by Catherine Delahunty
The media tends to pitch a teachers’ strike as an attack on students – who will no doubt be thrilled to have a day off school should the planned secondary schools strike go ahead.
However, the real issue is the Government’s hostility towards teachers, who are calling for improved wages and conditions. Not only has the Government apparently dismissed the 4 percent payrise the teachers are asking for out of hand, but it doesn’t appear to be willing to even discuss other matters like improvements to working conditions.
It is clear from listening to PPTA President Kate Gainsford that there is room for negotiation so long as the conditions can be discussed. Some of those conditions relate directly to the benefit of the students. Keeping student numbers to 25 in laboratories and workshops improves educational outcomes. The theorists can argue about class size all they like but clearly when you are doing experiments or teaching using dangerous tools, a small group works better. Such conditions must be on the table as well as the issue of teachers’ pay.
Other countries recognise teaching as a vital profession but the status of teaching has been downgraded in New Zealand in a disturbing way. The OECD report “Education at a Glance” shows that New Zealand has one of the lowest starting salary for teachers in the developed world. I would venture to say that despite the rhetoric, female-dominated professions such as teaching and nursing have a harder fight for both status and wages in a country once lauded for both women’s rights and egalitarianism.
Before we start criticising secondary teachers for standing up to the Minister on their pay and conditions, it might be worth asking ourselves how much we value the education system and the frontline people trying to make it work. Teachers do so much more than teach classes, and if they are to inspire young people they need tangible respect for the profession.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Society & Culture by Catherine Delahunty on Mon, August 30th, 2010
Tags: Education, Kate Gainsford, OECD, PPTA, teachers' pay, teachers' strike
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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I know the usual suspects will bring up the mantra of not being able to afford it, as if education were a luxury instead of investment in our society, but it is vastly cheaper to invest in all levels of public education than it is to keep people in prison and try to educate them there.
Yes, conditions are far more important than pay rises,but if people are not paid well to do a good job then they will go elsewhere, for their own survival if nothing else.
This government has taken money out of every level of education since it came into office, but has not replaced that with better conditions or good consultation. It is not easy to see why, actually.
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Catherine – no wonder the report says NZ teachers are low paid.
It states the starting salary for a teacher in NZ is NZ$27,000 (US$19,000) when it is fact nearly double that – NZ$45,000.
Teachers have had a pretty good deal – Inflation has been 30% in the last decade but teachers have had a 50% pay increase – consdiderably more than most people.
If we give teachers pay rises above inflation – WHO do we take the money from?
Someone else has to have pay cut to give teachers a rise.
How about polititians?
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‘Teachers have had a pretty good deal – Inflation has been 30% in the last decade but teachers have had a 50% pay increase – consdiderably more than most people.’
Sure photonz1, but why start a decade ago? Why not look at both pay rises and inflation over the last two decades? What if the last decade was a catch up ?
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A Primary Teacher with a diploma starts at $33,914 and with a full degree, $44,348.
To put some perspective on this a policeman/woman attending the police college earns $38,730.59 (teachers pay for their own training) and a new recruit earns $57,260. Police do not have degrees but they do have private bars. New Zealand teachers earn considerably less than those in most OECD countries.
It could be said that the value of a profession can be reflected in their remuneration but I think you will find that the majority of the teachers claims are around working conditions and class size (to better serve the needs of children and address workload). The average primary teacher works over 50 hours a week.
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Peter Martin – teachers 50% increase over the decade campared to 24% for the both private sector and wider public service.
If teachers pay keeps increasing at a much faster rate than everyone else, then someone else has to have effective pay cuts to pay for it.
Who do you suggest takes a cut?
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It is interesting how many focus on the noncontact time teschers have, including “holidays”, but I continually have parents say to me “I wouldn’t want your job” and you only have to look at school carparks over holidays and weekends to see the reality of the job, and that doesn’t count the hours of marking, planning and ongoing study done at home.
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Hmmm, perhaps the Govt could borrow the money. Yanno…like it did to finance the tax ‘cuts’ for those folk who earn more than teachers…
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How about the people earning over $100K pa? Or are you one of them? Or do you have a little perfectly legal fiddle going on with a company employing you and its shares being owned by a trust that you are the beneficiary of?
