled.  For starters, her profile picture at that time included her grandchild and she did not think it fair that the Whale publicise the child.  Secondly, this lady is not, nor has never been, a teacher.  She joined the page because she is a concerned grandparent and worries for the future of education for her grandchildren in Christchurch.  Since she is not a teacher (or teacher aide or any other kind of support staff) she does not belong to a teachers' union.

Did the Whale stop to check his facts?  No. 

In the course of writing this blog I have messaged several people who this blog mentions to check facts and mostly to get their approval to write about them.  It is the ethical thing to do.

When the second person from the Whale's post above commented on his blog with corrections and to ask that the picture be removed, she received no apology and another unsubstantiated accusation was laid against her.  Also in the comments section was an accusation against one of the people shown in the Whale's post supposedly outing them on a personal matter.  I haven't included a link or a screen shot of that because I do not want to cause further unnecessary pain. 

The point that I want to make here is that not only is the Whale a bully, but he encourages his followers to do the same, and he does not moderate.  The abuse on this post and on the post about the SOSNZ poll was horrific and personal and defamatory.  The SOSNZ administrator has been advised she should seek a legal opinion on the comments made.

On the 27th of March I watched Media3 (after Nightline on TV3 Wednesday nights, repeated late Saturday mornings).  On this episode they were discussing the possibility of a new standards authority for media, including blogs.  Currently blogs do not fall under any standards in regards to media and broadcast.  The Whale appeared as his real self, Cameron Slater, and stated that he would most likely join the new authority.

I immediately gained the impression that this new authority would have even less teeth than the current authority governing media, because his blog definitely does not meet the standards that newspapers currently have to meet!

Earlier this week on that bastion of current events, Seven Sharp TV1 7pm Monday-Friday, Jesse Mulligan gave some great advice on how to take the piss out of Colin Craig without getting sued for defamation.  Click here to view.  So I am going to take a leaf out of Jesse's book an I am going to tell you some truths about the Whale.

• The Whale has suffered from depression.  Hey, that's not unusual either in New Zealand as this quote shows:  "Among the 10 high-income countries included, New Zealanders ranked second for people experiencing a major depressive episode in the 12 months before the survey and fourth for people having suffered a depressive episode in their lifetime."  sourced from http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2011/07/27/high-depression-rates-in-nz-international-study/ - in my opinion, if you have a brain you have a mental health issue, so the Whale is in good company here.
• As a result of his depression, the Whale received pay outs from his insurance company Fidelity and when these stopped he lost the family home he shared with his wife.  He went on a sickness benefit.  See http://www.3news.co.nz/Slaters-wife-says-depression-fuels-bloggers-erratic-behaviour/tabid/419/articleID/158328/Default.aspx 
• The Whale is the son of former National party president John Slater.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Slater/
• In 2012 the Whale was outted for having an extra marital affair.  See above link.
• In October 2012 the Whale became the editor of the New Zealand Truth.  See above link.

Everything I have said above is the truth.  I've done exactly what Jesse said I should to avoid a defamation suit.  And did you note that I had done a google search or two to get the evidence?

This next part is just something I want you to consider about bullies in general:

"Bullies were also at higher risk for mental health problems, including depression, anxiety and hostility....  Bullies tended to hold a negative view of themselves, suggesting they pick on others to feel better about themselves, and they may especially single out those who have trouble fitting in for other reasons."  Sourced from: http://www.livescience.com/11163-bullies-bullying.html

"Q: What about a child who has been a bully?
A: Studies have shown that bullying in childhood is often a “gateway behavior” that leads to serious problems later in life, including:

• truancy
• school failure
• law-breaking behavior
• substance abuse
• destructive personal relationships
• difficulty maintaining employment
• cruelty to animals
• violent crime

In fact, a study of 3,913 children published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that aggressive children had 8 percent more medical visits as adults compared with their peers, 10 percent more injuries and hospital admissions and 12 percent more Emergency Department visits. Aggressive children also experienced 44 percent more lifestyle-associated diseases as adults.
For all of these reasons, it’s imperative that a child who bullies others receives immediate help."
Sourced from:  http://childrenshospital.org/az/Site2912/mainpageS2912P1.html

You connect the dots.

Basically, I am saying that the Whale is below the standard for how he runs his blog.  His research skills are below the standard.  His comprehension skills are below the standard.  His critical thinking skills are below the standard.  His behaviour as a human being towards other human beings is below the standard.  His understanding of how a democracy works is below the standard.  You failed the standard Whale Oil.

