PPTA supports Parata

The PPTA have praised Hekia Parata:

PPTA president Robin Duff congratulates education minister Hekia Parata for taking a firm stand against the board of Northland’s Moerewa School .

The board was sacked yesterday after extending classes to years 11 and 13 without the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) permission, with seriously questionable results.

“Primary schools may have the best of intentions, but it is wrong for them to believe they can adequately provide specialist subject delivery to students over year 9,” Duff said.

However the Principals Federation thinks the school should be above the law:

“The decision to sack the Board of Trustees at Moerewa School is a sad day for self-managing schools and their communities,” said Phil Harding, Vice-President of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation.

“Moerewa is a tiny community, working with its people to do all in its power to provide high standards of education, while achieving success as Maori,” said Harding. “Rather than being celebrated for its efforts and excellent ERO reports, the Moerewa School Board has been punished, and its senior students excluded from their school of choice,” he said. …

“Few schools would come through an NZQA audit of 84% of their students’ work unscathed, and the protracted process has kept these students in limbo,” he said. “The Ministry has funded the unit for three years, and it is tragic to see a positive innovation ended in this way.”

It may be sad it has ended, but the fault is with the school. It is a pity the NZPF defends a school with such a low achievement rate. Radio NZ reported:

The Education Ministry says the school is not offering senior students a quality education and its NCEA results are alarmingly low. An audit by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority found that 11% to 33% were passing NCEA.

“If you look at the nearest school, they are achieving results twice as high for their Maori students than have been achieved at Moerewa. The outcomes are just not good enough, I’m afraid.”

TVNZ reported:

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) audited students’ work and said it had concerns about Wikipedia being used word-for-word and work being submitted with two different types of handwriting.

Radio Waatea reports:

The Education Minister says the audit of Moerewa School’s NCEA results was launched after discrepancies picked up in a review of paperwork at Otara’s Kia Aroha College.

 Moerewa held on to its senior pupils by enrolling them in the South Auckland Secondary School run by the mother of Principal Keri Milne-Ihimaera.

 Hekia Parata says rather than scoring better than most other schools, outside assessors found just two out 16 students passed NCEA level one, two in six passed levels two and two in three passed level three.

Only 12% passed NCEA Level one. Incredible.