“Are you with the Labour Party?”
April 28th, 2005 at 8:08 am by David FarrarI had to laugh at this article in the Timaru Herald where a teeanger thought Don Brash was with the Labour Party, but then when she realised he was National’s Leader wanted to shake his hand.
From the sound of the article, education is going to be a huge issue which is good as the two main parties are poles apart on this.
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April 28th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Young people really do like Dr Brash. Two friends of mine who both didn’t vote last time are now planning to vote for him, based mainly on the Orewa Nationhood speech. This is simply because they didn’t know what National stood for last time so I totally agree that educating them on what each party stands for is a great idea so they don’t just jump on the “Labour’s going to give me handouts” bandwagon.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 9:55 am
There should be some good debates coming up between Don and Helen. Should be the most interesting election for a while.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Are they poles apart on education? Really? I’ve only read the details in the paper, and I don’t see that they are.
Tell me, how do they differ in their approach to universities? It seems to me it’s a matter of the govt funding 73% of a university education or funding 76% of a university education – big deal! Student fees and student loans are here to stay, but so is the fact that govt still foots most of the bill.
They both want to reconsider the fine details of NCEA. But is either actually considering scrapping NCEA’s standards based approach? Is either proposing reversing the move from external in internal assessment for senior school students that we’ve seen over the last ten years? Or are they just both proposing to fiddle with the details.
I see lots of rhetoric. I see little real change for secondary students and universities. Oh, except that Don proposes something called “student choice” which means that everyone in Auckland will be allowed to apply to go to Auckland Grammar: which will then turn them down because they don’t have the space for them.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:29 am
I’m looking forward to National’s promises on student support, and on increasing resources to the school system. Those are about the only substantive changes National might make – the rest is empty rhetoric, either following Government policy or floating ideas that will never be implemented.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Icehawk – tertiary policy is still to come. And yes there is a huge difference on NCEA. But also radically different policies on performance pay, zoning, funding, management and choice.
Jordan – I think you sum up the problem. You think that the only issue is how much money one throws at an area. Look at TWOA to see the fatal flaw of that approach.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Icehawk and Jordon. The difference is pretty bloody simple really so I’m surprised you can’t understand it. Natianal will make sure people actually do learn to read, write and count. Get it?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Adolf, if you genuinely believe that changing from a Labour government to a National government will make a significant difference in literacy rates, you’re setting yourself up for inevitable disapointment.
BTW I have kids at primary school, and the standard of education they’ve received has been excellent. They’ve had over 10 years of primary schooling between them and there’s been one dud teacher in all that time.
Both kids are literate, numerate, able to express themselves clearly and able to apply logic to problem solving. Other than the one teacher who was a crock ( He left the school the following year), I’ve been perfectly happy with the quality of education my kids have received.
Secondary school may well be a different issue if NCEA isn’t sorted, but most of the 3Rs should be happening before then.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Not half the disapointment there will be if this melancholy mob of mongrels gets back in and perpetuates the teacher union dominated disaster that is today’s education. Your kids are lucky they have parents who help them learn. I see and deal everyday with the results of today’s education and it’s not a pretty sight. Why, TVNZ and Radio NZ can’t even employ literate people to write the news. Have you listened lately to the embarassed Radio Left Wing news readers as they valiantly try to ad lib and correct atrocious grammer on the run?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Education has been teacher union dominated for years.
I’m in favour of having that dominance gone, and I’m a strong supporter of bulk funding as long as it’s adequately resourced, but I think the relationship between the quality of education that kids receive and the unionisation of teachers, is indirect at best.
As for zoning, I don’t like the current scheme and I don’t want no zoning. Children, particularly of primary age, should be able to attend school in their neighbourhood, but successful schools should be able to grow to accomodate demand.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Get rid of the teacher unions and you will get a 20% rise in the cost of teacher salaries as the union negotiated salary grade system is thrown out.
Vote:Same result when deregulation of the electricity market led to higher power costs. Deregulation of workers compensation will do the same to premiums for employers
April 28th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
A 20% rise in incomes, combined with the ability to sack useless teachers without union interference would be just what is needed to make teaching a desirable profession again.
Deregulation of workers incomes may dramatically improve teaching standards.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Unions keep wages down? So why would anyone join one?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Aaron,
Nonsense.
Let’s grant that you can magically tell which primary school teachers are the least well performing – while at the same time cutting down on time spent doing assessment. Let’s further grant that you have magically got rid of the primary teachers’ union, AND that schools can magically cope with the morale issues that result when people find their workmates getting fired.
