Quotation for Today, Monday 4 October
October 4, 2010
On national standards, it’s time for the government to start getting more assertive. It’s not for teachers to decide whether national standards work. That’s a decision to be made at future elections by the people of New Zealand, who pay the teachers’ salaries and expect them to respect the democratic process. This means accepting the government’s right to introduce new and perhaps distasteful policies, just as all other public servants do.
Karl du Fresne, in an excellent piece on why the teacher unions should be confronted.
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Here’s a couple of graphs on the US situation.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/09/027347.php
Over 40 years the cost of educating a student has gone up 400%, but his educational achievements have been static.
Over the same period enrollments have been flat, but employment of people in the education system has gone up 100%.
I don’t know what we would find in a similar exercise here, but probably somewhat similar to the US.. or at least that will be the trend line.
I have a particular issue.. in the last 50 years education has got to virtually every single child through to average age of what.. 16-17 years, yet IMO the quality of language has fallen dramatically.
For all the praise given to Kohanga Reo it hasn’t done much for getting kids to speak English .. to the point where Maori relatives tell me kids who migrate to Australia have to have English classes like Asian migrants. Today we accept as normal and OK for Maori interviewed on media to have a thick accent, and Pakeha in our school system with significant numbers of Maori in class also speak with that accent.
JC
Actually I am ambivalent re national standards, though I despair when I come across products of the educational system in NZ and elsewhere who seem scarcely able to comprehend even the most basic things.
My concern is at the attitude of all sides which is most likely to get people nowhere. Plus the demand by the union for 4% year on year as of right.
Unions are not necessarily evil, nor are all employers good.
Robert, applying your rationale you would of course agree then if the police campaigned for the right to beat confessions out of suspects or to shoot them, as they are the shop floor workers with the expert knowledge!
adam – that’s an over-blown comparison and you know it. The teachers/principals and education experts aren’t asking to ride roughshod over basic human rights. Never the less, I would certainly want to hear the views of policemen at all levels, including people who have studied such policing issues professionally, if such a proposal was put foward by a Government Minister – wouldn’t you? After all, they do know what’s going on in their job.
Robert
I was being provacative as you are well aware.
Yet, year in year out the results of our school system are not great, especially for the lower socio-economic groups.
I have friends who are teachers in primary schools who tell me how there is a reluctance to try and move children forward, that they have to learn at their own pace and all will be well in the future.
Will it?
I was lucky enough to have good teachers at both primary and secondary. I doubt whether that is the case today when schools are taken over by political correctness
Du Frensne’s comments headlining your post are misguided.
“It’s not for teachers to decide whether national standards work.”
Teachers, principals and education acedemics are the very people who would know whether a proposal such as national standards is a good or bad idea. This is the material they work with day in, day out. Who better to give real, down-to-earth, trusted advice than the ‘shop-floor’ workers and those who study these very concepts in depth and have done so for years at a professional level.
Or do you believe it’s better to rely on the witterings of an ex-real estate agent?
Tolley has been offered considered, professional opinion from education leaders who say that her idea is flawed and her approach wrong. She has disregarded their advice. That is a very stupid thing to do.
Now, the rank and file teachers, having been dismissed, belittled and attacked by Tolley and Key, realising that the normal chanels of communication are blocked, are making their frustrations visible. The manner in which they do it irritates the authoritarians in our midst, who sieze upon their ‘behaviour’ and blame them for the situation that has been forced upon them. Du Fresne is one of those authoritarians, as are you Adam (imo) along with the clamouring rightwing bloggites who all seem to be het-up over the refusal of the teachers to DO AS THEY ARE TOLD!!
This means accepting the government’s right to introduce new and perhaps distasteful policies, just as all other public servants do. announces du Fresne.
Distasteful policies he says. Nice. Clever. National at it’s best.