We should pay teachers more, and it is those who are rorting the system should be those taking the cut (ie paying their fair share of tax) to pay for it. There are plenty of them – it’s not just Bill English playing the Double Dipton game.
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Part of the problem is, that everyone has been to school, and so they think they know all about the education system. And, they know – but from only one point of view – that of the “consumer”.
Deb
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toad – there you go again. Come up with an extreme position and insinuate it is mine.
NZ has a problem with unsustainable rises in pay for the civil service.
For much of the last decade we’ve had wage increases at an unsustainable rate, we’ve had an increase of the number of state employees at an unsustainable rate, and we’ve had awful productivity from them.
10% of the civil service now earns over $100,000 – way higher than the private sector. That’s around 5000 people. Up 1000 from just one year earlier.
For a full decade teachers pay has been increasing twice as fast as everyone else.
And toads answer to everything – tax the rich. Problem is you could tax the small percentage of workers who earn over $100,000 for every cent they have and you still would only have a tiny percentage of the money needed to fulfil all your wishes.
Personally, I don’t have a big issue with higher tax rates on the very highly paid. but as with everything there are pros and significant cons.
But the debate needs to be rational – not along lines of blind ideology. So that’s unlikely to happen on this site.
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I’m sure almost every senior exec in the public sector has a LAQC to minimise their tax liability, just as do those in the private sector.
If the figures you cite are correct (and I can’t be bothered checking), the policy I proposed above would impact more on senior public servants than it would on their private sector counterparts.
Anyway, enough of that, and back to teachers, who even in senior positions, get a raw deal in comparison, as Sprout suggested above, to police.
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So far we’ve discovered that the stats provided are incorrect according to both Sprout and Photonz, and no one has come up with an area where the 4 percent is to come from.
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toad – I think police probably get paid extra because
- they ALWAYS work holidays like New Year
- there are more at work at 3am on a Saturday morning than at 9 am on a Monday morning.
- they get shot
- they are continually dealing with the worst people in our society
(yes, I know there is a good arguement that this would actually describe teenage school pupils, but at least for teachers they are not usually influenced by a dozen woodies).
- they continually get abused by a certain section of the public (just look at this the messages on this site).
The couple of cops I know have the ongoing concern of threats from the criminal world against them and their families – something teachers in my family have never had.
I think police deserve extra pay for really bad hours, having to take their holidays when their family doesn’t have them, and dealing with the worst of society on a daily basis.
Teachers deserve good pay too. And an increase for inflation.
But not twice the rise every one else gets, like they’ve received for the last decade.
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Peter martin says “you seem to have overlooked the possibility the teachers rise included a catchup from the previous decade”
You mean like everyone else?
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Let us consider some facts here. The government is offering teachers a 1.5% pay increase at a time when most employees are lucky to have a pay increase at all. In terms of the adequacy of pay argument, let us not forget that teachers have virtual job security for life – they would have to do something really stupid to lose their job (when was the last time that a teacher got made redundant?). In this day and age, you don’t find that in the private sector.
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As contact hours increase and class sizes get bigger, teachers have to cut back on the services they give. In my case with a larger class size I have had to tell students I can no longer give feedback on their draft assignments. I have also had to turn down supervision for research students. Increasing workload and class sizes hurts the students in many ways.
As for where we can get the money from, in every institution I have worked at, there have been several unnecessary levels of managers, earning obscene salaries, and so there is plenty of fat that can be trimmed without harming the front line staff who do all the actual work.
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john-ston says “– they would have to do something really stupid to lose their job”
You mean like forging letters and the bosses signature to make the boss look bad?
I think there’s little doubt that in any private company you’d be sacked for that.
Going on strike to get double the inflation rate when you’ve already been getting double every one elses pay rises for the last ten years looks pretty greedy – specially at a time when many others are getting zero pay rises or cuts.
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no
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I’ll back teachers if they are not greedy.
But they’re going on strike going for double inflation when every one else is belt-tightening.
I’ll back teachers who do a good job.
But not those who forge letters from their employer to decieve their pupils.
Especially when it’s a school who already has been criticised by ERO for failing to have systems in place that measure children’s progress.
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I 100% agree with that point – I would rather have a front line staff member than a manager who simply acts as a high wage pen pusher.
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Trimming fat from middle management is a good idea, but it might not get you far.
