Tolley Backing Grammar – Nats going for Epsom?

According to the NZ Herald, Tolley is backing Grammar in their NCEA rebellion. I am surprised by this move, I was expecting a few more slaps with a wet bus ticket for Auckland Grammar on this one.

Tolley has condoned a school rebelling against government policy. Auckland Grammar may not be technically breaking the law, but certainly in spirit and proudly so at that! The law supposedly says that NCEA must be offered in state schools, but I can’t seem to find any legislation with that wording. There was no mention of NCEA in the Education Act when I searched the legislation website. In fact, it only is mentioned in statutes around eligibility around benefits as far as I can tell.

She’s given plenty of ammunition to the likes of Kate Gainsford, saying that she’s inconsistent with her telling off her primary colleagues for rebelling against National Standards. As an aside, the letter written by Gainsford to me seems it was very much ‘leaked’ Sir Humphrey style.

Since nothing Tolley could say would placate teachers regarding National Standards, this could be a moot point. She may have decided that since nothing bar ditching the policy is going to make teachers happy, it’s not going to make any difference.

My stab in the dark guess is that National is trying earn brownie points in the Epsom electorate, with the plan of taking the seat instead of leaving it to Act.

Kelvin Davis Nonsensical with ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’

Kelvin Davis on Red Alert blogs that unless Cambridge exam national standards are developed, it proves that Cambridge is no better than NCEA. I find this post completely nonsensical. I will break down the post a paragraph or two at a time.

Anne Tolley inextricably linked success in National Standards to success in NCEA when she wrote in a letter to parents, “The standards have been designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at NCEA Level 2.”

Okay. She has said something along those lines plenty of times.

National Standards have not been designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at Cambridge Exams.

I agree. My understanding is that National Standards were designed as signposts against the New Zealand curriculum.

So what are primary school teachers who contribute pupils to Auckland Grammar going to use to ensure their boys are on track to pass Cambridge Exams?

Nothing. Why would primary school teachers make a different set of standards for signposting the Cambridge curriculum? Is Davis ignorant of the fact all primary teachers hate the National Standards for the New Zealand curriculum? Why would they create more work for themselves that is not required tacked on to a policy they don’t even like? Tolley hasn’t suggested this, I don’t understand the teachers would either.

Without Cambridge Exam National Standards teachers will not be able to tell parents in plain english reports whether their son is achieving at, above or below the level required to pass Cambridge Exams.

Quite irrelevant. The idea of National Standards is linked to New Zealand curriculum learning outcomes. Nobody has suggested otherwise.

If the Minister is consistent she will in the next few weeks develop a separate set of “Cambridge Exam National Standards” and impose them on all the teachers at Epsom Normal School, Mt Eden Normal and Auckland Normal Intermediate School,etc.

Consistent with what? Is Tolley supposed to tell AGS off or not? They would expect National to take strong action against AGS if this were the case. The use of word “consistent” seems to imply that Labour thinks they shouldn’t remain committed to NCEA. Labour can’t have the argument both ways.

It has been reported in the NZ Herald that Labour have been questioning National’s commitment to NCEA as the national high school qualification. If they are committed to NCEA, why would they make these nonsensical “Cambridge National Standards”?

“Anne Tolley’s unwillingness to defend the NCEA system against the might of Auckland Grammar School shows she has no faith in the system at all,” Mr Davis said.

To be fair to Davis, he got a decent quote in the article.

These ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ are necessary because according to John Morris, Principal of Auckland Grammar School, NCEA would be provided for his weaker students.

Why would you need ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ for students sitting NCEA?

The implication is Cambridge exams are harder than NCEA therefore achievement above the regular National Standards expectation is not a guarantee that a student is on track to achieve above the level expected to pass a Cambridge Exam. If the Minister does not create ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’ designed so that a student who meets them is on track to succeed at Cambridge Exams, all the arguments she applied to justify the imposition of National Standards can be thrown back in her face.

Davis has spent an entire post building a straw man argument. He barely touched on an issue of real substance – the posturing of Cambridge for smart students and NCEA for dumb kids. The failure to address such posturing undermines the public credibility of the NCEA qualification. I am surprised that he hasn’t used this in an argument about Tolley’s apparent lack of commitment to NCEA. Neither did he attempt to capitalise on the lack of a response as a cause quoted in the Herald.

If she says the regular National Standards will suffice, then we have proof that Cambridge Exams are no better than NCEA.

If this were true, this would actually help Tolley…then there wouldn’t be any need for these nonsensical ‘Cambridge Exam National Standards’.

