Hard News: Research Fail
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I'll conceed that my views on private schools may be somewhat skewed by my personal experience, being the privately-schooled toffee-nosed pommie posho that I am.
My personal experience was that as soon as you start to slide in terms of grades, or start showing that you might need a bit of help to keep up, the powers that be disown you faster than you can say 'standards matter'. They don't want anything to do with anything that might bring down their grade-point average, y'see.
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You're in Wellington with that garden?
No, I am Auckland as the day I moved here from Christchurch.
After a couple of years there, it was " look I can talk now and you know I can run so let's head north". My parents were so obliging. Auckland was where I got my education.(note the trying to remotely link to the subject of the thread) Eastie girl! :) -
recovering eastie grrl :)
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The allegation that all private schools exist to make money is ridiculous. Some newer establishments might make profits but most do not not have an owner: they have a governing body; there are no shareholders and the profits go into the school. Of course they still help maintain social privilege, but that is another matter.
I too speak as a privately-educated, posh, pom; and of course I speak very well.
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Where "well" means in the manner of a posh pom :)
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Not three holes in the ground? Whoops, wrong thread. We're not talking about Auckland, Hamilton and Huntly. Carry on.
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I speak very well.
Innit,
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@Logan O'Callahan
See this article in NS from two weeks ago:
Especially this graph:
Which shows that if you are bright and poor at two, by the age of six you will have been overtaken by much less bright rich six year olds. So the answer to one of your questions is that the top and bottom are much more made than they are born than I suspect many, especially on the Right want to know.
Are you listening Gordon Dryden?
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Not that I'm one to be quoting Anne Tolley in this discussion, but these factors are well known, and New Zealand does exceptionally well international in Early Childhood participation. According to this, 95 percent of pre-school children in New Zealand attend Early Childhood programmes. And, without raising the spectre of vouchers, we have allowed for some diversity and choice through Kohanga Reo and other indigenous language programmes (Pasifika), supported by the 20hrs subsidy, introduced by Auntie Helen of course.
It seems pretty unhelpful, and unnecessary, IMO, to make this a political ideology, left/right question. The children couldn't give a stuff whether the cone-heads sorting this out are lefty liberals or the righty righteous. Will someone please just 'think of the children'.
Oh, and hasn't 'congres' got two 's's?
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Tks for New Scientist references, Peter. Matt Ridley's book, Nature Via Nurture, is also worth reading. The most effective early-childhood "levelling up" programs I have personally visited include the then Swedish Government's (2000) early-childhood centres for Sweden's large refugee communities, from 100 different countries.
Missouri's Parents as (First) Teachers Program is also great, even if under-funded.
Like most of my friends, I don't consider myself left or right, but merely one still trying to sift out examples (not just in education) that really work, no matter who has introduced them or suggested them. One core philosophy: virtually every problem in the world has been solved somewhere in the world—and it makes some sense to apply the best. Now, fortunately, it's easy to find out about them.
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virtually every problem in the world has been solved somewhere in the world—and it makes some sense to apply the best. Now, fortunately, it's easy to find out about them.
If only this government believed in evidence-based policy.
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They do believe in it, they just don't accept it.
This way they get to divert funs to their preffered schools (businesses - this goes beyond education) and create failure in others by underfunding etc and then claim victory for their (schools) success. -
Too much science involved in Environment Canturbury saying no to voracious farm irrigators, says report by director of convicted dairy polluter. Sack them at once..
The Creech Report found that an absence of planning and policy framework had led to a "piecemeal" approach to the management of fresh water.
It found there was a "science-led" rather than "science-informed" approach. ECan put too much emphasis on the environment and its consenting processes suffered from inadequate staffing, lack of skills, leadership and RMA planning.
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This has been being planned for quite some time eh?
Come on Kai Tahu! Act together now!
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The politics of ECan and water have been going on for many years. Guess the farm lobby feel they have the upper hand now and looking at the bunch of redneck Ministers in charge of a decision, they're probably right.
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The allegation that all private schools exist to make money is ridiculous. Some newer establishments might make profits but most do not not have an owner
Paul, you are conflating 'money' with 'profit'. There is a distinction that needs to be made between the two.