Each 1% increase requires $50 million of funding from somewhere else. (so 4% needs $200m) So you’d need to sack over 2500 managers on $75,000 salaries to get the money the teachers want.
I’m not sure we have that many.
So – who do we take $200 million from?
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its a nother nuclear wedgee
Rob photo is write
Continually dealing with the worst in society – mainly themselves
pity eh?
Sack em all
They can join – the people eh?
eh?
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photo@11:22 – that’s better, you’re beginning to see past your own personal pain. Those teachers you describe (not greedy, do a good job, not forgers etc.) are vastly in the majority, so I take it that you support the vast majority of teachers and I commend you for your support of the vital profession.
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Have you ever been there and seen the school?
I have, in fact I was there the day the letter went out.
Funny old world!
Good school that, Otatara.
Good letter in today’s Southland Times too.
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Robert – it’s funny – every time you try your hand at amateur psychoanalysis you stuff up badly.
Latest ERO report on Otatara says
“Over the past three years there has been little other
school-wide achievement information reported. The board does not know how well students are achieving across all learning areas.”
So you SAY it’s a good school, but in reality no one has any idea of how well children are progressing and achieving compared to other schools.
Sounds like they need something like National Standards.
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National Standards, which measures achievement in two learning areas, will be a useful tool for knowing how well students are achieving across all eight learning areas. Quack.
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Not National Standards themselves?
Doubt has crept in photonz1 and you sense the stupidity of Tolley and Key’s plans.
At last! A glimmer of hope for you!
You say:
“So you SAY it’s a good school, but in reality no one has any idea of how well children are progressing and achieving compared to other schools”
revealing your blinkered adherence to the single, thin idea that national standards is ‘the answer’.
If you truly believe that the teachers, principal, board and parents of Otatara school have no idea ‘of how well children are progressing and achieving compared to other schools.’ then you are a fool.
Really photonz1 – have a wee think laddie.
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Read this photonz1 – it’ll help.
http://www.imperatorfish.com/2010/08/super-rich-pm-lectures-teachers-on.html
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Robert – If the school knows how well children are progressing against other schools, then can you explain why the ERO report on Otatara says
“Over the past three years there has been little other
school-wide achievement information reported. The board does not know how well students are achieving across all learning areas”
If you think this is false, then it’s stupid having a go at me – why haven’t you contacted ERO and told them their inspectors have no idea what they’re talking about and they are fools?
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Why not get rid of the public schools and replace them with vouchers and a fully private education system.
This way all children get a fair education. The private schools can pay there teachers what ever they value them at.
perhaps I’m channeling the great one Sir Roger Douglas.
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photonz1 – can you clarify your question?
The report says (according to you)that:
“there has been little other school-wide achievement information reported”
You’ve not said how much was reported. It could be 90%, in which case the ‘other’ isn’t much of a concern to me.
Also, where you cite:
“The board does not know how well students are achieving across all learning areas” can you tell me how many of the learning areas the board does know of?
The ‘missing’ piece might be inconsequential.
Your attempts to make the school seem to be failing are tenuous and unsubstantiated, but I invite you to fill in your missing pieces.
You’ll want also, to include everything the school has done since the ERO report to fix any problems identified. You wouldn’t want to smear the school’s good name by omitting that information, would you?
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Robert says “’something like’ National Standards photonz1?
Not National Standards themselves?”
The main point of having any standard is that they are standard – the same.
We currently have schools using different types of “standard” or none at all, which is not very helpful in finding out which schools need more help and which are doing well.
So the advantage comes from everybody using the SAME standard.
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Goodonya Catherine.
This is typical of this N-ACT govt. It always comes down to how much money it costs or how much they can slash from the public service. Surely if kiwis are concerned about promoting a future for a our best & brightest & in fact all students.. the dollars should be the second consideration. I look back at the Howard-led Govt. in Aussie several years back.. they promoted private schools & only the best for those who could afford it. The public school system, just got the left-overs.. I see a reflection of that here, with Mr Smile & Wave’s Govt. Kia-ora Koutou
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photonz1 – you’ve been criticising Otatara school’s performance – could you please address the questions I asked you, for the sake of fairness?
Or are you planning to smear and run?
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Your total distust of teachers and their intentions bubbles out of your comments which seems quite a contrast to your blind support of the performance of our police. Police and teachers have quite different roles and the fact that police are less qualified than teachers (five to six years for a teacher to be fully registered after beginning training) says a lot about the different occupations and the levels of responsibility, yet you are perfectly comfortable with a newly graduated officer earning $14,000 more in their first year.
