It is probably just as well that the Idiot at No Right Turn does not allow comments on his blog, because the drivel that he writes would attract the very worst of trolls. And terse comments from the MacDoctor. Take one of today’s offerings: John Key’s response to introducing charter schools despite never having campaigned [...]

Now here is a very bad idea. Only students doing courses that benefit the economy should receive interest-free loans, according to a suggestion from a leading accountancy group. The idea in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2011 was prompted by “long-term decline” of graduates entering agriculture. While I have sympathy for the agribusiness sector, because it is [...]

The Myth of Fairness The words “Fair” and “Fairness” are among the commonest words used by the Left to control debate. They are very powerful. Most people would like to believe that they are fair-minded and have a sense of justice and fair-play. Certainly unfair treatment gets a person’s hackles up and provokes an indignant [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. Educational spam always feels to me like it has an additional agenda besides increasing a newspapers sales. Certainly, the left wing blogs have all taken to calling Anne Tolley out for this one: Top school’s revolt against NCEA One [...]

The Boards of 225 schools have said they will refuse to implement the achievement targets of the New National Standards next year. This is hardly a great shock. It has been quite obvious that the problem with the new standards from the teacher’s union perspective is not the standards themselves, but the achievement targets that [...]

There is no doubt which side of the world-view divide the Herald on Sunday sits. They report: Sacked for teaching King Lear Shakespearean tragedy has become high farce, after a Christian high school sacked a teacher for using a “morally defiling” King Lear text in class. Suzette Martin, 40, was sacked from the private Westmount School [...]

I’m betting that the left (when they find the article) will have something derisive to say about Muriel Newman’s point that children are not protected from overt educationallly-driven political indoctrination in New Zealand. She cites Al Gore’s strangely acclaimed powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth as an example. Personally, I think Gore’s movie is nowhere near [...]

I confess I do not really understand the debate on national standards for education. This is a sad admission for an opinionated bloke like myself, but I really just don’t understand the teacher’s unions objections to them. I have tried to follow the debate but the union’s response makes no sense at all to me. It [...]

I’m puzzled. There seems to be a lot of negativity being generated by the principles and teachers concerning the new education standards introduced yesterday. I understand the usual plea of  schools saying they “needed more time to prepare”. The education system is notorious for having more resistance to change than even the health system, a [...]

Remember Helen Clark’s “keep ‘em in school” plan’s? John Key cried “me too” and has followed through with a scheme for employing young workers. Proper apprenticing schemes have yet to be set up. It is a pity that politicians usually have egos that are too big to be humbled, because it seems that normal market [...]