Crux of the debate?
Posted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, opinion, political
Ha … so its about teacher and programme effectiveness then …. what a revelation!
Archive for the “political” Category
Aug
02
2010
Crux of the debate?Posted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, opinion, political
Aug
02
2010
National Standards, Social Media and the pressure mountsPosted by: greg.carroll in opinion, political, school leadershipNational Standards are beginning to emerge in the media again. The groundswell of opposition from the professional and other education organisations is building. The Otago Primary Principals Association:
Teachers and others are posting their thoughts on Social Media sites as well: and this one is good too ….
Jun
30
2010
Not that well informedPosted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, opinion, politicalIt would seem Anne Tolley doesn’t read my blog after all
I wrote about the article weeks ago. I actually thought it summed things up well. It would seem that anyone who doesn’t agree, even if a professional parliamentary library researcher, is wrong if they don’t agree with the minister and government policy. What happened to informed debate and being knowledgeable about issues for our profession? Isn’t that a responsibility of a minister in any portfolio – to know it well? To find people who disagree and get them to challenge the ideas and proposals before they get loose on the world. I would contend that we could reverse the critiques Ms Tolley has made of the research paper to apply to the Standards themselves – “unprofessional”, “highly political” The link from the Herald article has now been removed. A good indication of the nervousness of the government about any criticism on this; particularly from anyone or any organisation close to home, with credibility, and non-aligned. Now we don’t even get to read it and make up our own minds. Control the information and you control everything – dictatorships understand this well. Derek had this video in his blog post today. Powerful stuff and a challenge there for us all. What is it about schooling and your school that is not simply replicating what we do and how our children will live their lives in relation to ours; but making it better. Preparing them for their futures not our current realities.
Jun
13
2010
Even the Parliamentary Library has concerns!Posted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, opinion, political, school leadershipCheck out THIS from the Parliamentary Library.
… And this is NOT an educationalist saying these things. It is an analyst at Parliament. Wonder when the Minister and MoE will listen to the advice they are paying for?
Feb
24
2010
Beginnings, Tolleys and MiddletonPosted by: greg.carroll in L@S, political, professional learning, school leadershipSo it begins … Anne Tolley: Dr Stuart Middleton
Feb
18
2010
Unpacking the myths and the realitiesPosted by: greg.carroll in opinion, political, professional learning, school leadershipLester Flockton has this to say on his website:
as an introduction to providing a background to the Standards debate. He has also produced THIS excellent presentation as his summary of the issues and which serves to debunk a number of myths in the Standards debate (for some reason it won’t embed). Lester has his crap detector turned up to MAX and is one of the top thinkers in the country in educational assessment. Interestingly he is NOT on Anne Tolley’s consultation committee. It is by far the best summary of the issues I have seen to date and much more informed than some of the rubbish we have been subjected to in the media. He presented this slideshow at the public forum in Dunedin recently and with his commentary it was a very interesting session. Still makes interesting to be only reading in isolation however. He gave a balanced and very humorous presentation that was strongly focused on what is to be best for kids and learning. His respect for teachers as a profession is obvious and based on a long career inside and outside schools, as well as measuring their outcomes.
Feb
17
2010
Princpal talking about national StandardsPosted by: greg.carroll in Pedagogy, political, school leadershipCUE TV News Room – National Standards discussion from webeditor on Vimeo. a really interesting discussion and covers a lot of ground about standards an current education policy.
Feb
16
2010
Special Ed spendingPosted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, political, school leadershipWas having a chat this morning with a colleague who has thought through these sort of things. His position was we already have significant spending in Special Education in NZ, it is just not always readily accessable to schools:
That’s $100 000 a year of funding as a minimum for our school of 250. That is a HEAP of money. Man what a difference that would make if WE were able to employ the specialists and TA’s we need to fully support all the children in our school who need it. We do a good job of identifying the children with needs, what we struggle with is for the support programmes to extend as far through the list of needs as we would like. I have bee a very strong advocate of centralised resourcing of special needs funding but this is a compelling arguement for other models. There would be loosers though. Don’t be outside a main centre, don’t have more than your fair share of issues …. the list goes on. Hence the Spcial Ed review I suppose. No simple answers but an informed debate worth having!! Made YOUR submission yet? |