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sprout says “….Your total distust of teachers and their intentions bubbles out of your comments …”
Actually it is youself….yet again for the unpteenth time….. jumping to extreme conclusions and wrongly insuinuating they are my position.
Don’t you ever learn?
sprout says “…. your blind support of the performance of our police….”
Again – by jumping to extremes you get it completely wrong. I’ve been highly critical of police at times i.e. the Steven Wallace tragedy, Scott Watson Case.
You base pay solely on qualifications istead of the actual job.
So working in the middle of the night, getting shot at, regualrly dealing with armed and dangerous offenders, people off their faces on drugs, having to take your holidays at a different time to your family, and dealing with scum of society – the most drunk and violent people we have, on a daily basis – is worth nothing to you?
If it’s so easy and so overpaid, then stop complaining and become a cop.
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Teachers do not get assaulted in schools photo?
http://www.3news.co.nz/Hundreds-of-assaults-on-school-teachers-revealed/tabid/423/articleID/145147/Default.aspx
You say you want skilled and effective teachers, but you do not want to pay for them.
It is funny that less Government interference is supposed to be good for business, but the same people advocate more for education.
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This is actually a useful discussion on how we should value different jobs through remuneration. The way you describe the job of a policeman could surely be compared to a nurse in A&E or a fireman or ambulance staff, all are dealing with life and death and threats to their own safety and all are paid considerably less than police.
Another area for consideration is the level of training or qualifications necessary to do the job and the ongoing responsibilities involved. Many teachers now have post-graduate qualifications and Masters degrees and ongoing study is now considered an expectation (but the costs are generally covered by the individual). The fact that teachers are responsible for the learning programmes and cycles of planning, evaluation and reporting and the pastoral care of a classroom of children on an annual basis is considerable.
Police do not have to manage the behaviour of those they come into contact with as well as plan for behaviour modification and future learning, make detailed assessments of individual needs and then report on progress. This is skilled professional work that takes much training and experience to do well.
Then of course there is the equity issue that has plagued teaching for many years. Men were the traditional “earners” in a family and any jobs that were traditionally female were considered as supplying a secondary income and had less status. It took considerable time for Primary and Early Childhood teachers to be recognised as being a proper profession and the increases in pay over the last ten years reflect a catch up, not undeserved.
My wife is a GP and we decided to take a different approach to our jobs when as a DP of a primary school I was working 70 hours per week with heavy responsibilities as reagrds staff management and a class of high needs children. My wife was earning twice as much as me with barely half my hours of work. I now work part-time and support my wife and children by having the bulk of the domestic responsibilities.
I do think one of the barriers to paying or valuing teachers well is more to do with the cost of doing so (over 50 thousand teachers?) than the value of their work.
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Kerry says “Teachers do not get assaulted in schools photo?”
Of course they do. As do taxi drivers, and medical staff, particularly in A&E.
But not yet to the point of having to wear stab proof vests as a matter of routine
i.e. 44 violent attacks on Police every week – that’s 2300 per year – which means if you’re a front line cop there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be violently assualted every year or two.
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Joe says “Employers want the rest of society or the individual to meet the costs of providng them with profitable workers – their profits would go right down if they were expected to pay what educated workers really cost”
Profits are already right down. If they pay the amounts some workers want, there will be no jobs.
Why is it that so many people fail to understand the most basic of economic equations.
Higher pay can only come when companies make good profits.
Doing it the other way around is the fast track to going bust.
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sprout says “The way you describe the job of a policeman could surely be compared to a nurse in A&E or a fireman or ambulance staff, all are dealing with life and death and threats to their own safety and all are paid considerably less than police.”
I don’t think the others are getting violently assualted at 44 per week.
And we haven’t talked about the rate they actually get killed by violent people.
As for training. I think the thing with police is you could make them do a 4 year “Police Degree” and wouldn’t neccessarily do them a lot of good compared to six months on the job.
Sprout, if it’s so easy, with so little training, and such good pay, and teaching is so hard, for so little money, then why don’t you change and join the police force and go and arrest Mongrol Mob Gangs and Killer Beez for a living?
