Posts by Tony Parker
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Not a classic Hawkes Bay summer this year. Only recently has the weather been anywhere near settled and there have been none of the hot Norwesters we used to get. My summer has been one where we never had the house to ourselves starting with the return of the 28 year old in December and continuing with the rest as well as various relatives. Have only got the house back to just the 2 of us in the last couple of weeks. Couple of gigs-Neko Case, Grant Hart and the most disappointing part of it all was once again the failure of my tomatoes and spuds. Good beans and carrots though.
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Living in the shadow of McLean Park you'd think I'd get along to the game but it never happens. I just throw the windows open and watch it on Sky. Best of both worlds....crowd noise, close ups and replays. Only thing is the Sky transmission is about 2 seconds behind the live action so the big cheers from the park always indicate something is about to happen on the TV.
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The Picot Committee's report recommended that individual school communities should encourage their schools to be innovators in similar ways, and that the money saved, by slicing through bureaucracy, should be given to the locally-elected school board to achieve their innovative goals..
The money wasn't saved through slashing bureaucracy-it came through a lower teacher salary bill. A school round here in the trial suddenly had young and inexperienced teachers filling positions as they became vacant. Sure we need them in our schools but we also need a mix of experience in our staff. Call it democracy if you like but Boards of Trustees were going to be put in difficult situations-experienced teacher and no resources vs inexperienced teacher and a new classroom. Because you could see that down the track the actual value of funding/vouchers would be eroded to a level below current funding. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
In my view, it was a great disaster that the teacher unions united to stop this kind of initiative because they opposed "bulk funding" for individual schools.
Well they would wouldn't they if their member's renumeration, job conditions and job security were at risk.
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"Bulk funding" (a terrible title) of individual schools versus centralised government funding (I've even forgotten the original term). New Zealand has brilliant public schools which have opted for either method.
I think Gordon you are viewing this through rose tinted glasses or the wrong end of the telescope. Schools are Bulk Funded for their operations grant. This covers all costs except teachers salaries. These are funded centrally through the MOE. Bulk Funding of teacher salaries was only ever trialled by the previous National Govt. It came up with an average amount for the salary of a teacher and the schools were given that amount times the number of teachers according to the staffing roll. The amount did not match what teachers were entitled to according to their employment agreement negotiated by the NZEI. Consequently if you had an older more experienced staff extra funds were needed to cover the salary bill and this would have come out of the operations grant-less money for curriculum etc. Conversely if you had a young staff your salary bill would be less than you were given in the bulk fund and you had extra money to play with. However in the trial the govt topped up the schools who had a shortfall to make the trial look like it was succeeding. Should this system have continued past a trial the next step was to have teachers negotiate individual agreements effectively killing the teacher unions and ultimately keeping teacher salaries low. Vouchers were part of this too as the school funding would be determined by the number of children enrolled and the value of the voucher they brought to the school. It was also a way of the then National govt taking less responsibility for public education. Thankfully we had a change of government and the madness disappeared.....until now!
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I cannot help but feel that this is another piece of the puzzle. Vouchers by any other name.
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Jackie I can understand how intense an ERO visit can be in Early Childhood because of the size of ECE institutions. With primary and secondary schools there are a lot more classes to get around and in the space of 3 or 4 days the reviewers get into rooms for a limited amount of time. One review here at school I didn't get a visit at all. A lot of their information is gained from the discussion had with principals, senior staff and teachers responsible for certain curriculum areas. I find too they focus heavily on compliance issues. Similar process as you outlined though for the presentation of the report to staff and the community.
Oh well parent-teacher conferences today.....must remember to talk in plain english, no jargon, must remember to talk in plain english, no jargon, must remember to talk in plain english, no jargon,.......... -
I definitely agree that parents can help, and their absence of support can hinder. But a loaded round of blaming does nobody any good.
I think sometimes as teachers we are guilty of this, probably born more out of frustration than anything else. We do want the best results for the children we teach and our expectations are always high. I think the teaching profession is changing in this respect though especially those who have some knowledge of the work of Russell Bishop and his Te Kotahitanga project. Education is a partnership though between school, home and the wider community and sometimes teachers feel the greater burden of blame is placed on them when in fact they are doing there best.
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Like I say, why not go the whole hog and publish results that reflect the aspect of a childs life that is far more influential than school: their parents...?
Some days I despair of the parents of some of the children I teach. Today I heard of a parent who was not concerned about their child's lack of progress because he "got through school without learning to read or write and didn't see what the problem was." Parental expectation plays a huge part in children's learning. Standards will not change that.
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@Tim-Couldn't have said it better. It is good to be back but I feel it's going to be hard work this yearand somewhat distracting from our main role as teachers.
@Gordon and others-You may like this blog by Taranaki educationalist Bruce Hammonds. He covers a lot of points you make in his posts and despairs somewhat about the direction being taken. -
Days like this on PAS make it all so much better reading informed comment on what has become an emotional issue that is going to have a huge effect on my work. Trouble is nothing is going to change. I could see it happening as soon as this policy was proposed before the election. The real concern for me now has been the sudden turn in the debate from children's learning and achievement to the performance of teachers and schools along with an all out attack on the NZEI(one of the biggest unions in the country). This to me is the real agenda for if the government were serious about raising the achievement of the bottom 20% they would be putting all the money set aside for the standards into these children. As it is there is I think $36 million set aside over 3 years to address the non achievers. Someone has done the maths and worked out that it equates to $138 per child over 3 years. That will buy half a days 1-1 assistance.