Charter schools trial

[MadMax]

there goes "affordable" education

govt are playing off nz like a pack of cards to the world. key will play nz off on the markets.

[Deadmeat]

I've got no problems with teachers being held up to standards, I just hope those standards are carefully considered and don't result in a 'teach the test to keep your job' mentality. What skeeves me out about Public-Private is children's education being treated as an economic resource to be exploited for profit.

Current Private schools are an excellent case point for competition at the top end providing the best possible education. By showing they give the best results they can charge the most from parents, and fair enough. But by giving private outfits $X per student there is no incentive to compete on grades beyond a pass level, so if they whittle down the costs they'll be making a profit. Except if it were a state institution that excess would likely go to benefiting students (leftypinkfantasy maybe..) rather than benefiting investors.

Does the state education system need more accountability? Sure, no question. But I don't think it's valid to use current private schools as a model for what public-private would be.

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

I'm all ears.Please explain.

This may be what ft was referring to:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educ...n-NCEA-results

-------
re: nat standards
I remember sitting SAT tests when I was a kid, were they in any way similar? Is the key difference the publication of the results?

[Vrtigo]

everyone is treating teaching as a manufacturing type of job. its not. the onus is on the students to do well, the teachers are only supposed to be guides. how do you differentiate between a good teacher with crap students and an awful teacher with decent students?

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Vrtigo

how do you differentiate between a good teacher with crap students and an awful teacher with decent students?

The good teacher will turn the crap students into decent students, and the awful teacher will turn the decent students into crap students.

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Ab

The good teacher will turn the crap students into decent students

Through the power of DANCE!

[Deadmeat]

Originally Posted by Ab

The good teacher will turn the crap students into decent students, and the awful teacher will turn the decent students into crap students.

How do you then tell the difference between a good teacher with crap students and a crap teacher with excellent students. That's what I mean by making sure the measures are carefully designed.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Ab

Nor does it mean that national standards are a bad thing - just that the proposed policy isn't the best implementation.

I agree.

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

"I think that iwi run charter schools would be a great way to help Maori students at the bottom of the education system. "

I'm all ears.Please explain.

Basically, Maori academics such as Mason Durie identify immersion in Maori culture as the most effective driver in transforming poor/unsuccessful Maori into effectively participating in society.

It's all to do with Social identity theory ie, developing a sense of self based on a positive cultural identity that you can value and be proud of rather than assuming the negative role which society/media/statistics presents.

An Iwi charter school could provide this more effectively than public schools with other kids that might not want to get immersed lol.

[chiquelet]

Originally Posted by Juju

I really don't know enough about this national standards carry on - so can someone explain in layman terms why it appears to be so unpopular? I can't seem to figure out why it's such a problem to bring in a standard measure for a kids intelligence?

How to keep this succinct...you can't measure children using a one size fits all approach - different children learn at different paces. It's not as though parents are not currently being informed of their child's progress. Implementing a standard isn't going to achieve better results. Most parents want their child/ren to do well, but achievement starts outside the classroom, and until any government is willing to really address the greater problems in NZ society then the national standards aren't going to do shit.

You also can't measure a teacher's success based on the success of their students BUT WAIT - an excellent teacher at a low decile school will NEVER be able to achieve the same results as an excellent teacher at a high decile school. The low decile teacher can make huge progress with her students but that progress will never be as impressive as the other teacher. There are many factors that come into play, as already mentioned by fixed_truth's quote about 60% of achievement coming from non-school factors.

Steiner schools are naturally pissed at having to implement the national standards. They don't start teaching kids how to read until they're 7, so those children are going to be identified as badly failling for a few years.

Ok flame away. This was hammered out quickly so no doubt I could have expressed myself and my argument better.

Note - there are plenty of shit teachers around. There needs to be a thorough overhaul of the teaching profession, but it needs to be far more comprehensive than simply "their students aren't achieving, fire their ass". Also, teachers colleges are just concerned with churning out graduates. Tighten up the colleges and tighten up on the teachers who are out there teaching, that'd be a start.

[Macca@Work]

"It's all to do with Social identity theory ie, developing a sense of self based on a positive cultural identity that you can value and be proud of rather than assuming the negative role which society/media/statistics presents. "

Hey if that works,then fine.As long as they don't blame the imperialist colonialist honkeys if it falls through.

[Lightspeed]

Under this new scheme would it be somehow possible for NZGames to run a school?

[[WanG] Wandarah]

Ooo, who would the staff be?

