Key's 'To-Do' list---a bit of a conundrum.

In a very recent blog I had some fun about what politics will throw at us this week. I suggested that Mr Key would have something up his sleeves to divert us from some of the other pressing issues.

I now propose that his ‘To-Do list’ announced this morning, very much fits the bill. His list represents a bit on a conundrum though. Yes, I agree with his targets for many of the issues on the list. Who can argue against increased levels of immunization for young children or for higher participation levels in early childhood ‘education?’

Just how is he going to achieve this with his ‘slash and burn’ methodology? The only way he can do that is to pay the people working in those industries less. That unfortunately is more than on the cards in the education sector.

Take his target of reducing the numbers in our prisons; laudable but not possible under a government embarking on finding ways to reduce spending in the areas that would make real changes and have the flow on effect of increasing the employment of would-be prisoners. He and Bill English have shown that they want the fiscal knife wielded rather than employment creating policies.

We know that to cut future spending on our prisons, we need spending on relevant social services and employment creation now. I have seen little evidence of policies that would contribute in those areas. The very idea of increasing those schemes (without simply shifting the expense around, much like the old ‘Titanic chairs’ story) is foreign to Key and English--- the very thought of it must set their hands trembling.

Key also has ’benefit reform’ in his sights. He wants to move people from various benefits into employment. We have heard this from them many times over recent years. The question once again needs to be asked---‘where are these jobs coming from? Employment possibilities simply do not grow that quickly, without policies that support that growth. They cannot pluck these jobs out of some imaginary ‘cloud of enhanced business growth.’ I doubt any Government can, especially with so much pessimism coming out of Europe and the USA. Maybe he thinks that China alone will fuel enough opportunity for NZ exports industries to fly us above the troubles of much of the world.

Once again, I am in favour of many of his aims, but it is interesting that his ‘To-Do’ list comes at a time when nearly everything else he has uttered has been shot down by the growing opposition to his Government.

As an afterthought I would point out that Mr Cameron ion the UK also has the beneficiaries in his sights. Watch that story.

It took an American researcher to tell us the obvious!

How many more stuff-up, back downs, blatant lies do we have to endure from this Government? Why don’t we trust our own researchers when it comes to examining education policy and its impact on our schools? We all know that the Government is encouraging our schools to compete against one another rather than work in a collegial way. It has been so for a few decades now. This policy (Tomorrows Schools) came under the guise of schools being made to be more accountable to their local communities and the policy came in under a Labour Government. The problem has been that it was hijacked and distorted by the National Party Governments of the last few terms.

We have seen the debacle and subsequent back downs by Parata and Key over ‘class-sizes’ and now we have the ‘League Tables and Decile rating issues. Once again the Government is using it to distort what is going on in education for their own purposes; that is their own agenda.

An American researcher pointed out the obvious---he was surprized that his findings caused a ‘stir’ in NZ educational circles. The decile debate is interesting. Rating schools on a decile basis was never intended to be used as a tool to rank a school’s effectiveness. It was meant to give the Education Department a means to fund schools based on the socio/economic levels of the families in their catchment (zone) area. If a school was then designated as decile one, then it attracted more government funds in order to equal out educational opportunities. This is good and fair.

What has happened (and made worse by Government meddling)  is that parents have come to believe that a school with a lower decile rating will not do the ‘job’ for their children and that the teachers may not be as good as those in higher decile areas. This is wrong and it has been perpetuated throughout the country, hurting lower decile schools.

The research found that schools also feed into this myth and even manipulate their boundaries; excluding lower decile streets in their area and denying some students access to a higher decile school.

If you add the issue of ‘League Tables’ into this mix, you can see that there is a real problem of misunderstanding the real effectiveness of a school. One does not need a degree in education to understand that students from lower decile families are going to lack the ‘cultural capital’ I have referred to in other blogs on this subject. In short, if a student comes from a more affluent family, he or she brings to the classroom a set of beliefs and skills that have been learnt and gained from an early age. We cannot get away from this. It is not an excuse for a lower decile school to NOT achieve a high quality delivery for its students, but it is a potent factor.

Add the increasingly competitive format of NZ education and you can see where I am going with my argument. If the so called ‘League Tables’ are used to enhance a school position by tweaking the expectation of parents, then we will have ‘loser schools and winner schools,’ all based on a spurious parental understanding of what the tables show or mean. I am not trying to diminish the understanding of parents, but the very nature of these tables can be easily simplified and misread.

I do not believe that Ms Parata and her leader are capable of understanding the impact of the policies they are proposing. They will put back any gains we have made over the years and slowly erode what is still a world-class education system.

ACC-- the real purpose has been hijacked by the PM and his team

I was angry again today about the Prime Minister backing the staff at ACC who are paid a bonus for getting people off the scheme.

I am NOT against finding those who have abused the scheme over the years and getting them off and of necessary taking them to court to attempt reimbursement. There have many many stories (some urban myth and others accurate) about people ripping of this excellent scheme.

I AM against the move in culture whereby it seems that the bottom line is to force people back into work or into a lesser benefit in the name of Fiscal responsibility.

