Reforming a Government Monopoly

Execution is Nine Tenths of Success

The Prime Minister, John Key has announced some common sense initiatives in the government school sector--which is the monopoly provider of education in New Zealand. 

Several new positions have been announced, some with substantial pay increases.  According to the NZ Herald,

The Government will spend an extra $359 million over the next four years to support teachers and principals, which will create four new management roles in schools - executive principals, expert teachers, lead teachers and change principals.

Brief job descriptions of the new roles are:

Executive principals will provide leadership across a community of schools, and be paid an additional allowance of $40,000 a year. Each will work with an average of 10 schools

Change principals will be employed to lift achievement in schools that are struggling. About 20 of these positions will be needed a year, and principals in this role will be given an additional $50,000 a year.

Lead teachers will be "highly capable" school teachers who will act as role models for those in their own school and those in their area. The Government anticipates around 5000 will be needed.

Expert teachers will work with executive principals and include experts in areas like maths and science.  The role will be on a two-year fixed-term basis, and their own school will receive funding to backfill their role for the two days a week they will be working with other schools.

So far, so good.  Details have yet to be worked out.  So now comes the bad news, or at least notes of caution.

Firstly, timing.  All the rolls will not be fully in place before 2017.  That is two elections away.  There is substantial political risk that if the unions do not like the details and the implementation they will use their substantial influence in the Labour Party to get it to commit to dismantle the changes.  Almost certainly Labour will be elected in 2017 (if not 2014) based on the pendulum law of politics.

Secondly, selection procedures.  There is a large union rump in the teaching profession which believes that longevity equals excellence.  Therefore, top jobs should go to  loyal union members who have been around the longest.  The unions to date have strenuously and vehemently objected to all forms of merit pay.  Yet this initiative represents a form of the same.  How will they respond?  Cue Angela Roberts, (union) NZEI president:

Ms Roberts said she was "cautiously optimistic" and welcomed the extra resourcing to support teachers, as well as greater collaboration between teachers across schools.  She said its ability to work as intended would depend on how it was implemented, but welcomed Mr Key's promise that the profession would be involved in implementing the new roles.  "How this will look when it actually lands in schools is a lot different to a broad policy statement and I'm looking forward to working with the Ministry to help them make sure it lands well in our schools."

On past form, Roberts words are standard code for "we will fight tooth and nail to protect the interests of our union members."

It is critical that the selection of those to occupy these new positions should be chosen on merit not tenure.  But that, in turn, requires judgements about what constitutes superior versus inferior or pedestrian teaching performance.  Details have not been released (and are unlikely to have been determined) as to the selection processes and the entities who will finally decide who gets appointed.  Green co-leader Turei gave us a window into her mind--and the ruminations come as no surprise:

She said it looked a lot like performance-based pay for a few "cherrypicked" teachers and it was yet to be seen how the teacher unions would deal with that in negotiations.

Quite.  In addition, Turei--who is likely to be in a coalition government in 2017--shows herself wedded to fallacies of false dichotomy, and false cause:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said the policy was not well thought out and did nothing to address poverty as a cause of underachievement.  "The key driver of poor achievement is poverty, it is hunger and sickness. It doesn't matter what the best teacher does with that kid - if they are hungry or sick they are not going to learn. Professional development for some isn't going to help the majority of our teachers dealing with kids with great needs."

Turei implies that teachers--good, bad or indifferent--are not the issue.  If every child were to come to school adequately clothed, fed, and inoculated they would succeed educationally.  Which, one thinks, might provide the bones of a compelling argument for reducing teachers' pay on the grounds of their irrelevance.

We doubt not the goodness of the government's intentions.  But reform of a moribund legislated monopoly is not an easy task, particularly when there are so many vested interest groups trying to protect their respective patches.  And the runes and portents are not good.  As with all monopolies, the last interest group that is ever thought of is the customer--in this case, parents.  Until we get parental choice in the system, educational success will prove an ephemeral notion.