Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Richard Aston,
And then I got all angry again and had to play an angry song on the stereo.
Just curious Russell , what was that song ?
If you're going to be angry at anyone, it might as well be God. And the Hollie Smith backing vocal is amazing.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Scott Chris,
Surely a sounder basis of knowledge from which to make an informed decision as to which school would be suitable for one’s child would be sourced from a combination of both anecdotal and empirical evidence?
But that's not what national standards measures. Not even remotely close.
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Hard News: Women and their representations, in reply to Sacha,
I’m laughing well before that point.
Oh yes. But I'd managed to pull myself together by the end of the post itself. And then that first comment ...
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Kumara Republic,
De-zoning was about parental choice in theory, but turned out to be school choice in practice.
And by the time National was voted out, the real consequences were starting to bite. We tend to forget the disastrous state some of the "loser" schools were in by the end of the 1990s.
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Hard News: Women and their representations, in reply to Sarah Wedde,
When the Cosmo sex tips things was posted on Metafilter, someone contributed this comment on the perfect storm of women’s mag headlines which seems fairly appropriate to this discussion.
ANGELINA: TOO SKINNY TO CONCEIVE?
Indeed. I will try and get this in the show.
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Oh people, I just have to share this: Jezebel on Cosmo's 44 most ridiculous sex tips for ladies.
I thought I had regained my composure but then I got to the comments and became utterly helpless with laughter.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Frankly I’m upset by losing our assets but we’ll survive that – if we lose our education system we lose our future.
I was thinking about this last night while I made dinner and came to the same conclusion. What is being threatened for education is much more frightening than asset sales. And then I got all angry again and had to play an angry song on the stereo.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Bart Janssen,
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.
Nearly three quarters of New Zealanders live in “main urban areas”. And if you live in Greymouth, you have three state primary schools to choose from. If that's what you want.
I honestly don’t have any truck with the competitive school model – it’s a dangerous and destructive fantasy. But school choice is a reality. A friend of mine teaches at a Wellington school that has a good rep for teaching disabled kids – who are sometimes enrolled from miles away. Their parents aren’t wealthy – they’re largely sacrificing their time to make it happen.
The real problem there is that the school is actively penalised, via the special education funding structure, for its achievement.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Scott Chris,
I don’t agree. You can’t efficiently identify and assist under-performing students if you can’t measure them objectively.
I honestly don't think you understand how national standards work in practice.
Our older boy had a reading deficit identified and received Reading Recovery support at primary school. Of course schools track the performance of pupils and respond to problems.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
The current experience in the inner west schools is not isolated either, I know the same issues exist out west in Titrangi/Green Bay/Glen Eden and I understand Te Atatu has similar issues emerging.
So what's the solution? When National scrapped zoning the result was chaos. Build more schools?
I think where we can all agree is that every child should be able to go to their local school and that school should be a good one.
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