Letting go the Cudgel – a response to NZSTA president Lorraine Kerr

Dear Editor,

Lorraine Kerr’s comments in the recent article “Clutching at Straws” amply illustrate the fundamental failing of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ – the division between management and staff. Any management system that sets itself against its staff is doomed to failure.

It’s time to set aside the negative rhetoric Ms Kerr, put down the cudgel and talk to teachers rather than bash them collectively with the label ‘militant unionist’ that we have so often been bashed with before.

Yes, there is now no doubt that ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ has not been the success that it was touted to be. It has failed in that most basic requirement that any education system needs in order to be a success – staffing.

The downward trend in staff available to fill teaching positions was evident very soon after the introduction of ‘Tomorrows Schools’. It is clear that there is a lack of confidence amongst teaching staff in ‘Tomorrows Schools’ as an employing entity.

I notice Ms Kerr, that you did not mention the MoE survey, ‘Perceptions of Teachers and Teaching’ by Professors Kane and Mallon, or the comments from Prof. Michael Fullen, a visiting Canadian educationalist.

The MoE survey reveals what appears to be a universal lack of confidence in the management of our education system. Prof. Michael Fullens comments indicate that we are no longer the top-performing education system that we once were.

No matter what the negative perceptions of the former Education Department were, the fact remains that the decline in staffing ability and hence performance of our schools, started with and has continued with the introduction of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’.

It’s been 20 years since the introduction of the ‘reforms’ known as ‘Tomorrows Schools’. The results are clear – failure.

It is time for a review of our education system. It is time for NZSTA, MoE and teachers to sit down together, to pull ourselves out of the ideological quagmire that we have wallowed in for so long and discuss collectively how to take our education system forward into the 21st century.

— Craig Dobson, HOD Science