NCEA and Auckland Grammar

So Auckland Grammar School (AGS) has decided to do “officially” do away with NCEA for its Year 11 (5th form) students, as reported in the NZ Herald. I love how the greengrocer’s apostrophe appears in error in the article’s title, one with educational standards as a theme.

What does this actually mean? It is well known that AGS has not been a fan of NCEA for various reasons, and has pushed the Cambridge exams (what we call the IGCSEs and International A-Levels in New Zealand) for its students ever since the introduction of NCEA. This is not a radical step for them, merely an extension of what they have been doing for a long time.

Of course as a state school, it must offer the state qualification NCEA. Anne Tolley, in reaction to this announcement so far only has only released a slap with a wet bus ticket statement in response.

Trevor Mallard has blogged about this on Red Alert trying to put the heat on Tolley, attempting to link this snub of official educational policy by the school to that relating to National Standards for primary schools. I think he should be far more worried about statements like this from the article:

but the school could allow “some exceptions” with weaker students to have a “backup” plan and allow them to sit NCEA maths and English.

These sorts of statements posture Cambridge exams for the smart students, and NCEA as a poor relation for the dumb kids. This posturing has been a key disadvantage of the NCEA qualification since its introduction. Because some schools were strongly dissatisfied by it, they sought alternatives like the Cambridge examinations or the International Baccalaureate (IB).

This posturing increases the negative discrimination based on what school one went to. Simply put, under the old system, a 70% mark in Bursary history from Aorere College was just as good as the same from AGS. That is not the case now. A two-tier system has been created in our schools.

Mallard has made a subtle error in making the link to National Standards. National Standards are more popular with parents, and less popular (in fact not popular at all!) with teachers. NCEA is less popular with parents and more popular with teachers.

One thing to note is that NCEA is a lightning rod for education issues. What this means is that NCEA gets the blame for the perceived ills of New Zealand’s education system, even for issues that have nothing to do with the exam format or qualification structure.

Also, it is important to realise AGS is not a typical state school at all.

Some accuse schools using Cambridge exams as a marketing tool. AGS doesn’t need to market itself at all. It spends thousands of dollars every year trying to keep students out – it costs the school a lot to combat enrolment fraud.

I would go far enough to say it’s a de facto private school with full state funding. It asks for a very large (probably the biggest) “donation” in the country, which most parents pay. Even disregarding the donation, if one does not already live inside the school zone, it’s arguably more expensive to send your son to AGS than a private school. Only the well off can access real estate in the “Grammar Zone”, which commands a big house price premium.

I also can’t think of anywhere else in the world where having a prison in your own backyard doesn’t dampen the demand for real estate.

Anne Tolley Interview Analysis – Part III: Early Childhood Education

In this third and final part of analysing Anne Tolley’s interview we examine her responses on Early Childhood Education (ECE). I will put it out there here and now that I do not know a lot about this part of the education sector.

Espiner puts it to Tolley that she’s stripping hundreds of millions from the ECE sector. Once again she seems to do well in explaining how she’s shuffling money around to reflect the government’s priorities. Espiner asks “how can you reduce the quality” by only having 80 percent rather than 100 percent qualified teachers, and Tolley says it’s to do with the incentives. She doesn’t really explain why there wasn’t much of a difference, just flat out denies that it doesn’t.

Espiner says that the evidence shows that the proportion of qualified teachers, once again Tolley flat out denies this. There is not a lot being explained. In an earlier post I have mentioned how the previous target of 100 percent was inducing artificial credential inflation. The setting of this target didn’t do much more than forcing many ECE teachers who had had many years of experience to get themselves credentialled just to keep their own jobs.

Tolley could have made the case the New Zealand context is different from the research Espiner may have been referring to (he doesn’t cite any of them specificially) because it doesn’t have the history of having qualified ECE teachers like other countries. She does make the point of experience trumping credentials, putting it out there that many centres are parent run. They do not have credentialled staff but does that mean they are inferior in quality to anywhere else, she asks.

Espiner could have put a lot more pressure on the minister by say, blaming her for the unintended consequences from  shifting the goalposts in terms of the proportion of qualified teachers. People made decisions in retiring, or studying for credentials (taking on student loans!) or made business plans based on this target. People were expecting a demand for qualified teachers, but with a stroke of her pen, Tolley has reduced this demand by no longer offering the incentives put in place at the end of the previous government’s tenure. This did happen indirectly in the form of grilling her on possible fee increases, and Tolley was not very convincing in this regard.

Anne Tolley Interview Analysis – Part II: Status and National Standards

The next part of the interview is the status of being a teacher. In part, it is reflected in pay, but I think Espiner overestimates the importance of money in status. When I trained to be a teacher, money was important but not the most important thing. I do not know any teacher who is in the job because they want to make lots of money. The high points of teaching are hard to match – it does however take a whole lot of hard slog to get there.

