Charter for Failure

Give me strength. Charter schools. There is a discussion on The Standard in which posters such as "Leary" do a much better job of dismantling the non-arguments of the Right than I can so I'll stick to what I know.

The thing is that if New Zealanders want an example of how National Standards and Charter schools will fail our kids they need look no further than Government funded tertiary education.

When National took over the reigns of Foundation Focused Training Opportunities (FFTO), Youth Guarantees and Youth Training they immediately made changes - changes which reflect their punitive approach to education.

FFTO is training for adults designed to assist them into employment. The National government identified that there were some people who "course-hopped" - went from one government funded course to another without seeming to get any closer to actually getting a job. So the first change they made was to restrict the number of funded programmes a person can attend to two. Trainees now get two "lives". Now, while there is no doubt there was the odd malingerer who used the system to avoid work, most people moved very quickly through that system. The people who did linger and course-hop were generally people who needed the extra help. Perhaps they were coming out of mental illness, had an extended stay in prison or - as in the case of one person I taught who had spent his first twenty-five years on an isolated commune in Golden Bay and couldn't read or write or cope well with modern society - found it difficult to find their feet. While those people moved from one course to another, most progressed - albeit slowly - toward being in a position to begin work. The courses they attended helped them develop life skills, work skills and the confidence to move on. Sometimes that took a while.

But the Tories changed that. Two courses, no more, then you're on your own. They reduced course lengths to 26 weeks. And they increased the educational and employment outcomes required from the providers. The result? FFTO courses no longer accept referrals who they know won't make the grade. If the provider identifies that a person has severe literacy issues or is struggling with drug addiction or that they will have difficulty holding a job after 26 weeks - the provider won't accept them. And there is no where else for those people to go. They will stay on the dole without assistance. The people who most need help, won't get it. Not under the Tory education system.

Now the same thing is happening to Youth Training/Guarantees. These are the courses for 16 & 17 year olds who have left school without enough NCEA qualifications. Traditionally students spent a year or two working toward completing Level 2 NCEA and looking for further training or a job. The government has now doubled the number of credits that each student is required to achieve. Providers' funding is dependent on this outcome. So kids with learning difficulties, young people with difficult lives, people who providers know will not achieve the credit limits during the course, simply won't be accepted.

The shame of it is that those kids who fail the new National Standards/Charter Schools regime are the same kids who will be refused help on Youth Guarantees and the same adults who will be locked out of FFTO. In the Tory education system those in most need will miss out.

A Move to the Centre?

Been away. Now I'm back.

Post election. A bit grumpy but also encouraged.

I've been reading the analysis and wondering if we're missing something.
Mostly I've been interested in this idea that the Green Party have moved to the centre resulting in their excellent numbers.

I'm not entirely convinced. Apart from Norman's ridiculous flirt with the Tories early on in the campaign - and I notice it was never mentioned again - Green policy hasn't changed much.

I wonder if the perception that the Greens are moving to the centre is actually a case of the centre moving to the Greens. In other words that much of what used to be "fringe" environmentalism is now "mainstream". I look at the young, educated Green candidates who are qualified in professions that simply didn't exist 20 years ago. They have studied subjects that one couldn't even study at universities until recently. Much of what used to be considered the realm of slightly nutty, home-knits and back-to-the-landers is now accepted wisdom. Indeed ideas such as sustainable management have become part of the mainstream conversation, part of the economy. Bright young things make their careers in areas once the reserve of crusty, Whole Earth Catalogue reading hippies. Those bright young things are mainstream professionals. Their areas of expertise are mainstream professions. Those bright young things are now candidates and voters.

I further wonder if the move away from Labour is a similar process.

Post 1987 the Right populated the accepted centre, neo-liberals infected the Left and the accepted wisdom of globalisation, the free market and every-man-for-himself became the mainstream norm.

I wonder if the same crop of bright young things know better. History has shown us the error of most of neo-liberal puffery and they teach history at universities. There is a generation that adopted the new-right philosophy wholesale. There is another that has been educated in the evidence that Don Brash, Bill English and Phil Goff continue to ignore.

Perhaps those same bright young things are part of the Occupy crowd. Perhaps ideas such as: the rich shouldn't benefit at the expense of the poor; Te Tiriti should be properly honoured; workers shopuld have basic rights and power in the system; a redistribution of wealth is sensible in a civilised society; a level of intervention is essential to ensure the safety and prosperity of citizens; collaboration is better than competition are becoming part of (yes, and returning to) the mainstream.

