Damien Grant: Lesson delivered here at home
5:30 AM Sunday Jun 17, 2012
A policy was devised to cut the teacher roll marginally and introduce performance pay to attract and retain quality teachers. Photo / Thinkstock
Bill English mocked the demonstrating post-graduates and suggested they take lessons in rioting from the Greeks. They do not need to look that far; New Zealand's teacher unions have provided a fine lesson in how vested self-interest groups can defend their entitlements.
What has been lost in the debacle is that the Treasury Secretary pointed to hard evidence that showed class sizes made little difference. What mattered was teacher quality. John Key made the point that in the past 10 years the teacher roll had increased 12.5 per cent to 50,000 and student numbers had risen by 2.5 per cent. Rebalancing was in order.
In a tight economic environment, a policy was devised to cut the teacher roll marginally and introduce performance pay to attract and retain quality teachers. How hard a political sell is that?
Would you rather have little Johnny in a room of 30 kids being taught by a competent, energetic pedagogue or in a class of 28 being taught by an unmotivated dullard?
This, however, was not the question that was asked in the mindless vox pop quiz to the "man in the street". The question was "do you want larger class sizes" and not "do you want your kids taught by unmotivated dullards?"
Teacher unions were always going to react to a cull. Overstaffing benefits them significantly but the burden of this is spread over all taxpayers.
We remain passive while the unions successfully exert enough pressure to keep their snouts in the Government's trough.
Key talks about economic growth like farmers talk about summer. It will arrive; we just have to wait long enough. If only that were true.
Improving the standard of education was something real he could have achieved and it would have had a positive impact on economic growth. It is an opportunity missed.
Following the unions' example, the demonstrating postgraduates must feel confident about overturning the Budget change that prevents them being able to claim student allowances. They can, however, borrow money from the taxpayer at the very attractive interest rate of zero. They can still apply to tutor undergraduates, seek sponsorship, do private teaching work or, heaven forbid, get their hands dirty working at McDonald's, assuming McDonald's will take them.
Let's keep in mind that student fees do not cover the total cost of a university education. The budget provides $1.1 billion for universities (presumably including renamed technical institutions like AUT) to cater for 118,000 students. This comes out at more than $9000 a year per student, or $29,000 per degree. Plus student allowances.
The Government still subsidises the cost of postgraduate education. Expecting students to do some work is not a cause for rioting.
Class sizes DO matter. It is blindingly obvious and there is oodles of data that a competent, energetic pedagogue will get better results for the kids in a smaller class, (although ironically it is arguable that the the difference in ouctomes for the smae classes taught by an unmotivated dullard is less noticable).
It is also blindingly obvious that better teachers produce better results. And that kids who have home support and are engaged in learning form a young age are more likely to behave and partace constructivley in class. And that kids who have full bellies in the morning and are warm in winter do better. And so on it goes.
Improving the quality of teachers is without doubt a necessary factor in improving the quality of education, however you continue the Govts error in pitching the argument as a mutually exclusive trade off between calss sizes and teacher quality, rather than looking at each as part of a comprehensive education policy designed with thought and insight to achieve measureable outcomes in the long term.
Although to be fair, this Govt doesn't seem to think and plan much with any other policy either.
A much, much smaller amount was earmarked for this. And the minister could not articulate how this money was going to be spent on teacher quality. In fact it was going to be spent on principals and teacher training. Nothing said about the 50,000 plus teachers already in classrooms.
Also, if Nactional care so much about teacher quality, why have they cut just about all the professional development for teachers over the last 3-4 years?
You could conclude that this policy that was sneakily and hurriedly introduced was more about ideology than evidence.
That is why Key, English and Parata stood there with their mouths gaping like goldfish when challenged! If they are going to redirect money into teacher quality they need to direct it into something that is proven to improve teacher quality/student outcomes (which performance pay does not).
How many of them are there? Where are they? What schools and how many?
What are the Staff/Pupil ratios in other Countries we would wish to emulate?
In short, where is the evidence?
Is there no way of "culling" them at present? Other Employers have no trouble, by going through due process, of ridding themselves of incompetent Employees.
Cut the politicking and demonising of a Union doing what it is there for: protecting the best interests of its Members.