NZEI's Day of Action & the Education Amendments

Today, Saturday 13th April, NZEI members up and down the country will be making a stand in the

NZEI Day of Action.  I will be attending two events.  My branch has organised a mini-march in our town at 9:30am, and then I will head into a bigger march in Hamilton starting at 11:00am where I will be a marshal manning a red light at an intersection!!  Oh, the power!

So why are NZEI members doing this?  For the following reasons:

• the Ministry of Education is not acting constructively in the negotiations over the Primary Teachers' Collective Agreement (PTCA).
• there are a number of claw backs in the MOE's offer, and most disturbingly is their assertion that the Secretary of Education be granted new powers, which could affect our Collective Agreement without any negotiations.
• The direction of education policies by this government that are directly linked to GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) such as: National Standards, standardised national testing, the messing around with assessment tools we previously trusted, the development of PaCT (Progress and Consistency Tool), league tables, Charter Schools/Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua, unregistered/untrained teachers, performance pay......
• Changes to the Education Act that are contrary to good practise and are being implemented despite thousands of submissions which oppose a number of amendments.
• The ramming through of school closures and mergers in Christchurch despite the Ombudsman investigating the process of consultation and decision making.
• Teachers know this government has no respect for them.

While all of these impact teachers in some way, they also impact on the students we teach. 

National Standards were not researched and trialled.... and yet they have been forced upon our students, with no opt out options.  Even schools with severely disabled students are forced to assess their learning against the National Standards.  These are labelling students in a way each student is very aware of.

We are worried about the possibility of standardised national testing - which has not improved outcomes for learners in countries like the UK, USA or Australia.  The development of PaCT that has the power to over rule a teachers' OTJ (overall teacher judgement) is most concerning.  Since when does a computer know better than a teacher how a child is achieving?  Who will have access to that data and how will it be used?  And towards the end of last year, Kelvin Smythe revealed how our trusted tools like STAR and AsTTle have been tutu-ed with causing some alarming so called improvements to student's achievements that experienced teachers and principals were very concerned about. 

If teachers' are over ruled in how they assess their students by a computer and we can not trust our assessment tools, plus a standardised national test makes a mockery of our well researched and trialled curriculum and teaching to the individual needs of each child..... well, can you see how that impacts on each and every student?

Finland has no national testing regime until the last year at secondary school - and they are top of the world rankings for education.  That is not to say their teachers do not test their students - they do.  But the testing is used to the benefit of the individual learner's learning journey - not to big note dodgy politicians.

PaCT also brings in the concerning issues of performance pay for teachers and another angle on league tables, which were brought into our education sphere last year despite the data from National Standards being, in PM John Key's words, "ropey".  PaCT data could be used by the MOE to identify "top performing" and "failing" teachers, and apply performance pay or other sanctions that fall outside the PTCA.  This method would not take into account the cohort each teacher has, the personal learning journeys of each individual student, or outside impacts (i.e. an earthquake....).

In Finland there is no performance pay.  Teachers are treated with the utmost respect and teaching is a difficult profession to get into as only the best are accepted into teacher training (I do think NZ could do with some tightening up on who gets into teacher training).  Performance pay comes with so many fish hooks, for example, teaching to the test, personality conflicts with the person who makes the decision, "cooking the books" when it comes to student outcomes, fewer teachers will want to work in 'under performing' schools.....

And then there is the Charter School, or whatever they are calling them this month, issue.  Charter Schools are classic GERM.  This involves tax payer dollars going to private enterprises to start their own schools.  The government would prefer these schools started in underprivileged South Auckland and earthquake devastated Christchurch first.  The government are helping clear the way in Christchurch by closing down a number of schools.  These schools will not have to follow the NZ Curriculum or assess and report according to National Standards (unlike your normal state school), will not have to have community representation, will not have to respond to the Official Information Act, will not have to employ registered teachers - or even trained teachers!

Again the fish hooks are huge!!  There will be no oversight as to what these schools will teach due to them not having to use the NZC.  For all we know, these schools could be teaching children that mushrooms grow on the moon!!  And if they are not assessing against the National Standards (as much as I detest them), how can you compare achievement in a Charter School against achievement in the nearby state or integrated school?  And as for allowing unregistered and untrained teachers to be employed by these schools, well that down grades the professionalism of teaching and all the theory of how to teach.  It puts children at risk in more ways than I care to consider.

The US, UK and Sweden have gone the way of GERM infected Charter Schools.  Finland does not have Charter Schools, and very few private schools.  Under our Tomorrow's Schools model (being rapidly eroded by GERM) there is ample opportunity to have a school with a special character, although I note in last weekend's Marae Investigates that road blocks have been put up for this in an effort to pave the way for Charter Schools, forcing schools that want to integrate into the state system to go through the Charter School process.