Yes - I do notice the surge to Peters and the Conservatives. But maybe that is the natural reaction of a society afraid of change in the face of the wave of fresh ideas - and idealism. I also note the crop of fresh faced nutters at ACT functions. Exceptions proving the rule?

Anyway. Just a thought.

unarticulatory

The campaign continues:

Last night on 3News reporting on the premiere of The Lovely Bones:
"it is the ommitance of those details that has unimpressed some fans".
It's true. That's pretty much what the reporter said. I might give up now.
Or not.

Books for Blokes

I attended the launch of this year's Book for Blokes on Sunday. It is always a moving and enjoyable experience.

I was lucky enough to be brought up in a house full of books and was always encouraged to read. Now it's just part of my life, not something I even think much about.

Adult Learning Support works with people who didn't necessarily have that luck or the advantage of a good education or who for other reasons (such as our education system's appalling response to dyslexia) haven't had a chance to learn to read or write or work with numbers.

Tutors at the service noticed a lack of easy to access books that are of interest to men. So they held a competition for short stories and published their own book. The first was a roaring success. At the launch of the second yesterday we heard tales of men taking it to work in their truck so they could read it at lunch time. The first book they had ever read. One of the winners of the competition was a student of the service. Students were also part of the judging process. You can see what I mean about moving.

I was motivated to write a story for the competition myself. It is the first story I've ever completed and so - even though it didn't make the cut - I was pretty proud to be shortlisted. Having read the book I see now that my pitch was a bit off. But I thought I'd share it. Proud father and all that.

The Ukes of Hazard played the launch. We both read a lot. Terry is always finding classics at the second hand bookshop many of which I have never read. Playing the launch was a way of contributing a bit to a great organisation and supporting a fantastic, creative idea.

Snow White

Snow White was an unlucky bugger. He really was. Not that he had a bad life. He lived out at Appleby in his little cottage. He worked on the orchards and farms. His work place would change as the seasons changed. He’d been around so long that he didn’t need to ask for the work. Each season he would just turn up at his next job. He drove tractors, milked cows, pruned trees. The thing is he’d do it all with half an eye.

“I’ll keep half an eye on it” he’d say. Snow was born with one good eye and one eye that wasn’t very good. Then, when he was a kid, he took a tumble head first into a barbed wire fence and poked out his good eye. So he was down to the bad eye. He used to wear glasses with one lens covered in bits of tape and a really thick lens in the other. Kids used to have dares about who could catch him without his glasses and see the hole where the eye used to be. If their parents went around to Snow’s place the kids would tag along and rudely rush into his house hoping to see his face before he put his glasses on.

Snow was unlucky in other ways. He’d lost his family in the war and to sickness over the years. He missed them. But he quietly got on with things. As he got older and the sight in his one eye faded, his life became more limited. He couldn’t do much or go far. He got by at work by knowing where everything was and putting things really close to his face to see them. But getting from place to place was a problem. Well, it was a problem until Snow got Socks.

Now, this all happened a while ago. There would have been half a dozen cars around Appleby back then. Most people got around in their farm truck or walked or rode a horse. Socks was one of those horses. Socks had been owned by all sorts of people over the years. Once old McGregor had owned him. Old McGregor would go to the pub and get so drunk he couldn’t find his way home. The pub owner would just put McGregor on Socks and the horse would see that he got home. People still remember seeing Socks slowly making his way across the Appleby River, his drunken owner snoozing on his back.

Socks was loyal and strong. When he worked the dairy farm he used to pull the hay cart and baler. Once, one of the big tractors got stuck in a ditch. They hitched Socks up to the tractor.

“He’ll never pull that out” said the neighbour.

“Just you watch him” said the farmer and he gave Socks a little pat and clucked his tongue. Socks took half a step forward and felt the weight of his task. He leaned into his traces and dropped his body so low that he looked like he was kneeling on the road. He planted his hooves on the gravel and without any yelling from the farmer, without any whip, he slowly, silently pulled the three tonne tractor out of the ditch.

“That’s a good horse” said the neighbour.

“Yup” said the farmer, “That’s a good horse.”