[Rince]

Originally Posted by chiquelet

Steiner schools are naturally pissed at having to implement the national standards. They don't start teaching kids how to read until they're 7, so those children are going to be identified as badly failling for a few years..

well, that's fucking stupid....

kids should be reading BEFORE they get to school, not 2 years after they start.....

[Lightspeed]

Kids can be taught to read before school, but I'm not sure there's any evidence which suggests this is the best path towards academic excellence (if that's your desired outcome.)

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by chiquelet

you can't measure children using a one size fits all approach

You say "can't" in the face of undeniable evidence that this in fact does happen.

The reality is that meaningful measurement is entirely straightforward as is the assessment of the measurement.

Truly understanding why this is so is undoubtedly well beyond the educational limits and interests of most people. However, the skills needed to somewhat appreciate this could be taught successfully during the training of most teachers. Perhaps this needs to happen in the future?

Parents face the same understanding dilemma too. The school my eldest goes to compensates for this with a one page cheat-sheet to explain how to interpret the information provided for each child.

[leadinjector]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Kids can be taught to read before school, but I'm not sure there's any evidence which suggests this is the best path towards academic excellence (if that's your desired outcome.)

my parents made sure i could read before i got anywhere near the fuckstick education system in this country. i cant really see any situation where knowing how to read before you get to school is bad, the only thing i can recollect is how fucking painful it was listening to people stutter through when asked to read a passage from a book in english classes.

that is assuming you know how to teach a kid to read and dont use stupid shit repetitive books about jane and/or watching dogs run.

[chiquelet]

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

You say "can't" in the face of undeniable evidence that this in fact does happen.

Ok, you're right. Obviously you can measure all children against the same standards. The argument against the national standards (as you well know) is that this isn't necessarily the best approach for all children.

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by chiquelet

Ok, you're right. Obviously you can measure all children against the same standards. The argument against the national standards (as you well know) is that this isn't necessarily the best approach for all children.

No, that's not right either. What goes hand-in-hand with the measurement for each child is a bespoke interpretation of that measurement taking account of the child's capabilities, potential, environment and so forth; ideally this is done by the parents when they are sufficiently well educated or alternatively supported by the school when parents need help.

There are some very nice techniques that could be applied to the results of entire classes to tease out which teachers are objectively incompetent having corrected for the specific learning challenges presented to them each year. The bottom ten percent of teachers should be very worried about this; oh wait, they already are, aren't they?

[HO-Hoon]

Originally Posted by leadinjector

my parents made sure i could read before i got anywhere near the fuckstick education system in this country. i cant really see any situation where knowing how to read before you get to school is bad,

I can, if that knowledge comes through sacrificing development in other key areas like social interaction, confidence and rough play.... the makings of a nerd.

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by Ab

That's the part that annoys me the most. This is nothing to do with MMP. ACT is dependent on National for survival, the Nats could've won Epsom if they'd actually contested it, ACT is entirely at National's mercy.

I view this as sop being thrown to ACT to keep them relevant next election. LOOK, LOOK, OUR POLICIES GOT ENACTED! (We're still relevant, honest...)

Or, National wants ACT to be the stalking horse / scapegoat for right-wing policies it wants to try that may prove unpopular with the centrist voting public.

Anyway, I don't really see how we can expect schools to cater for parental neglect/abuse and unstable home situations.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Cynos

That's the part that annoys me the most. This is nothing to do with MMP. ACT is dependent on National for survival, the Nats could've won Epsom if they'd actually contested it

If National had won the Epsom electorate the centre-right parties in Parliament would have one fewer MPs. Key would be less able to guarantee the passage of legislation through the House. To ensure that he is able to pass legislation he HAS to offer concessions to the non-National centre-right MPs to gain their votes on legislation. One of these concessions, made to John Banks of ACT to ensure his support in the House, is to trial an alternate funding model for independent schools.

This has EVERYTHING to do with MMP. It's how the system is intended to work. MMP is a German system created after WWII with the Nazi Party in mind - it was specifically designed to make it near-impossible for one single political party to gain a majority in Parliament, and thus force large parties to do deals with smaller parties to pass legislation.

This is EXACTLY how MMP is supposed to work. It's just that the concession made to a smaller party is one you don't like.

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Ab

If National had won the Epsom electorate the centre-right parties in Parliament would have one fewer MPs.

Just curious, ACT's party vote entitled them to 1 MP, so if that vote was wasted by them not getting the electorate who would have picked that one up? If National do tip over and lose 1 MP based on specials, would that wasted vote have given them that 1 MP back?

