Briefly on the Teachers Strike

On the AM Show this morning two unionist teachers – followed by Jan Tinetti made a complete mess of everything by not being honest.

Unionist: “Schools are the heart of the community.”

No they are not! Families are and while teachers hold themselves and their schools to be preeminent they will continue to lose students and have the huge attendance problems. This is part of the reason why we have an attendance crisis, 10,000 students not enrolled anyway and many leaving for homeschooling.

Unionist: “Striking is the only option.”

No it isn’t. Here are some others.
– Do a better job and improve results to bring back the support of families and the community.
– Acknowledge that some teachers are a lot better than others and find pathways out of teaching for those that need a different career.
– Acknowledge that many Primary school teachers are underqualified and offer to ensure that they upskill; especially in Math and Science.
– Reject the “Curriculum Refresh” which is full of ideological nonsense and campaign for a “Curriculum Simplification”.
– Be creative and positive and stop whining about your jobs and acting like the worst treated people in NZ.
– In terms of protest; don’t put kids on the street for the day. Take a leaf out of the book of the Eastern Europeans in the late 1980s. You claim that you work 24/7 – so have a full school day tomorrow. Work as you normally do until evening (there are no empty school car-parks in NZ at 3.30pm each day), then have a staff dinner, candle-light vigil and ask all of your families and community to join you. My guess is that it would be 5 times as powerful.
– Note that great schools like Manukura, Mt Hobson Academy, all of the Private Schools, sections of the Catholic Schools and compassionate State schools who simply feel that their students have missed to much school are fully open tomorrow.

Unionist: “The Ministry needs to decrease class sizes.”

A complete myth. Schools are funded by the number of students and then determine their own class-size through use of their operational funding.

A few years back I visited Harlem Children’s Zone. Their key rule is to never put the children on the street. They run from 7am – 7pm. They have incredible results. To put a child on the street tomorrow in many NZ communities is to put them at risk or require parents to fork out a days baby-sitting or take one of their precious annual leave days – while realising teachers have 12 weeks holiday a year.

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