Eventually Socks ended up with Snow White. Socks was a godsend for Snow. Until then Snow was stuck at home and had to rely on his mates to get around. Snow taught Socks the way to the places he had to go. After the first year Socks knew where he had to take Snow each day and would just take his owner there. Snow got a cart and he’d just sit in it and let Socks decide the best way to get where they were going.

This was all very well around Appleby. Nothing was very far from anywhere and Snow didn’t go many places anyway. But Snow had to rely on his mates to get him to places further away. So when Snow said he was taking Socks to the Takaka A&P Show his mates laughed. Takaka was over the hill. It’s a big hill with a tricky road. In those days it took over three hours to drive over the hill. People thought Snow was crazy.

“You’re a bloody idiot, Snow” they said at the pub. “You’ll end up down one of those banks.”

“She’ll be right” said Snow. “Socks is a bloody good horse.”

“Not that good” they said.

But they couldn’t talk him out of it. Snow wanted to take Socks over the Takaka hill to the A&P show and no one was going to tell him he couldn’t..

“Fergus O’Connor takes his whole team of horses over” he said.

“”Fergus O’Connor can see!” they cried.

Snow got his mate to help him fill out the entry form for the horse drawn cart section of the A&P Show. He knocked off early on the Saturday and stopped at the store for some bread and stopped at the pub for a rigger. He made some mutton sandwiches and filled an old leather bag with his lunch, his drink and a couple of spare bits and pieces. He went to bed early.

The next morning, bright and early, his mate, Roddy, turned up with a horse trailer and a truck for the cart. He was going to give Snow a lift whether he liked it or not but Snow was gone. So was Socks. They had already hit the road.

In the dark, long before dawn, Snow turned Socks on to the road to Takaka and said “Just pop us over the hill will you, mate?” Even though he had never been on this road Socks seemed to know what Snow wanted and quietly made his way up the twisting road. Every time a truck or car came groaning and moaning up behind them Socks just stopped and waited for them to pass. Roddy drove past at about six o’clock. He couldn’t stop because he would never have got the truck going again on the hill. He just yelled out his window as he crawled by, “You’ll get yourself killed, you silly bugger!”

Snow could tell by the sounds and the light that they were at the top of the hill. “Whoa” he said. Socks pulled over and stopped by some grass and started to eat. Snow reached into his bag and took out a mutton sandwich and his rigger. He took a bite and a swig and felt the breeze on his face. He sat and listened to the birds. He smiled. “I don’t know about you, mate, but this will do me” he said.

He finished his sandwich and washed it down with another swig. “Come on, son let’s take a gander at this show. We might even get there in time to take a ribbon off old Fergus O’Connor.”

Socks moved back on to the road and they headed for Takaka. Snow didn’t win any ribbons but after that Socks took him over the hill every year to the show. Every year Snow and Socks would stop at the top for a breather and a feed. And every year Snow would say “I don’t know about you, mate, but this will do me.”

Betrayal

Who the heck do I vote for now?

I was so proud to be a New Zealander when the Maori Party entered parliament. I had enormous respect for Pita because he’d done the yards and although I wasn’t a Turia fan I had to respect the fact that a: she walked and b: she came back on her own terms. I saw a country come of age when they took their seats.

The moment they went with the Tories they lost my vote but now the Maori Party have supported National in their disgusting rip off of an ETS. Not only supported them but done a dodgy deal for their mates at the same time.

So basically the Maori Party is now a Tory party. That leaves us with the Greens (sort of ) and Alliance if we want to vote for social justice and sensible economics in New Zealand.

There has been a lot of hot air expelled over Phil Goff's speech today - many claiming it is his "Orewa". I think not. I've just listened to it and I think Goff was expressing the disappointment and anger that many of us feel at the Maori Party betrayal of their fellow New Zealanders - white, brown, purple and puce.

The Maori Party are now clearly a brown Tory party and therefore fair game to opposition politicians. Their agenda MUST be called into question if they are to continue to sleep with the enemy.

Goff’s speech was completely different from the Orewa speech. Brash’s was a clear call to arms to NZ racist voters. In Goff’s speech he’s asking legitimate questions about the Tories’ (and that now includes the MP) agenda.

There's talk about Labour burning it's bridges too soon. That they might need the MP after the next election. Putting aside the very real possibility that the MP will eat itself before then - if I was Goff I'd be saying clearly "We wouldn't do a deal with John key's Tories. Why would we do a deal with Pita's?"

