Luxon has always listed education as one of his priority areas – and the move to bring forward changes to the maths curriculum fits in very well with his “back to basics” approach to it.
What was interesting is that he revealed the announcement was pulled together in a matter of days after he saw the results of a survey of Year 8 children showing almost two-thirds were more than a year behind in maths.
Luxon is a target-driven man. That is well behind target.
So he called in Education Minister Erica Stanford and the Ministry of Education for a please explain – and to tell them to fix it.
It delivered a perfect party conference announcement. The subject was a winner: education is never a loser in any political party.
It went down well with the party faithful. It will undoubtedly also go down well with the parents of schoolchildren, who will be horrified to think that children are so far behind.
And it reinforced Luxon’s image as Mr Action Man, putting some urgency elbow into things. His aim at the conference was to show members that he was not all talk when it came to his promises of a “turnaround” and delivery.
Luxon saw a problem.
He hustled, got himself involved in it, and then announced the fix soon after – bringing forward a change to the curriculum.
Stanford tidied up the loose ends – pre-empting the most obvious criticisms by announcing $20 million for professional development for teachers, work on new guidelines to help them teach under the new curriculum, and plans for children who fell behind.
That fix wasn’t too difficult: as Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins pointed out, Labour had been planning to make the same curriculum change itself.
It’s a stock political move: highlight some very bad numbers (especially if they can be pinned to the previous Government), wait for the gasps of horror and then announce the fix.
That’s not to say it’s a cynical exercise. Luxon has a genuine drive when it comes to education, seeing it as a crucially important issue for future economic and social growth.
Education is also politically important. Luxon has proved good at picking education policies that are parent-pleasers – from the move to structured literacy, truancy, the cellphone ban, to the prescribed hour of reading, writing and teaching. He also looks at the longer game: what the effects will be on students later in their education if they are not achieving at the early stage.
Luxon also has skin in the game: he has set targets to reach across a range of areas, including education.
He might profess not to give a fig about the polls, but he’s relying on delivering on those to climb up the polls. He knows he will be judged by them.
On this one, he admitted that the low maths achievement levels would make it harder to reach the goal of having 80% of students achieving by 2030. But he said it wouldn’t change it: it just meant there was not time to waste.
Luxon’s operating model is also become clear. If he sees trouble brewing in a portfolio – especially one of the big portfolios – he does not hesitate to get himself involved rather than wait for officials to put together papers or to see if a minister can resolve it.
He’s been involved in regular meetings over Health New Zealan Te Whatu Ora’s finances. He got involved in the “please explain” over the maths survey.
When Luxon first became Prime Minister, he fielded questions on why he had not given himself a ministerial portfolio as his predecessors had.
He’d answered that he preferred to take a helicopter view and be able to leap in when and where he might be needed if trouble came knocking.
He’s effectively become a minister of everything, occasionally.