Espiner also pushes Tolley on why there are fewer men in the profession than in the past. Tolley points to the lack of status it has. Status is referred to, but not defined. It is worth pointing out that it is one of the situations where if the situation were reversed, there may have been far more attention paid to the gender imbalance. It is also interesting to remember that at the beginning of the segment, Tolley is introduced as the first female Minister of Education. Quite noteworthy for a sector that has been dominated by women for quite some time isn’t it?

The entry requirements into the profession are brought up. At the moment on paper, one needs a three year ordinary bachelor’s degree aligned with a school subject (eg you need some maths in your degree to apply to be a maths teacher), a minimum standard of literacy in English or Māori, and referees to affirm you have certain qualities suitable to the profession to apply. You are interviewed, and if they deem you have the right motivation for doing teaching, communication skills and your credentials and police records check out, you are admitted to the programme.

These requirements sound reasonable – but they are not much more than any other job, really. Other professions with high status like medicine or law are known for their highly competitive grade cutoffs for example. However, that is not to say institutions let anyone into their teacher education programmes – when I applied for entry into two teachers’ colleges I was rejected by one of them.

Tolley refers to proposals like needing a Masters degree or fast track programmes not having universal agreement, and said she agrees with the sector for needing higher entry requirements. If there is universal agreement on that, I wonder if changes will be formally enacted. As far as I know there is nothing barring institutions setting as high a bar as they want.

National Standards once again come up. Espiner points out that the high membership teacher unions are against it, and points out that the $36 million only works out to be $60 per child, per year. He’s quite prepared with this figure and tries to draw more out from her on it. He then asks the question on what the Minister could do with basically a dollar a child a day, quite reminiscent of those charity ads for sponsoring malnourished children.

The political reality is, no extra spending is ever going to be given carte blanche to anything. It will always be part of a highly targeted initiative so that politicians can say how wonderful programme X is. As a result of the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms way back in the 1980s, schools are highly devolved so specific targeted programmes are the only way to visibly increase education spending. Tolley appears confident in explaining ways in which limited money is being shuffled around to address the government’s priorities.

The last thing I’ll mention is Espiner breaks down the 80 percent figure Tolley quotes on the takeup rate on the standards, Espiner saying that’s really only 19 percent, with those identified as being well on track. Tolley was calm in explaining those 19 percent were already doing things like the policy anyway and only had to make minor tweaks. She says the rest had to make major changes to get to where they were. She also punts other problems into touch saying that it will take time for data to appear in any case. Other things in the debate have not really progressed and have already been mentioned elsewhere.

What does Kate Gainsford mean by average?

Kate Gainsford has launched militantly into Tolley’s claim that the average pay of a secondary teacher is around $70,000 in this PPTA press release. According to these salary figures by the Ministry, the figure was reached by taking the total wage bill on 7 April, and extrapolating that out for a year, and then dividing by the full time equivalent number of teachers. It’s a mean value.

So what about the median? Many people would say that it is a better measure of “average” income than the mean. According to the ministry figures around two thirds of teachers are on the top scale. That means the median pay for a teacher has to be at least $68,890. And that’s without any units or allowances factored in.

It would seem the best Gainsford can claim is that Tolley is using a misleading statistic. She goes far beyond that in colourful fashion, claiming that Tolley is spreading “blatant misinformation” and compares Tolley’s use of statistics to saying:

The average NZer is a 5’6” hermaphrodite

which in my opinion makes Gainsford look hysterical. She claims that getting to an average figure of $70,000 is impossible.

“This is blatant misinformation – the starting salary for a secondary teacher with four years training is $45,000 and if those teachers pass an annual appraisal based on professional performance standards, they can progress to the sum of $68,000. You do not have to be a maths teacher to see that no matter how hard you try you cannot get an average of $70,000 from those figures.”

Is Gainsford saying that units and allowances don’t count as income? That is misleading. You could make an argument about reimbursements for any expenses teacher incur, but in general if you have PAYE deducted from something, that something is income. She points to the $45,653 salary of a beginning teacher in part of her arguments that $70,000 is a misleading figure to quote. Well, I don’t think of a teacher at the start of their career as an average teacher – I think of them as a beginner or novice.

So what is Kate Gainsford’s definition of an “average” teacher? I’d love to know.

Anne Tolley Interview Analysis – Part I: Pay

Anne Tolley appeared on Q+A yesterday in this interview.