You fire the worst 20% of teachers in the country. Magic wand, KAZZOTT, all gone.
Now what? Who do you hire to replace them? In case you haven’t noticed, the nation is not awash with thousands of high-quality unemployed teachers. We reduced by a year the time taken to get a DipTch/BEd since when I was at uni because of a TEACHER SHORTAGE.
Why do you think that worst 20% was hired to start with?
This notion that the teacher’s unions are somehow keeping bad teachers in place ignores what puts bad teachers into jobs to start with. Being a really good teacher is bloody hard, and takes true talent. Demand for teachers has often outstripped the supply of high-quality teachers. It amazes me that most teachers are still so good.
If you are worried about teacher quality (and you claim you are) then issue isn’t about firing individual teachers at individual schools – it’s about the population of teachers in the country, and controlling movements into and out of that population.
Neither you nor Labour seems to be asking the right question of “how can we improve the overall quality of our teachers by attracting more bright young 18-yr-olds into teacher’s training programmes”?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
The argument about deregulation increasing prices falls down when one mentions one company. Telecom. I fully agree with being able to sack hopeless teachers – and they should look to have the best teachers rewarded appropriately.
Vote:And when we were at school during the strikes we called the PPTA the poo poo toilet association. Even kids can spot a bad egg.
April 28th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
The telecom’s industry is the one that has changed totally since the early nineties. But last time I looked the home phone line hasn’t gone down in price its increased … who would have guessed.
Other things like railways , electricity, teaching, workers comp are essentially the same now as before, there is no technology revolution cutting the prices of hardware every year.
Interestingly in the UK where they had a single rail organization which ran the tracks the trains the whole lot, and moved to franchises ( which were passenger and freight monopolies for fixed periods) and separate track organizations, the cost of laying track has doubled from what it was under BR. Huge subsidies are still paid to so called profit making passenger franchises. The only advantage has been the introduction of European and US rolling stock which usually has been better than when BR had its own manufacturing. But they could have done that without throwing the baby away with the bathwater.
Of course we could look at the US health system where they spend twice as much as countries with state operated health systems, and the health costs are huge burden for Us companies compared to foreign imports. Now Ontario Canada makes more cars than Michigan USA as the Us makers shift there production there as Canada has a similar system to ours where they have a State regulated system. Yet a city like Buffalo NY which has a population roughly the size on Auckland, the hospitals there have a bed occupancy rate of 60%. There 5 hospitals with heart surgery teams, a couple of liver transplant programs . The waste is enormous
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Chalkboard, there was something incoherent about the last bit of that post. I hope it was some form of copy and paste error.
Vote:April 29th, 2005 at 10:52 am
I would love it if there was only 60% occupancy for hospitals in NZ. Then we’d know our health system had enough capacity. And isn’t the US health system mainly privately funded?
Vote:April 29th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
Getting a 60% occupancy rate would be easy….just charge everyone for every admission. Those unable to afford this will just have to go without. Whoops…didn’t national make a start on this a few years ago?
Vote:April 29th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
The US has privately funded, almost entirely insurance based system. Plus the well paid have employer funded health insurance ( who also pay half the 12.4% social security tax).
Sure they have lots of beds waiting for sick people ( sorry sick people with insurance) but the overall costs of health are about twice the proportion of GDP as other western countries which use the tax funded healthcare system.
You cant get health insurance in NZ which will cover ALL acute and so called elective surgery so there is no comparison with US insurance costs and what is charged here in NZ.
This is an example of what happens when the state gets out of a major system like health. The same thing in education would see costs double at least if schools were made private but non profit( as a lot of US hospitals are).
The teacher unions like to have a regulated pay scale where everybody moves through steps and scales nad so on. So one school doesn’t have to compete on salary with the school down the road. The previous bulk funding formula stil had all teachers on the standard pay scales and not a cent more. Schools would then be asking for donations of 1500+ per year just to pay market rates since government funding wouldn’t match what individual teachers could ask for and these days quality seems to come from spending more regardless of any measurbly improvement in outcome. Of course the few who cant/wont teach properly are unlikely to be in the position to get pay rises.
The decline of US carmakers is an unintended consequence of having an individual choice system in helath insurance. Overall costs are higher and unions and those with individual contracts get the employer to pay.
Vote:Of course Id love to hears about any health or education system where individual choice leads to lower costs and better service for the vast majority of thre population.