The S-Files

Starting on the Long Road Back


Contra Celsum has nominated Anne Tolley, Education Minister of New Zealand for an S-Award.

Background:

Public health concerns and the rise of obesity "epidemics" have lead to more and more strident calls for the government to do "something." Inevitably, that something turns out to involve public schools. Last year, under prompting from the Green Party, the Department of Education required that schools offer healthy food options only. More extremely, schools were expected and required to ensure that their pupils were eating healthily.

This led to the widespread practice of inspecting children's lunches, and the writing of notes of rebuke and exhortation to parents whose lunches were deemed to be inferior.

The new Minister of Education, Ann Tolley has removed the ban on "unhealthy" food, to a sigh of relief all around the country, except for the inner sanctums of the social engineers. The Minister's press release stated:

The Government considers regulation in this area unnecessary," Education Minister Anne Tolley said yesterday in announcing her deletion of the Labour rule. "I believe boards of trustees should be able to make their own decisions about appropriate food and drink options... I am confident they will act responsibly.

Schools will still be responsible to promote healthy eating. So, it will be a regime of education, not enforcement--which is sort of consistent with being a school, really. At least the new policy will play to the core competencies of a school, not try perversely try to make a school something that it is not.

Citation:

1. Athens regards education as the primary and most powerful means of salvation to engineer, create, and build a sinless or less-sinful world. All social problems are supposed to be able to be solved by more education. Consequently, schools have become burdened with more and more socialising and social-engineering tasks and responsibilities, leading to a decline in education standards in core subjects.

Teachers complain of being required to act more and more as an agency of the Ministry of Social Development and less and less as an agent of education. While this one act by the Minister will not solve the problem, it is one step in the battle to recapture the school system for purposes of education not social engineering.

2. The announced expectation that school boards and parents will act responsibly and holding them accountable represents a partial rejection of Athenian ideology. The alternative of legislating, regulation, and enforcement to make people responsible and do the right thing has evil consequences. It encourages irresponsibility ("It is someone else's job to make sure my children are eating the right food.") It leads to blameshifting and guilt transferrence. ("My children are fat and the system has failed them. They and I deserve compensation.")

3. It means that principals and staff can better manage their own schools. According to The Herald:

Principals welcomed the change and some said they had defied the rule with frequent sausage fund-raisers.

They now expected sausage sizzles would be upped to monthly and that some unhealthy foods might return to canteens - but ruled out a wholesale return to fatty and sugary fare. . . .

"Now we've got our tuckshop all geared up for healthy food, the children are used to it and we'll be staying with it," said David Crickmer, principal of Bruce McLaren Intermediate in West Auckland.

And now his "conscience would be clear" about his weekly chocolate fish awards to pupils. "I can do it with no worries about the food police breathing down my neck."

Mt Albert Grammar headmaster Dale Burden said: "We got a little bit tired of every time they wanted to change something in society they legislated for it rather than educating for it. We educate our kids [about healthy food] and so should the parents."

4. We are sure that there will be school boards and many parents who do not do the responsible thing, and will not strive to ensure that their children are eating properly.

However, for school boards and staff there is significant self-interest in being concerned about the kind of food available for sale at school. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that when their diet is healthy, kids behave better, their attention spans extend, and their test scores rise. That alone should motivate school boards and teachers to work towards forging an alliance with parents over diet.

For those who disregard the responsibility, by far and above the best policy approach would be to inculcate, educate, then name and shame appropriately--not for diet infractions, but for the likely unruly behaviour and less than acceptable test averages.

We believe that a far more powerful approach to parents would be for the Ministry of Health to write a letter once a year to every parent of every enrolled school child, mailed out by each school--should the school decide to participate--which made clear to parents how important a proper diet is to their children, ways to get information and help in planning and delivering a balanced diet, the likely positive effect upon their children's education, and a clear statement that it is the duty of parents to ensure that these things are done. The letter should be countersigned by the school principal and the student's "form" or "home" teacher.

Anne Tolley has taken a small step in the struggle to reform our sub-standard state education system. A small step, but a good one.

Anne Tolley, Minister of Education: S-Award Class I for actions in the course of duty that are Smart, Sound, and Salutary.