The interview starts with the most visible issue, that of pay. Tolley argues adjusting for New Zealand’s GDP, the “average” pay for a teacher is about $70,000. This seems a bit of an generous assessment. Espiner responds to that by asking is that nearer the higher end. Tolley in return states her assumption to get to that figure. A lot seems to hinge on what you mean by “average”, often it’s the choice in choosing the arithmetic mean, or the median.

Update: The ministry explains the calculations in a press release. The figure was based on the calculation of a mean salary. I have also made a further post about Kate Gainsford’s response to Tolley’s claim.

Neither Tolley nor Espiner seem to give much detail behind this exchange. Those involved in education will get it, but it would be lost on others, especially the more political ones. I will try to flesh out their exchange in detail.

Espiner means to say to get paid that much, according to the STCA salary scale, one would have to be near the top of the scale (top scale is step 14), have teaching qualifications (usually a subject based degree plus teaching diploma, which gets a teacher to start on step 7) with 6 or 7 year’s experience and have at least one unit.

Units are pay for extra responsibilities, like management units for a HOD or deputy principal duties or for particular projects a school runs. Which means a teacher with these units is probably teaching fewer classes than a teacher who does not, all other things being equal. This is part of what I mean when I have written in the past that the only career progression available to teachers is to teach less. Tolley refers to this when she talks about the “structure” of a teaching career.

Tolley responds that she has based her figure on a teacher in the “middle” of their career. So she’s saying that the average length of a teaching career is at least 12 years, by then a teacher would be near the top of the scale halfway through that. I do not know how she arrived at that figure. [Since this post has been updated, I now know otherwise.]

According to the statistics on this page, in 2008 the median age of a secondary teacher was about 40. I haven’t been able to find figures on the length of teaching service, but if you assume a teacher starts their career at 22 say, they would have 18 years of service to get to the median age of 40. There would be some adjustment for the fact that some teachers are career changers – but some of those years in other careers may count as steps up the payscale, so it may even out in the end.

So Tolley’s claim of the “average” career length seems credible. It seems that Tolley has arrived at her figure as the wage of a teacher with a median length of service. Espiner then compares it to the starting salary, in the mid 30 range. I don’t know how many secondary teachers actually start there. A teacher would start on step 7 with a 3 year degree plus a diploma, which would be $45,653 per annum.

The comment teachers are “disconnected” from the real world is then addressed by Tolley. She argues that teachers are “unrealistic” because they want bigger raises than what police, nurses and others settled for and point to 4% raises they got each year under the previous government. She also points out that many people have done without pay rises and Irish teachers went with a pay decrease. She has set the scene for the PPTA having to show that they deserve special treatment to get the pay increases they are asking for.

Tolley tries to dismiss the PPTA negotiations as if they are a loud minority, but doesn’t get far with it. Espiner catches her out with the PPTA having a huge membership of about 95%, but pulls his punch with this one too, with nearly all the members voting to strike as well. However, she does do well to dodge the performance based bullet. She asserts outright it’s not on the agenda and explicitly acknowledges that it won’t go down well with teachers; Essentially she’s saying she’s not going to go there, because it’s just not worth it. She is skilfully diplomatic in saying teacher expectations are “unrealistic”, denying the use of “greedy” by Espiner.

Good Luck Anne Tolley

The NZ Herald reports that the PPTA has voted to strike. I suspected that this would be the case.

The teachers aren’t striking over not getting increases in pay and conditions, but to maintain (in inflation terms, et cetera) what they already have.

I think Tolley is gambling on parents saying “look I’m out of work, or my partner is out of work, our family is struggling, what are you teachers complaining about?” to keep the bad PR at bay. I do not think that it will pay off for her. The teacher unions are by far the strongest in the country with around 95 percent membership.

My prediction is that there will be three strikes before Tolley (or her successor?) is forced to come up with maintained conditions and around 2.5 percent pay increases per year. She’s talking tough, and seems very prepared to not be bullied into submission in regards to opposition campaigns, for example Adult Education. Does anyone still remember that one? I barely do! The opposition campaign got traction, but the headlines have gone now.

She can also say, look I’m not Labour so I’d have to multiple backwards somersaults for the unions to begin to warm to me anyway. But she is too vulnerable to accusations “not understanding” the sector, completely unlike Paula Bennett. The naysayers in Bennett’s case have to do something better than calling a former DPB collecting single mother a beneficiary basher.

Tolley is taking on one of the strongest unions in the country. In a non-Labour government, and not a former teacher, she is very much the underdog. You’re burning up more and more political capital, and election year is only next year. Good luck, you’re going to need it.

Update: The Prime Minister has been reported in backing Tolley in saying teachers’ expectations are unrealistic. This makes me more confident in my prediction that more than one strike will occur before the government budges.