I have teachers as friends and in my immediate family, and the hard work for little pay doesn’t wash with me.
Some of them complain of long hours but they always have much more free time than most people I know.
And the pay is ptetty good.
How long should teachers get DOUBLE the pay increase of everyone else?
They’ve been getting that for ten years now.
Why do they continually have to get double the rise everyone else gets?
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“Profits are already right down”
Suggest this may have something to do with the highest costs of capital in the OECD and nobody is getting paid enough to buy from NZ businesses.
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Photonz1-Like others here I keep trying to engage you in a proper discussion and hope you would reply in a more measured and informed manner.
I was trying to introduce issues such as responsibility, qualifications and equity into the debate and you seem to just focus on a very narrow portion of the issue. It isn’t just an increase in pay that teachers have claimed for but a myriad of other aspects relating to professional and management issues and class sizes.
If you base all your criteria of worth on physical danger it is our Teacher Aids and special needs teachers who should be paid considerably more. I am in awe of those who work with violent, disturbed and intellectually challenged children on a daily basis and feel very angry that Teacher Aids get regularly bitten spat at, kicked and verbally abused by the children they work with, yet are paid barely above the minimum wage and generally have no job security.
“Sprout, if it’s so easy, with so little training, and such good pay, and teaching is so hard, for so little money, then why don’t you change and join the police force and go and arrest Mongrol Mob Gangs and Killer Beez for a living?”
These sort of statements are unhelpful, Photonz1, I never said the police have it easy but opened the discussion to how all jobs could be valued in a more transparent fashion.
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Kerry says “Suggest this may have something to do with the highest costs of capital in the OECD and nobody is getting paid enough to buy from NZ businesses.”
There a few more thousand factors involved than cost of capital and pay rates.
High pay follows profitable businesses.
Unprofitable busineeses who increase pay rates go bust.
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“There a few more thousand factors involved than cost of capital and pay rates”
Exactly. Which is why things have done the opposite over the last several decades to your simplistic. “Cut pay and business profit will rise”..
You want us to prop up unprofitable businesses against profitable ones by subsidising them with lower rates of pay?
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sprout – I’m not placing all the emphasis on danger – just saying it is a very large factor in some jobs – just like training is not the only factor.
For other jobs – i.e. dentists – cost of (and length) of training is a big factor.
For others – i.e. radiologists – it seems that low numbers mean supply and demand has led to high pay.
Personally I think Police are pretty well paid and deserve what they get, but I wouldn’t want to do their job.
And I think teachers are pretty well paid and deserve what they get, but I wouldn’t want to do their job.
It just seems greedy to me to go on strike to get double the sort of increase that everyone else is getting.
So which professions do you think are underpaid, and which ones are overpaid?
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photonz1 – I’m still waiting for you to respond to my questions around your criticisms of Otatara school. Are you going to address those or avoid fronting?
It would be very disappointing if you were to try to avoid backing up your slurs of a school you know so little about.
Waiting…
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jeez Robbie – exodus en masse (again)
“Who wants to stay?”
Better weather- and twice the pay
There was a longstanding idea
Our Children therefore as the
Product of such flimsy notions
Bull is rattling on about the Generosity
of taxpayers
Double Dip-ton reckons the Greens are disconnected
Prepare yo the way bull ‘eh?’
Remember the Cops are righteously
indulging in our disenfranchisement.
sometimes a halt is the best option
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Robert-I am still waiting for an answer from Protonz1 under the last Tolley post. He seems to make some very damning and sweeping comments yet refuses to support himself with the necesssary evidence.
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He’s smeared and run sprout, smeared and run.
Come on photonz1, man up!
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robert – you’ve asked heaps of questions. I’ve answered all I’ve seen.
Your pleas are a bit rich soming from someones who never answers questions.
You’ll have be more specific than repeating the same thing over and over, without ever saying what you are refering to.
Ditto with spout.
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It’s a bad school, it’s very bad school. Quack.
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Photonz said: “Profits are already right down. If they pay the amounts some workers want, there will be no jobs. Why is it that so many people fail to understand the most basic of economic equations.”