My original quote was:
A private school obviously will teach for money. They are a money-making entity. That is what they do.
And I stand by that, at least to a point. As an entity, a school needs a revenue stream in order to, at the least, maintain and replace grounds, buildings and equipment as necessary.
How do they generate this revenue stream? Primarily by way of fees. What is the source of those fees? Parents.
Parents will go where they think their child will get the best results, and where they think the best facilities are. So the school needs to sell itself, both in terms of their results and their facilities.
This costs money, because good facilities and results cost a lot. Decent playing fields, up-to-date equipment in the computer lab, etc. Decent results cost, too, because generally they will be the result of small class sizes and decent teachers. To get small class sizes you need more teachers per no. of children. To get decent teachers you need to pay what the market dictates, which is probably above the average teaching salary.
So the school will be looking at ways to maximise the revenue stream, and minimise anything that impacts negatively on the bottom line. So, i'd stand by my assertion that private schools at least to a certain extent exist to make money.
And the reason this a bad thing is because anything that threatens the revenue stream tends to get treated like its leporous, such as for example bad students who might bring down the grade-point average. Private schools are going to go out of their way to maximise the numbers of quality students on their roll, and minimise the number of those who struggle, becase it is on their own best interest to do so to maximise the revenue stream.
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And the reason this a bad thing is because anything that threatens the revenue stream tends to get treated like its leporous, such as for example bad students who might bring down the grade-point average.
I think you're stereotyping private schools all into one box.
Which as my example proved, isn't fair. That was a school that wasn't cutting kids for not making the GPA, indeed it had created a niche for itself in the market of being a good place for some of those kids to go.
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MIA - send out the search party
MP for Christchurch Central, Opposition Spokesman on Broadcasting and Water
http://www.brendonburns.co.nz/ -
I think you're stereotyping private schools all into one box.
Which as my example proved, isn't fair. That was a school that wasn't cutting kids for not making the GPA, indeed it had created a niche for itself in the market of being a good place for some of those kids to go.
Ok, fair enough in relation to my conclusion - not all of them. But it's certainly my experience with the three public schools in my parents neighbourhood (one boys, one girls, one mixed. I went to one, my sister to another, and some family friends to the third).
And presumably the school in the example you gave needs revenue for all the reasons I outlined, and presumably makes it mostly by charging fees?
As you said:
it [has] created a niche for itself in the market
If I were of a free-market disposition, that would sound like a good example to support an argument that we should privatise everything, as The Free Market will provide. :)
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If I were of a free-market disposition, that would sound like a good example to support an argument that we should privatise everything, as The Free Market will provide. :)
Well yes. Quite possibly money is a strong reason why the school leans that way. Good on them for recognising a need and providing it I guess.
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MIA - send out the search party
MP for Christchurch Central, Opposition Spokesman on Broadcasting and WaterIn his defence I understand his Father died (in Perth) earlier this month - so he may be tied up with that for a wee while - but back on deck soon...
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Thanks Alien, that's a big defense.
It's a shame Labour obviously doesn't have the depth needed to takle the issue, which National are sizing up as an issue of National Significance in order to bypass local democracy.
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It's a shame Labour obviously doesn't have the depth needed to takle the issue, which National are sizing up as an issue of National Significance in order to bypass local democracy.
From where I'm sitting, it looks like Russel Norman has this one pretty much to himself. How do you rate his performance on it?
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Brendon Burns has done several posts on Red Alert such as this latest one on Key's latest comments on speeding up consents for Canterbury water. He doesn't seem to have copied them to his blog.
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More here. Not that I particularly support Brendon Burns but I agree with others that this is the beginning of one of the major battles of the next several decades and I want the politicians to be on to it. While driving through Canterbury last year I was shocked at the huge size of those private irrigators taking our national natural resource just for their own profit.
Raj Patel mentions the lack of value given to water and wasteful use of it in agriculture in his latest book 'The Value of Nothing' and how industrial agriculture may lead to cheap food now but we will all pay for it eventually.
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