Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Russell Brown,
It isn’t particularly unusual for parents to have a choice of local schools – see Whoops’ comment above about having a choice of five – and indeed, that’s the only reason we’re having this debate.
I don't know and I'd be happy to see data to the contrary, but my feeling is that most families in NZ have much less choice than you describe. It's only in the big cities that schools are close enough for families to be in range of more than one. Even then factors such as transport options limit the choice even further. As for moving house that really is only an option for a few.
I don't begrudge that some families have choices what I am angry about is that for those with limited choices this government seems happy to allow their local school to be labelled by some muddle headed league table and then screwed over when those that do have a choice abandon the school.
Frankly I'm upset by losing our assets but we'll survive that - if we lose our education system we lose our future.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Deborah,
What she said :)
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Russell Brown,
but that doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t choose the school they think is best for their child.
Except most parents won't be able to afford to do that. Sure if you can make that choice great, but it can't be such a big difference that those that can't afford the choice are penalized.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Richard Aston,
My question is how do parents – and students – make informed choices about schools? What should we be doing, what would be meaningful rather than narrow?
Wrong question.
And I think this gets to the heart of the whole National Party ideology.
In the past we (the people) worked really really hard to make sure that every single damn school was great. Now I know that some schools started with disadvantages compared to those in rich areas since they couldn't hit up the parents to provide extra servers and free trips to Spain. But that's why the decile system exists, so that schools in poor communities get more government funding.
From National's perspective this sucks. It means that a kid from a poor family has every chance that we can possibly provide to succeed. Let me just pause to say that is one of things that made me proud of our country.
Or to convert it into National idealogy - that there is no advantage to being filthy stinking obscenely disgustingly rich. And everyone (in the National Party) knows that being rich should, as of right, give you advantages.
You shouldn't have to make a choice about the school you send you children to, they should ALL be good.
That is what National is trying to destroy - the idea that ALL kids get to go to a really good school.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Euan Mason,
I’m not convinced that the policy is motivated by profit.
Yes and no. One overarching feature of this government is the idea that private (profit making) enterprise can do everything better than public governance. Education is just one example of that to this government. Performance in standardized tests is a good way for highly selective private schools to sell themselves.
This may be a policy Key believes genuinely (or not), but it damn well makes someone a healthy profit.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Gareth Ward,
4. ?
5. PROFIT!4 Create charter schools
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I particularly liked the way John Key tried to frame the whole thing as the fault of the media.
It wasn't National's fault for introducing standardized tests, it wasn't National's fault for collecting the data ... it was the media's fault for using OIAs to get at that data!!
OMFG
Policy by ideology not evidence then blame the media for exposing the problems.
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Hard News: Media7 will soon be Media3, in reply to Lilith __,
Yes, I was wondering that too. An uncomfortable subject for many men?
I don't think it's necessarily uncomfortable. It's just that with no habit of ever talking about such things there is no starting point. Kind of a self perpetuating limitation.
Part of it has to be an inherent prudishness in the kiwi culture but that doesn't explain the difference between genders.
The same problem exists with conversations about emotions. There is no habit of it for men, therefore it's difficult. Unfortunately there are times in ones life where having someone you are able to talk to about emotions is necessary.
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Hard News: Media7 will soon be Media3, in reply to Deborah,
it might be in a sense more permissable for straight cis women to blog about sex and sexuality than it is for straight cis men to blog about sex and sexuality
Or maybe 'cos when men do it it's called bragging?
Actually I tend to think that it's because men in NZ have no culture of talking about sex and sexuality that isn't completely trite.
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Hard News: Media7 will soon be Media3, in reply to Deborah,
the experts are always and everywhere male
God yes! It drives me crazy. Scientists who actually have all the data at hand that without any shadow of a doubt show that diversity (esp. gender diversity) in leadership of science is good still persist in giving all the leadership/expert roles to men. Gah! Our CRIs in NZ are full of old boys clubs. It's getting better but too often the women in leadership positions are those that behave as if they are men (to fit in) or there simply to take minutes and organise the lunch.
I so want some government to come through and mandate that 50% of the leadership roles must be filled by women instead of relegating them to the /patronising "technical positions they are so well suited for" /patronising. And yes I have heard those words dribble out of the mouth of an executive.