[CCS]

Originally Posted by chiquelet

How to keep this succinct...you can't measure children using a one size fits all approach - different children learn at different paces.

Tbh, I'm kinda sick of hearing this meaningless horseshit line from the teachers/principals unions being repeated as an opposition to national standards.

Sure, kids learn at different paces. But surely this is not ideal? A year 8 kid should be learning at a year 8 level, a year 10 at year 10 level etc. My experience of school was that dumb kids would either get mostly ignored by the teacher and the kid would be no better off, or the kid would get taught to dumb kids level and would never learn or achieve at a level consistent with all the other kids his age. The teacher can explain the lack of achievment by saying "oh, he just learns at a different pace to everyone else!" That's a cop-out from a lazy teacher. We don't want that. We want national standards to force the teachers to pull the kid up by his bootstraps and get him learning at the same pace as everyone else.

Of course, it's not always being dumb that is the problem. Let me tell you a little story (you like stories). I spent most of my first year or so of school in Australia. We came back to NZ and when I was about seven years old it was decided that my reading level wasn't where it should be for my age. Perhaps that was because the Aussies were shit teachers, perhaps I just wasn't paying attention... whatever. I was made to have one-on-one levels with this teacher I didn't like a whole lot, reading little kids books, having individual words written on cards and arranging them into sentences, bring that stuff home and going through it with my impatient father and doing it all again. I really disliked doing it but by the end of it I'd reached the right reading level and quite enjoyed reading after that. My level of English was probably a bit higher that other kids in my class since then.

I was fortunate that the teachers identified the problem and corrected it. It would've been way too easy for them to say "He's just learning at his own pace!" and not have done anything about it. There's a lot of kids these days that just don't have good literacy. The go through our education system and are still barely literate at the end of it. This is in the news headlines at the moment. I believe this is the bullshit 'learning at their own pace' argument in effect. I also think that if you don't take kids aside and sort out their learning, then that really is a one size fits all approach.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Saladin

Just curious, ACT's party vote entitled them to 1 MP

Did it? I thought their electorate vote entitled them to 1 MP.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by leadinjector

my parents made sure i could read before i got anywhere near the fuckstick education system in this country. i cant really see any situation where knowing how to read before you get to school is bad, the only thing i can recollect is how fucking painful it was listening to people stutter through when asked to read a passage from a book in english classes.

that is assuming you know how to teach a kid to read and dont use stupid shit repetitive books about jane and/or watching dogs run.

Well a couple of points. Apparently the NZ education system is one of the best in the world according to international measures. Of course this might be for the entire population, as opposed to the best education one might be able to get if you can afford it.

As for seeing how reading before you get to school being bad... well, I don't think it's bad as such, but it is by no means automatically good and the developmental consequences aren't necessarily what you might hope for depending on what you value.

[Ab]

I was reading at "competent adult" level (if not higher) before I started school. Soon after starting primary school I remember being asked as a new-entrant kiddie if I liked books and replying "yeah, I just read Peter Benchley's 'Jaws', it was aight." (or however I phrased it as a 5-year-old). I do recall being puzzled by Benchley's use of the words "torso" and "orgasm" since they were outside my vocab at the time, and having to look them up in a dictionary.

Originally Posted by leadinjector

the only thing i can recollect is how fucking painful it was listening to people stutter through when asked to read a passage from a book

Oh fuck, this.

MHG, now 6, strikes me and his teachers as being a very bright little fellow and he is an advanced reader for his age, but he's nowhere near how I was reading at 5. Is that bad? Is it bad of me to expect him to? I think he's doing great, and I'm objectively very happy with how he's learning, especially since getting him out of a shit-ass mainstream school with a shit teacher.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Cynos

Or, National wants ACT to be the stalking horse / scapegoat for right-wing policies it wants to try that may prove unpopular with the centrist voting public.

Yep. Tbh it's a good political tactic.

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by CCS

Did it? I thought their electorate vote entitled them to 1 MP.

In that they got enough party vote for that electorate MP not to qualify as an overhang.

[pxpx]

+1 to reading before school. From age 4-12 almost every sunday morning my dad dragged my brother and I to the takapuna library to borrow books/read (not books from the kids section..).

I always figured it was to get us out of the house so mum could have peace and quiet.

[CCS]

What does being able to read before you start school actually do for you? I'm hoping for a better reason than "You'll be ahead of your school mates!" or "you won't be one of the 5 year old that reads slowly!" or "you'll feel choice when you read an adult novel!"