How can you see the light at the end of the tunnel from the bottom of the hole you're in?

I sometimes fluctuate between being a social democrat and a socialist. I guess it's because on a good day I can live with and even see the value of a capitalist system. On a bad day, however, all I can see is the damage and injustice and hypocrisy of our international monetary system. All I can see some days is the brutal effects on the many by the pursuit of profit by the few.
Today is one of those days.

The link is to a New York Times story about the tent cities cropping up in every U.S. state as the depression (for that is what these people are experiencing) bites in the American heartland. This is one of just many stories you'll find if you search the interweb. The stories tell of the struggles of ordinary Americans dispossessed by an economic system (and a society for that matter) that is premised on the idea of the pursuit of happiness through profit and faux meritocracy in lieu of any sense of collective responsibility for the well being of our fellow citizens.

It makes my blood boil to see these people abandoned by their country. Just as it makes my blood boil when I hear that the NZ government caved in when it decided against including pay cuts for executives in the 9 day fortnight policy. Just as it makes my blood boil when I see the same government giving billions of dollars to polluters while denying young New Zealanders the sort of support they really need right now. Just as my blood hits 100 degrees when I see the number of (unreported) lockouts going on in this country as business sees the opportunities offered by a Tory government.

The young unemployed in New Zealand, the locked out workers and the people forced to live in tents in the USA do not see an end to the recession. If and when the world pulls itself out of this self inflicted malaise these people will still be struggling. If they ever "recover" at all it will take years to get back some sort of balance and security. The backward step they have been forced to take will limit their options for the rest of their lives. It is all very well for executives earning half a million dollars a year to talk of an end to this recession - they don't have to start from scratch again. They don't have to drag themselves out of the hole in which this disaster has left them. The highly paid executive isn't in the hole because their workers have taken the hit for them. While the guy they laid off is living in a tent the executive can still afford to run his boat on the weekend.

One of the most galling things for me is to see the almost complete lack of analyses in the New Zealand media. We don't see these stories on New Zealand TV. Why not? Because they ran out of time after the story about Paris Hilton's fallout with her new "friend". We don't see this article in our Sunday paper because they ran out of space after the two page puff piece on the cigarette industry. We don't see this in our daily or hear it on our local radio station because they can't be seen by their advertisers being "negative". You won't see this on TVNZ's morning programme because Paul Henry is too busy interviewing psychics or the guy who thinks he's found and alien skull.

We don't see these stories in New Zealand's media because the deregulated media is the mouth piece for the capitalist system.

That's why today I am a socialist.

Agent of their own demise

I've finally worked it out. I was always pretty good at maths but it seems putting two and two together on this occassion has challenged me.

I couldn't work out why if Nick Smith is so hell bent on taking ACC apart at the seams he would install his own man at the top. Why not just run the NACT campaign of lies about the financial state of ACC and blame it on incompetent management. The New Zealand public, always ready to blame bureaucrats for the ills of the world, would have applauded from the sidelines as Smith unpicked ACC and sold off the bits even as this cornerstone of our civil society was hocked off to the highest bidders.

But now I get it. Smith has installed his man as a dummy runner. Instead of going for a patsy to blame for the failure of ACC the NACT party have set up ACC as the TARGET. As ACC start to limit access to entitlements and raise levies the public is going to start throwing their bricks at the organisation while Smith and his cronies stand back, wring there hands and softly sigh "Well, there's nothing to be done about. If you hate ACC so much we'll offer you an alternative. It seems to be what you want". The New Zealand public, also ready to believe a headline or a sound bite rather than looking for actual information, will meekly walk into the offices of multi-national corporations and part with their hard earned pennies for an inferior service - a service with no investment in the people of New Zealand.

In other words NACT are going to get the victims to do their work for them.

I came to this conclusion after watching this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Znsx_wEi4c&feature=player_embedded

As much as I support their campaign, I believe the people who made this vid have got the wrong target. While they ride their Harleys(ies?), Suzukis and Trumpies to the local ACC office the real culprit for this situation slapping his Tory mates on the back and sniggering "It's working! They've taken the bait!"

I don't know if that SmileySmurf John Key's teeth have blinded voters or whether New Zealanders are just gullible but it seems there is a resistance to seeing what is actually going on here. This government will get keep getting away with this blue murder so long as we keep shooting at the decoys.