UK teacher standards
December 8th, 2010 at 11:00 am by David FarrarI don’t think the teacher unions realise how easy they have it in NZ. The very modest policy of national standards they are trying to beat up into something big.
Compare that to this story from the Daily Mail:
Under-performing teachers will no longer be guaranteed a job for life in Coalition plans to overhaul the education system.
The Education Secretary has promised to make it easier to weed out weak teachers who see the career as an easy option, as he looks to restore the status of the profession.
And mediocre candidates will be prevented from even entering the classroom under Michael Gove’s radical reforms.
Mr Gove said applicants would no longer be funded by the Government to train as teachers unless their degrees were graded 2:2 or better. He also planned to introduce tests of ‘aptitude, personality and resilience’ to assess the suitability of applicants before they embarked on teaching courses.
Tests in the three Rs that all teacher trainees must pass will also be toughened up. They will be taken at the start, rather than the end, of their courses and trainees will not be allowed multiple resits. …
To ensure schools retain the best teachers, heads will be given powers to reward top-performing staff with higher salaries.
But the sweeping proposals provoked a furious response from teaching unions. The NASUWT said Mr Gove’s proposals amounted to a ‘vicious assault’ on teachers and a ‘disgraceful denigration’ of their performance.
Wouldn’t they make good policies for a second term?
Related posts:
- Laws on National Standards
- Economic growth, not teacher payrises needed
- A top teacher
- Dom Post on National Standards
December 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
At the moment our unions in general seem to be comepting in a Who is Dumest Bastard in the Country competition by pissing off as many people as they can and by starting fights against the most popular people they can find while demanding special treatment and exemption from the current economic climate.
EPMU is currently looking like taking the lead with the PPTA making a strong showing.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Bring it on please.
I was actually speaking about this to a young German woman who was contemplating what her career might be. She said many of her friends had opted for teaching because it was seen as easy, and a secure source of income. It is time that that mindset is changed, and teaching becomes about educating children rather than looking after number one.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:35 am
I like the bit about restoring the status of the profession.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:58 am
What exactly is wrong with teachers in this country that the ‘status’ of the profession needs ‘restoring’?
Our education system always rates very highly in international comparisons.
This is just another of a long line of teacher and union bashing posts that DPF has been doing.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Related is this story that shows despite an extra30 billion pounds spent by Labour in the UK theyve had a drop in standards.
Spending money does not equate to investing.
The sentence I like was the corelation between discipline and good results. How much does old fashioned discipline cost.?It’s just common sense. Where did that go?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8185919/UK-schools-fall-behind-Estonia-and-Slovenia-says-OECD.html
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
# Sam (431) Says:
She said many of her friends had opted for teaching because it was seen as easy, and a secure source of income. It is time that that mindset is changed, and teaching becomes about educating children rather than looking after number one.
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The capitalist system is all about looking after number 1. The selfish system is being capitalist and expecting everyone else to be socialist – i.e. you maximise your profits for the services you provide but expect everyone else to do things (especially for you) out of goodwill.
If people see something as easy and has a secure income then why should we stop them doing it? It’s not like we would want to take on people who would find it hard and not provide enough money for their needs.
I think it is a good idea to make teaching a harder profession to get into providing 1) the entry tests are able to accurately weed out the poor potential teachers rather than being purely a hurdle and 2) there is a realistic system for having the right flows of teachers coming out at the end. The latter has been woeful which is what led to open entry in the first place.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I assume this is referring to the education White Paper that the UK government released recently. First, congratulations to them for being able to write a White Paper – something our government struggles to do. Second, the latest PISA results of 15 year olds released overnight again highlight how well the NZ system is still performing. NZ ranked 7th in the world at reading but along with Canada is the highest rating English speaking country. The top 8 comprised Finland, along with a string of strong performances by the Asian countries and systems, such as Shanghai, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. In contrast, the UK and the USA, who remain stuck on their myopic focus on standards and testing, came in a dismal 17th (USA) and 25th (UK). WHY are we so obsessed with copying the failing policies of systems that are well behind us? By the way, Sweden, the poster child of the voucher system, again slipped further down the rankings (19th). But, I’m sure that will be no deterrent to Roger Kerr et al to yet again dust off this hoary old chestnut and push it forward in next year’s election.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
What a wonderful idea.
JK please bring it on.
But remember there is NO professional standard body for teachers in New Zealand. Only the Unions.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
In years to come Government spending will have to be cut and scrutinized to get more bang for the tax payers’ dollar because of the dire situation with the World wide financial crisis. This is the sort of area that has to looked at with the poor out comes from pupils literacy and numeracy. The US has begun this process and now the UK have been forced to also bring their house in order, with looking at teachers standards as only one of many areas that needs to be looked at. The public service seems to live in a cocoon, with no idea what is happening in the real World.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Anyone who thinks teaching is easy has got to have their heads read. I couldn’t think of anything worse or harder than trying fronting up to 30 kids five or six times a day.
Coaching kids sport once a week is hard enough. All day every day is something else. I don’t think I could handle my own kids all the time, let alone other people’s.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
A good policy for the second term would be to ban public servants from striking.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Good call Matt.
And an inventive way of increasing productivity would also be to ban public servants from peeing during work hours.
And since they are obviously so fucking dumb, maybe we could ban them from thinking as well.
And thank you Bill Courtney for showing DPF up again as a fuckwit on education. The problem is that fuckwits like him could be the ruin of my toddler’s education in New Zealand.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
England has just been ranked near the bottom of the table for results in education (especially key subjects in Maths), compared world wide. China topped it, Europe did pretty well, and US came near the bottom.
As I see it we are trying to draw policy from the US. Hardly a strong argument for it.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Public education was a reasonably good idea. Until it fell into the hands of the left. They destroy everything they get control of by means of the application of their destructive ideology, and they have thus destroyed public education throughout most of the western world.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336410/OECD-condemns-British-education-inferior-Estonias.html
Funny that our results in NZ seem to be constantly better than the results of US and UK, both massive users of league schools / testing etc.
Maybe we should be looking for policies from countries that actually exceed our current rankings.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Yep, which is why so many scholars come from the bible belt of America Baiter…..
Or rewriting history Texas style is saving education from the ‘left’.
What destroys public schools is over politicisation of policys, and also shit teachers. I would be all for firing shit teachers, in fact it needs to start happening, in stead of it being nigh impossible. But at the same time I would rather the government invest its limied resources into policies which are proven to improve standards, rather than ones which have had limited to no success.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Redbaiter, your call on the Left destroying public education is ridiculous. Tell me how you explain three simple observations arising from the PISA resuts: first, the new system on the block – Shanghai – topped every subject! China, the last time I looked it up, is not exactly a Far Right country; second, Finland (a typical European social democracy) has been the usual top performer until the Chinese arrived; and third, the USA – supposedly a capitalist based economy – is falling further behind every day. If you read the book by Diane Ravitch, called the Death and Life of the Great American School System, you will learn how it is the obsession with testing, choice and accountability that have destroyed American education. These are the hallmarks of the Right and they have utterly failed the kids of America.
Vote:December 8th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Goodnight Redbaiter!
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