Originally Posted by Ab

MHG, now 6, strikes me and his teachers as being a very bright little fellow and he is an advanced reader for his age, but he's nowhere near how I was reading at 5. Is that bad? Is it bad of me to expect him to?

You've basically failed as a parent.

[Ab]

[quote=CCS]What does being able to read before you start school actually do for you?
No idea. I'm not sure it improved my early school experiences.

Originally Posted by CCS

You've basically failed as a parent.

One does the best one can.

[pxpx]

Parents teaching their kids to read ensures that a lack of literacy won't impact their ability to learn in the school environment and reduces the risk that any shortcomings in literacy wont be picked up, in the event that little Johnny gets a series of crap teachers.

Edit: Obviously there are a number of other things that can get in the way of a good education. But like Ab says.. one does what one can.

[A Corpse]

Originally Posted by leadinjector

the only thing i can recollect is how fucking painful it was listening to people stutter through when asked to read a passage from a book in english classes.

Oh god. I used to get in trouble all the time because I just can't read that slowly. I'd always read ahead while people are stumbling and butchering their way through a few paragraphs, then when it's my turn I'd have to ask "Oh, where were we at?".

[leadinjector]

Originally Posted by CCS

What does being able to read before you start school actually do for you?

it removes having to rely on a flawed system of teaching in what is one of the building blocks of learning, imo. if you can read proficiently, then pretty much everything else comes along with it. if you can't read shit in class you cant learn a fucking thing, and from what i can hazily remember of school, it was generally people who sucked at reading that sucked at everything else as well. i wouldnt rely on the school system to teach my kids to read, in the same way that my parents didnt rely on it.

like pxpx said, you're basically eliminating one of the (many) factors that can fuck up a kids education. although being able to read didnt change the fact that i have the attention span of a goldfish for anything i find boring (which was 90% of everything we did in high school)

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by Ab

If National had won the Epsom electorate the centre-right parties in Parliament would have one fewer MPs.

Run that past me? ACT has 1 electorate MP, 0 list MPs. If Goldsmith had won it, National would've had 1 more electorate MP, same number of centre-right MPs, right? Or am I missing something?

[Ab]

Goldsmith's in Parliament now as a List MP. If he'd won Epsom he'd be in as Epsom's MP but ACT would not have crossed the 5% threshold, and Banks would not be in.

Banks wins? Epsom has Banks + Goldsmith on the List.
Goldsmith wins? Epsom has Goldsmith only.

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by CCS

What does being able to read before you start school actually do for you?

Nothing. Well, actually if only it were that. What it does is require that you've wasted massive amounts of time that should have been spent on other learning activities, achieving in place of other learning what is really only proficiency at little more than a pony trick. The time has been wasted because had you waited another year far less time would have been needed to teach to the same outcome.

Having said that, Kids start school late in NZ and so reading lessons from age 4 or so if you want to would be okay. With our eldest we used the Oxford Reading Tree books (bought from Amazon UK) but we did not start until she had started school. Six months after starting her reading age had gone to 8 - 9.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

had you waited another year far less time would have been needed to teach to the same outcome

Originally Posted by Ab

I'm not sure it improved my early school experiences.

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by Ab

Goldsmith's in Parliament now as a List MP. If he'd won Epsom he'd be in as Epsom's MP but ACT would not have crossed the 5% threshold, and Banks would not be in.

Banks wins? Epsom has Banks + Goldsmith on the List.
Goldsmith wins? Epsom has Goldsmith only.

But if they got enough party votes to bring him in as a list MP, presuming they had the same number of party votes they'd still have the same number of list MPs, surely?

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Cynos

But if they got enough party votes to bring him in as a list MP, presuming they had the same number of party votes they'd still have the same number of list MPs, surely?

If you're above the threshold you don't get a free MP for winning an electorate, your total is always the number determined by your party vote.

The possible variation is, if National won the electorate then there's a further 1% wasted vote to ACT, which means National might have gained 1 mp because their share of votes that counted would be higher, but it could just as easily gone to any other party above the threshhold depending on the calculation of who gets the "rounding difference".

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by Saladin

If you're above the threshold you don't get a free MP for winning an electorate, your total is always the number determined by your party vote.

The possible variation is, if National won the electorate then there's a further 1% wasted vote to ACT, which means National might have gained 1 mp because their share of votes that counted would be higher, but it could just as easily gone to any other party above the threshhold depending on the calculation of who gets the "rounding difference".

Ah, yeah, that's right. I see what Ab means.