 Where so we draw the line? It is crass, insensitive and downright mean to push people before they are ready. That decision should be made by specialists who are balanced in their work. Only then should they should be recommending a cut or cull, not someone who has dubious intentions or to put it another way, are a lackeys of john Key and his associates.

 People’s lives are important and they should receive the support that the scheme was initially set up to provide.

We should not be surprised to see more of this callous cutting. Perhaps the Government who drives these culture changes should get down and learn about what it is like to be the position that so many of these people who have been cut are now finding themselves in. In many cases, their lives are effectively on hold or over as far as real support goes.

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We dun need no edakatiion mr Key--we's hit the wall!

So now the guvmnet ses we need to be educated about assit sales--- come on mate--- we no wat we want an it aint seeling those asserts. We need the money that cums in  each year form dem to help us with reading and for our sik kids. Even we no how stupid it is to seel the famli silver. Hell gandma and Pa will be turin in their graves noing that yu gionna seel them. Hey--- they paid for them assits so keep ya bloody hands off them--- Shit you can be sure that I am gonna get out and vote next time and it wont be for yor lot eh.

What will they do this week in NZ politics?

I am going to have some fun with predicting what Politics in NZ will look like for the coming week…I will probably be way off the mark!

1)    Ms Parata (minister of Education) and John Key (you see she needs him to back her up as she looks increasingly ‘flaky’) will attack teachers yet again. It will be around the issue of ‘League tables’ in schools.

2)    Anne Trolley ---Ooops! (Wannabe glamour girl) will try to boost her flagging image along with another round of cost cutting measure for the police.

3)    Our Prime Minister will come up with a cheeky little number to divert attention from the stuff-ups of the, last few months. He will release date that he says shows that the ride is turning for him re asset sales—He will claim that NZers are behind the sale now.

4)    The Greens will continue to be effective in parliament and Labour will carry on using its attacks brigade (Cosgrove, Mallard, Little etc. while Mr Shearer will continue build his ‘Statesman-like-status. OH and look for more good stuff from a relaxed looking and very effective Phil Goff.

5)    The dishonourable Peter Dunne will continue to ignore the wishes of the over-all electorate and particularly of his own. He may face some demonstrations outside his electorate office and he will front up on TV trying to defend his senseless stand with the Government. He will look like he has swallowed a snotty sock and his hair will look the coiffured way it has come to be. He will NOT grow balls!

6)    The Maori Party will continue to prevaricate and forget what they have voted for and which way.

7)    NZ First (read Winston Peters) will vote with the Labour Party and Greens and he will attack the immigration Policy again---Asians watch out!

8)    Hone (Mana Party) will come up with some real politically relevant clangers---actually he has been making a lot of sense lately.

OK--- I’m must having a bit of fun---it is at the expense our esteemed politicians, but that’s not too hard eh.

An unequal access to higher education

Oh for the good old days, when access to a higher education was more equal, at least for those who wished to be teachers. We had a bonding system whereby once you were trained, you worked for two, or later, three years. That could be brought down by undertaking ‘country service’ or working in what we now call low decile schools in the main cities.

Then the system of student loans and allowances was introduced. That led to a huge blowout (from the present Government’s point of view). There is no doubt that if the figure had kept trending up, we needed to achieve a higher payback system and possibly at a higher rate.

The issue is one that needs ‘cross-party discussion’, to take it out of the political forum. Parties have tinkered with the system or made drastic changes that have left a section of our society bereft of hope for achieving anything other than that of ‘graduate level.’ The present government cynically makes claims that the system works for all. It has support for this attitude in the community; it presents individuals who say that they worked part-time and after a struggle were able to complete a post-graduate education. Just show me how prospective doctors and other higher-level graduates could cope with part-time work and their studies. For the huge majority of our students at this level, that situation is clearly untenable, both financially and physically.

Not only are we going to see more graduates going overseas, some of them to complete their education after attaining the right through residency in Australia, but we are going to see more leaving our shores to gain the higher pay, in order to payback the debts they have already incurred.

I am not proposing that we do not seek repayment of student debt---that is the reality of life now. I am saying that we need to revisit some of the policies of the past and extend them. We can have a win-win situation if we institute a system of ‘bonding’, much like we had for many years for teachers. For nurses, there was a system that allowed them to work and train at the same time. With necessity for higher level technological study, that would now need more ‘in-campus study, much like teachers do.

Design a scheme that is flexible--- one that includes a range of occupations, with those occupations that we are in most need of, receiving favourable loading. The possibilities are there. For example, if we need doctors, in rural areas, bond the doctors for a set period and then then cut their debts by a generous amount. If after that bonding period they wish to go overseas, then well and good. There is a strong possibility that many would have settles and would wish to stay in NZ.

I am sure that there are many occupations that would, fit the category for ‘bonding.’ Make it flexible enough to target those areas where we see a need. Yes it would increase the burgeoning figure ‘owed to the State,’ but we would retain more of our NZ trained young people. It is very much a scenario of ‘what goes around comes around.’ We would also have a much more equal and caring society, where all can realistically have hope rather than ‘hopelessness.’ Ask yourself--- which state is more economically viable in the long run.

Politicians—stop seeing the three-year cycle of politics as the measuring tool for our future!