I understand that, duh. But capital is mobile these days. Profitable business owners – if they are “economically rational” won’t invest in training a workforce if they can do better by keeping their costs down, their businesses under capitalised and investing their profits elsewhere. Like the finance sector or overseas. Others would rather have a house in Monaco. I haven’t seen much evidence that businesses are prepared to invest profits in the education system or training workers, even in boom times. Even as they grumble that they can’t get skilled workers. They want to get the skills cheap, by getting the taxpayer to bear the cost or importing skills from overseas (paid for by other taxpayers)
Joe Buchanan
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Joe – back to my point. If they are earning good profits they will train more people.
If they have slim margins there’s not a lot spare to take on new trainees, which will put more presure on margins, more employees means more risk to the business, and if things are not going well companies need less workers – not more.
Businesses making good profits is the key that everything else revolves around – higher wages, higher employment numbers, and more training.
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Thanks for answering all of the questions from me that you have seen photonz1.
I’d be very happy if you would look at these and provide me with answers, if you would, good sir:
photonz1 – can you clarify your question?
The report says (according to you)that:
“there has been little other school-wide achievement information reported”
You’ve not said how much was reported. It could be 90%, in which case the ‘other’ isn’t much of a concern to me.
Also, where you cite:
“The board does not know how well students are achieving across all learning areas” can you tell me how many of the learning areas the board does know of?
The ‘missing’ piece might be inconsequential.
Your attempts to make the school seem to be failing are tenuous and unsubstantiated, but I invite you to fill in your missing pieces.
You’ll want also, to include everything the school has done since the ERO report to fix any problems identified. You wouldn’t want to smear the school’s good name by omitting that information, would you?
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robert – as you you say you are familiar with the school you’ll have a better idea than me of what they have changed since the latest ero report. So you could probably answer your own question on that one, and let us know.
As for the rest of it, I’m just quoeing ERO as obviously I didn’t do the inspection. Like I’ve already said at least once, if you want to argue with the findings why do you contact ERO and argue with them?
I’m just quoting what they said and I wasn’t there.
If you are genuinely concerned about this you’ll contact them to tell them they are wrong.
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I am genuinly concerned with your negative comments about the school photonz1, comments you made without knowing the facts or without thinking to any depth, as you have conceded.
Perhaps next time you’ll pause before casting your slurs.
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robert says “I am genuinly concerned with your negative comments about the school photonz1, ”
Genuine concern? If it was genuine you’d go to the people who made the comments and put them in their report.
You don’t seem to have the slightest concern about complaining to ERO, when you clearly think you know better than their inspectors.
If you complain to ERO, then I’d beleive your concern was genuine.
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ERO didn’t post claims on Frogblog. You did. You can’t back up your claims. You look foolish trying to obscure your failed attempt to besmirch the school.
I take it that you are not going to answer my questions. I call ‘win’ for me on my challenge to you and would like to add that you are not a substantial commenter here because you cannot support your own claims.
Feeble photonz1.
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robert – Obviously I gussed right that your “genuine concern” with the ERO comments wasn’t genuine.
I get the feeling that thinking you have “won” is far more important to you than the issue anyway.
Call it a “win” if that makes you feel good, and it stops us boring everyone else to death.
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Answer the questions I posed for you photonz1.
Show some spine.
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Lena says “every month the bulk of my salary goes on teaching expenses”
The “bulk”? i.e. most of it?
Actually I would have thought that teachers would spend a lot more than $8 million per year (that only works out at $3 each per week).
I agree that schools should be funded more for incidentals that teachers often pay for from their own pockets.
How do you feel about the secondary teachers about to go on strike wanting to strike out the pay parity agreement that primary teachers have?
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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xuRUwKfTNx8/TCicS1kUZrI/AAAAAAAAASo/kksI4XoZ0js/s1600/spineless.gif
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http://gupshup1.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/winner.png
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“If they are earning good profits they will train more people. ”
Plenty of employers who make good profits don’t invest in training – why would they, when they can get the taxpayer, or individual workers, to stump up the cost of training?
“teachers… get a raw deal in comparison…to police.”
I do think the comparison with police is weak – teachers seem to compare better with sucessful business CEOs – requiring flexibility, rapid decision making, short-term planning to meet long-term goals, people skills, complex regulatory environment, valuable asset base, difficult risk assessments. The degree of community criticism if you fail, expectations of personal moral standards and level of performance expectations are probably higher than for CEOs, though.
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Sam says “Plenty of employers who make good profits don’t invest in training ”
And plenty do. The point being if they make good profits they can afford more training, and need more trained poeple.