Who’s Going to Chicken Out First?

The game of chicken that Tolley and the unions are playing over National Standards is starting to heat up. What I am interested in finding out is who is going to chicken out first. Or if they are going to crash. A question that I wouldn’t mind an answer to is this: Are National Standards the policy clash between government and teachers like bulk funding was?

A few comments have turned up in this story. First of all there’s the “parents don’t understand this policy”. Of course there are parents who don’t understand this policy, how is this different from any other government policy? For someone to understand this policy (or any other) they have to wade through, in no particular order:

• What the Minister says
• What the Prime Minister says
• What the teachers say
• What the opposition parties say
• What the teacher unions say
• What the media say
• What the legislation allegedly implementing this policy says
• What parents say
• What Boards of Trustees say

That is no means an exhaustive list, but my point is that using the “people don’t understand” in the National Standards debate is useless as it’s just a truism that doesn’t mean anything in itself. Each of these parties have their own agenda, and will spin the thing differently to reflect their own world views et cetera.

And then there’s talk about whether Anne Tolley is listening or not. Well, as Anne Tolley and the unions want mutually exclusive things, the only way that anyone in the unions will be convinced that she’s listened is if she ditches the policy. Tolley can’t win this battle by default. So basically she is trying to be as diplomatic as she can, but really, it’s terribly ineffective as it’s something the teachers clearly don’t want.

I have forgotten a possible scenario. Tolley doesn’t back down, but gets replaced as Education minister because she’s taken too long. The Prime minister would do this because he’s also been quite behind this policy, and of course it is one of the core election planks. So what could happen is that Tolley gets dumped so that another minister with more firepower is charged with getting the policy through. Or alternatively is the one charged with the retreat option if it really has been too long and the government embarrassingly had to give up. And if takes too long, the other main party will get back in again and have a field day with glowing PR about how they’ve repealed some evil policy of a previous government.

So it’s game on. I think the onus is on Tolley to make the next move.

It’s a Game of Chicken – Tolley Versus the Unions

The Hon Anne Tolley has issued a press release to the unions essentially saying “get over it” about National Standards.

Tolley’s greatest PR challenge is that the public only ever sees the more overt political arm of the teachers’ unions. And they tend to be the more vocal left wing activists compared to the rank and file union members who just try to get on with their job. I believe we do not see a true representation of the political views of the members when we see union spokespeople in the media. To be fair, I think the nature of the news media doesn’t help. The bread and butter activities of the union aren’t newsworthy for example, helping out new teachers to the profession, ensuring teachers get their entitlements, submissions and consultation on non-controversial issues.

Tolley also doesn’t have a triple B shield. What does that mean? It’s a new term I’ve coined, too political in origin for my liking, oh well. The BBB shield is the [it's hard to plant the label] Beneficiary Basher [on] Bennett shield. I say it’s difficult because it seems rather ridiculous to call a former DPB and single mother a beneficiary basher. Tolley is an easy target in this regard because she is not a former teacher, with the implication that she doesn’t understand the education sector. Tolley’s pointing to her own upbringing of children in the education system helps but is nowhere as effective as a BBB.

I think Tolley is saying bring it on. She knows she has an electoral mandate and that parents at worst do not have outright hostility to this policy. The escalation will come either in refusal to implement the policy either by boycotting, or by striking, or by cleverly subverting it.

My best evaluation of the situation is that both sides are playing chicken. Tolley could yield by dropping the policy, or delaying it. Presumably delaying is enough for the unions as it would stop the policy long enough for Labour to get back in again in the next election (assuming favourable conditions for those of that political persuasion). The unions could yield by implementing the policy as the government intends, or ending their opposition campaigns.

I don’t think either side will back down, at least not easily. Tolley especially as she has everything to lose from backing down. Firstly, a back down is embarrassing for any minister, in fact it’s a kick to the ego for anybody. Secondly, it’s a key election policy so there is an electoral mandate for this policy and would be sacked as minister if she failed to deliver.

The unions don’t have as much to lose. If all else fails, they will be happier when Labour (eventually?) gets back in. Even if the collision occurs, I think the dismissals will be symbolic rather than holus bolus sackings. Nonetheless a minister ordering sackings will never create great looking headlines no matter how justified the decision.

I think their biggest fear is that the policy will last long enough that it won’t just be an easy Labour decision to abolish them, especially if National get more than one term. The NZEI and PPTA, although they have friendly relations with Labour, are not officially affiliated with the party. Labour wouldn’t suffer terribly in the event that they didn’t repeal this policy once in office. It’s not as if the NZEI and PPTA would start championing for the National Party any time soon.