June 12 Editorial: A pyrrhic voctory

A Pyrrhic victory

What we need is not a will to spend but a will, which teachers and parents surely share, to ensure that that money is spent to the best possible effect. The teacher unions, the teachers they represent, and, judging by last week's polls a majority of parents, were delighted by Education Minister Hekia Parata's back-down over the raising of class sizes. The teacher unions have rarely been enamoured of anything proposed by a National education minister, but last week's victory was a stunner, not so much for the fact that it was achieved - that was all but inevitable once parents made their feelings known - but for its speed.

It came just hours after both Ms Parata and Prime Minister John Key had vowed to plug on despite the opposition, undoubtedly in response to the polls' indication that sticking to their guns was going to come at an unpalatable political price.

The teacher unions must now play a genuine role in examining the education system as it currently functions, however, and contribute to changes that will improve what it is achieving, particularly for those children who are struggling. If they fail to do that theirs will be a Pyrrhic victory, although it will be children and their parents, not the unions or teachers, who pay.

A great deal of rubbish was spoken in the wake of the government's budget and the news that bigger classes would pay for a taxpayer investment in better-quality teaching. Every loon in the land had a ready-made platform and a receptive audience, but the bottom line for many, that the government had tried to foist a dumb idea upon an electorate that knew better, simply revealed the true nature of Ms Parata's failure.

Funding teachers on the basis of one to 27.5 pupils was not a dumb idea, assuming that the money saved was to be invested in lifting teacher quality. The true failure was to sell the idea, and thereby to persuade parents at least that this was in their children's best interests.

The scale of that failure is illustrated by the fact that it was just hours before the plan was abandoned that most people discovered precisely what impact the funding change would have. At Year 1 the teacher/pupil ratio was to remain 1:15, and at Year 2-3 it was to rise from 1:23 to 1:27.5. Years 4-8 was to have decreased from 1:29 to 1:27.5; Years 9-10 were to rise from 1:23.5 to 1:27.5; Year 11 was to fall from 1:23 to 1:17.3; Year 12 was to fall from 1:18 to 1:17.3, and Year 13 was to rise from 1:17 to 1:17.3. Some parents should now be feeling that they've been duped.

A relatively small number of intermediate schools would have experienced something very different, of course, in that the proposal apparently did not allow for the provision of tech classes, and that had to be addressed, but surely that could have been resolved without discarding the proposal in its entirety.

The fact seems to be that the spectre of teachers being landed with classes of 40 or more, while genuine in the case of some intermediates, owed more to fantasy than fact. Not for the first time perhaps a worst-case scenario which might well have been resolvable was used to attack the broad sweep of a policy that actually represented an improvement, not only in terms of immediate class sizes but in the longer term via better-quality teaching.

It is not difficult to imagine that teachers are tired of being blamed for every social woe that is more likely generated in the home than the classroom, and of being charged not only with delivering world-class results with children who, in too many cases, are ill-equipped and unwilling to learn, but also attending to needs that were once the responsibility of parents. Teachers have every right to feel put upon, and it is understandable that they become defensive when their report card says 'Could do better.'

It is accepted even by some in the profession that teacher training isn't what it used to be, however. This is no doubt true of every occupation requiring training, but teaching is perhaps the only profession where the incompetent enjoy a very high level of union protection.

An apparent decline in educational outcomes isn't necessarily the teachers' fault either, however. They don't set the curriculum they are required to teach; they don't decide that specific skills that parents still believe are fundamental to anything approaching an acceptable education are no longer of value. They pretty much do as they are told, and if there is deep-seated dissatisfaction in some quarters regarding the kind of education kids get these days that anger should probably not be aimed at the individual teacher in the individual classroom.

And there are those who say there's nothing to worry about. New Zealand Teachers' Council director Peter Lind was saying last week that New Zealand kids are doing very well, as assessed by the OECD, currently sitting fourth (out of 34) in terms of reading and scientific literacy, seventh in mathematical literacy. Australia and the UK had slipped dramatically over recent years, and the US was sitting in the middle of the pack.

Dr Lind accepted, however, that some kids were under-achieving, and changing that had to be a priority. That would need a strong commitment from the teaching profession and the government, in partnership. Well said. That's what we want to see now.

Teachers might well have grounds to feel aggrieved, but they must contribute to this process openly and genuinely, not with a view to protecting their numbers, pay or conditions, but with the aim of lifting the achievement levels of kids who are currently not well served. Solving that problem will require change well beyond the school gates, but school isn't a bad place to start.

It would also be reasonable to cut the Minister and her Cabinet some slack over their conceding defeat. Those who are rejoicing in victory might cast their minds back to the last Labour government and its record for listening to public opposition.

It could be said that what we saw last week was further evidence that this government governs by opinion polls, that it treads so warily that all it takes to change its direction is to offer evidence of widespread opposition.

It could also be said that this was democracy in action, that the government proposed a course of action, the vast majority of one sector of voters (according to polls) objected, and it changed its mind accordingly. Any number of New Zealanders who opposed the removal from law of a parent's right to subject their child to corporal punishment might well wish that Helen Clark's government had been as responsive to public opinion.

We should be grateful that this government listens, even if it does so only in the interests of electoral survival. The corollary to that is that those who object to a proposal should offer something more appropriate. In this case that responsibility falls to the teacher unions, who must now help devise an education system that does the best it can for every child.

And let's have an end to the ridiculous claim that this government should be investing more in children. The taxpayer will invest $9.6 billion in education this financial year. What we need is not a will to spend but a will, which teachers and parents surely share, to ensure that that money is spent to the best possible effect. That's what this ill-fated budget provision was aimed at achieving, and that's what the government and everyone else should continue to pursue.