If they are not making money they can’t afford to do so much training, probably don’t need more people anyway, and are more likely to be reducing staff numbers, and certainly are not as likely to be giving big wage increases.
Which goes back to my original point. Higher wages, higher employment levels, and more staff training ALL revolve around businesses making good profits.
If industries are overly restricted to low margins by compliances and costs then it obvious that you’ll get little wage or employment growth from those sectors.
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Sam says “I do think the comparison with police is weak – teachers seem to compare better with sucessful business CEOs –”
So lets pay them like CEOs then. There wouldn’t be a cent left for any other government serveces, health, benefits, police, customs etc, but what the hell.
As Catherine says “Who lives in the real world?”
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I was comparing skills – not suggesting pay rates.
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Photonz1 is either the PM or Minister of Ed! The issue is about what we value, numbers on a bit of paper or real investment in NZs future – our children. Education is not about making a profit – the value is not in dollars measured in the conventional manner. Unfortunately teachers don’t just teach, in extreme cases they provide food for kids who’s parents spend their money on drugs/booze, they deal with the behavioural issues from physical, sexual and substance abuse. Sure all these issues are a parents responsibility but the teachers have to deal with the fallout. Pay teachers well and it will be a sought after profession again with the respect it deserves and teachers that would otherwise look at other vocations or working overseas.
Photonz1 how about you spend some time in a secondary school in south auckland and get your facts into perspective.
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Norman – all professions need to be paid well or people will leave.
That’s not unique to teachers.
The economy is not good, and there’s not enough money for many workers to get pay rises, or at most rises just matching inflation.
So why should teachers get double what everyone else gets – like they’ve been getting for ten years.
Money is finite. If 50,000 teachers get twice the average pay rise, then 50,000 people have to get none.
If teachers get a double rise, what workers do you suggest miss out completely?
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“If 50,000 teachers get twice the average pay rise, then 50,000 people have to get none.”
Gee, after numerous comments suggesting the money could come from elsewhere,you still persist in a conspiracy theory that wages are a zero-sum game – could you tell us all who is on the secret socialist committee that decides the wage budget for New Zealand?
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Sam – the trouble is the chant for higher taxes seem to be the answer to to every need for extra spending.
And as taxes are not going to be increased, the money has to come from somewhere.
In the real world where money is finite, $200,000,000 more for a wage increase in one sector, means there needs to be a $200,000,000 cut from somewhere else.
Still waiting on realistic suggestions of where the cuts come from, or where we dump 2000-4500 govt workers to pay the teachers rise.
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“Still waiting on realistic suggestions of where the cuts come from”
Defence.
Bailing out finance companies.
“close the loopholes that allow the rich to avoid tax”
“10% of the civil service now earns over $100,000 – way higher than the private sector. ” Cut these salaries.
And the $200m you cite, if correct, includes inflation, so the actual increase will be considerable less.
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Sam – Do you not realise that if the govt hadn’t given it’s guarantee to stop the dominoes falling the situation would have kept growing until the banks went as well.
We’d have mass unemployment, govt plunging into unsustainable debt, and mortgagee sales everywhere.
If the govt doesn’t guarantee banks and finance companies, it doesn’t get the income from premiums for the scheme – currently $500 million growing at $250 million per year.
Even if you cuts cover teachers double wage increase, what about every other profession?
Or do only teachers get double inflation rises?
Actually we know that already.
The answer for the last ten years is pretty much yes.
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“Not only will our large industries get a completely free ride in terms of emissions, they will get so many free credits that they will be forced to sell the excess on the market for about $145 million.”
There’s another bunch of money that could be put to better use.
“Even if you cuts cover teachers double wage increase, what about every other profession? ”
Come off it – nobody suggested wage rises for every profession – you’re getting really desperate now.
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Sam says “Come off it – nobody suggested wage rises for every profession – you’re getting really desperate now.”
So teachers can take all the dosh with a rise at over double inflation – but stuff everyone else – who cares if there’s nothing left.
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“So teachers can take all the dosh with a rise at over double inflation – but stuff everyone else – who cares if there’s nothing left.”
Mighty keen on this phoney zero-sum stuff aren’t you? but don’t worry – I’m sure CEOs, politicians and others will scrape together the cash for inflation-beating salary increases, no matter what the teachers get.
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