Yesterday the Education Amendment Bill for the second reading in parliament was released after submission were made to the education and science select committee were held in February.  Well not a lot has changed as a result of thousands of submissions opposing Charter Schools.  The one obvious change is that the Ombudsman will be able to have some oversight into Charter Schools - in regards to suspension/expulsion/disciplinary issues - but not achievement, not how they are using tax payers' dollars (check out this example of abuse of Charter School funds in the US).

People who have participated in the submission process on this Bill are furious that all the evidence and submissions that were presented have been ignored.  It makes a mockery of consultation in the New Zealand democracy.  It's that old attitude of "let's give it a go" despite evidence to show how detrimental it will be to childrens' learning.

So when teachers and the academics who study education are so blatantly ignored, is it any wonder that they feel the need to take to the streets and show how they feel, to share with the public what is happening?

Despite the fact that the consultation and decision making process of closing and merging Christchurch schools in the post-earthquake shake up is being investigated by the Ombudsman, the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, is pushing ahead with the unrealistic timeframe.  Warnings have come out of Christchurch that the reorganisation forced on them by the minister is a blueprint for what will happen to other communities, despite denials by Parata.  The thing is, it smacks of what happened in Dunedin during Anne Tolley's tenure as the Minister of Education, and the discussions now happening in Auckland to accommodate the current bulging rolls in certain areas that are set to increase with infill housing under the proposed Auckland housing plan.  The common denominator is all these reorganisations is the lack of listening skills by the minister (past and present) and her officials when it comes to consultation.

All of the above consolidates into a definite lack of respect for teachers and the education community.  We are branded with the "self-interested" slogan.  That we are "blindly following the union's propaganda".  According to our old friend Cameron Slater of Whale Oil fame, we are bullying people to participate today and are having to "rent a crowd" (has he not heard of humour?).  Even Michael Laws has slammed teachers for standing up for their beliefs and informing their school community (this begs the question if we should include information about healthy eating and exercise in our newsletters for fear of politicising the issue).  It was obvious that Laws didn't read the pamphlet because his opinion piece was full of holes.

I really do have to wonder why they think anyone teaches.  I could possibly get paid more.  I could possibly get a job where I don't fork out so much of my own money so I can do my job.  I could get a job with way less stress and work that impinges on my time when I am not at school.  I could get a job that would involve not being exposed to so many germs, and, on the odd occasion, the odd violent parent or student.  I could get a job where I had more respect.

But I don't.

I don't because I love children, I love learning, and I love the fact that every day is different with the potential to for not only my students to learn, but I learn too!!

Again I will have to assess against the standard.  I find this government has failed the standard for consultation.  I find this government has failed the standard for listening to and comprehending sound research and facts.  I find this government has failed the standard to uphold and resource a quality public education system.  I find this government has failed the standard for doing what is best for our learners - the people who are our future.

Why Steven Joyce should just man up and dump Novopay.

Last Tuesday, NZEI members throughout the country were asked to show Steven Joyce, the Minister of Everything (including Novopay) that we want action on Novopay and we want it now.  It seems the Minister got a wee bit titchy when the unions confronted him about compensation to schools for the mega amount of time their admin staff has spent on Novopay stuff ups at the expense of their other expected duties, with some schools having to take on extra staff to cover the Novopay workload.  I'm sure you all remember that when he first took on the role back in the end of January that he mentioned this was something he would look into.  So after his titchiness, NZEI thought a show of force might remind him how schools are feeling.  Thirty-five National MPs had a protest of some sort outside of their office, and if some locations didn't have an MP's electorate office, they just protested somewhere people could see them.

I dutifully organised a small protest outside of the office of our local National MP.  During the organisation of this protest, some admin officers shared their experiences of Novopay with me.  I'm sharing two such stories with you. 

Heather is the admin person at a small, isolated rural village school with a roll of less than 50.  The other week, over three days, 11 hours alone was spent on dealing with Novopay.  For the first six months, she couldn't access so many aspects of Novopay through her log in because of one little tickbox that she knew nothing about - instead, Heather had to do her work using the principal's log in, an apparent no-no.  It took six months to solve this problem because the Novopay staff didn't know how to solve it, and despite the fact that she continually reported the problem and was told it was a priority to solve.  In the end someone from the MOE told her how to solve it.  Heather will no longer go through Novopay to solve her little school's backlog of problems; she has decided she gets better results dealing directly with the MOE.  Her school has outstanding pay issues still to be dealt with.

This next part is in the words of Vicki:

I am an office administrator and I too have had numerous issues with Novopay. One example is that last pay period I was on hold for 112 minutes before being cut off as they answered the call. I emailed advising I had been cut off after holding that long and requesting an urgent call back - I'm still waiting!!! I rang again straight away and held for another 1 hour 45 min before the call was answered. That's 4 hours out of my day just on 1 issue!

Vicki is the admin person at another rural school with less than 120 students.

These schools only have one admin person.  They are also expected to answer the phone (a bit hard when you are on hold with Novopay for two hours), order supplies, receive supplies, help students with stationery issues, be the sickbay monitor, monitor accounts, photocopy for staff, assist the principal in admin duties (i.e. newsletters, letters, typing, etc.), laminate and bind, deal with public and parental inquiries, collate and stamp resources and load onto the asset register..... and so much more than I could possibly put in.

In the last six months, these admin wizzes have had their workload doubled by a computer program!!  Some have even walked away from their jobs in despair as they can not bear what Novopay has done to their jobs.

A friend of mine, Louise, recently returned to primary school teaching after two years in private ECE.  She is an experienced teacher with well over twenty years in the profession.  She got her first payslip - and couldn't open it.  She appealed on Facebook for help.  I told her to use her MOE number with a zero in front as a password.  She did.  It didn't work.

Louise was one of those "lucky" people who start a new job and get a new MOE number courtesy of Novopay, despite having a long history with the MOE.  This new MOE number means that Novopay has no record of her qualifications, service, sick leave, etc.  Louise is being paid on the untrained rate, approximately $26,000, almost $30,000 below where she definitely should be, if not more.  She has had to go back to the institution she got her qualification from to get an academic transcript to get paid properly.  She has supplied Novopay with all the relevant details through her school's admin officer, and is now taking bets on when she will be paid at the correct rate.  I bet four months.  If that is so, when she does get paid, she will get a massive backpay, be taxed at a higher tax rate and then will have to wait until after April 2014 to get that tax back.

Today on Q&A, Steven Joyce said he'd be making a decision on the viability of Novopay before the end of the month.  He said that the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up in the morning is Novopay (not the toilet?) and that they are doubling or tripling the staff at Novopay to solve the backlog, but that finding skilled people had been a big issue.  He said the government had put $5 million into solving this problem, and later on they would look at getting that money back from Talent2.

Well, Mr Joyce, I have some advice for you:  DUMP NOVOPAY!!!

And this is why:
*  Novopay is a poorly written computer program.
*  Novopay is a poorly built computer program.
*  It had 147 bugs before it went live.
*  Not all of those bugs are fixed six months after going live.
*  More bugs are appearing each pay round in addition to the orginal bugs.
*  No one seems to understand how Novopay was written or built.
*  Other IT experts say it is junk programming.
*  The people at NZ Post have suffered another Talent2 payroll since April 2011 and it is only just now coming right after 20+ months of stuff ups and disruptions.

And all this is in addition to the fact that Talent2 did not meet most, if any, of their milestones and took longer than was planned to deliver the program and that it was never properly trialled.

Mr Joyce says that returning to Datacom, the previous provider, would not fix the problem straight away.  But the big difference between Datacom and Novopay is this:  Datacom uses people to do the work; Novopay is a faulty computer program.  One can reason with a person and work with them to solve a problem; Novopay, being a computer program, is a different kettle of fish.

Under the old system, with Datacom, each payroll officer worked with a small group of schools.  They built a relationship with the principals and admin staff of each school and understood the needs of each school.  Yes, errors did occur, but they never rolled through weeks and months of not being solved like the errors with Novopay have.  With Datacom, often the issue was rectified the next day and a manual payment made by either them or the school to the staff member affected.  Novopay seems to say it will be fixed next payroll.... and then a few months later it isn't and more problems have compounded.

Back in 2008 I had several issues with Datacom over a few weeks when I was relieving in both primary and secondary sectors.  Because my payslips detailed where and when I was at it was easy to contact schools concerned to solve the problem.  On one occasion I had to contact Datacom directly, and after a bit of stern pursuasion, I managed to get through to someone who could solve the problem within days.  I'm glad I'm not relieving now.  To be a reliever being paid by Novopay would send me to the funny farm!!

Several weeks of misspayments was not fun.  But I feel for those support staff workers and teachers who have been affected by over/under/non payments for anywhere up to six months.  If we have to suffer through this for two years like NZ Post staff, then that is totally unacceptable!!

Quite frankly, Novopay has failed to meet the standard, and as a result, Novopay should be kicked into touch as soon as practically possible.