When Money Talks Loudly

Green Party Contortions

The headline said it all: "Greens caught bending party policy to grant $11.7m to private school in Taranaki".  At least that's what newspaper Stuff wanted us to understand.  

The NZ Greens are normally casting their political "support net" well left of centre. When it comes to education that translates into being strongly anti-private schools and strong proponents of  a government run education and schooling system. 

But not in this case.  One of the Green's leaders has been "caught bending party policy".  He has supported government funding of a private school. 

The Green Party has been caught bending its own party policy after a private school in Taranaki was given $11.7 million to fund an expansion programme.

The money comes from the Government’s $3 billion shovel-ready projects fund, and was announced in a press release from Greens co-leader James Shaw who said the grant to Green School New Zealand would help the school expand its roll from 120 students to 250, creating 200 jobs.  “Securing over 200 jobs will help direct more money into the parts of the economy where most people earn their livelihood. These are the parts of the economy that are sustained when public investment is directed at getting people into work and earning money that they then spend in their local communities,” Shaw said.

“The support we are providing will help Green School to meet growing demand from parents all over New Zealand, and the rest of the world, wanting to enrol their children. This will mean more families can take the opportunity to put down roots in Taranaki and contribute to the future growth of the region,” he said. 

OK.  So maybe this strange Green support can be justified by the Greens because it will facilitate work.  All those jobs!  Also, the name of the school will be "Green School".  Presumably this moniker is not because some bloke called Green has donated $11.7 million to fund the school.  Of course not.  The Greens want a school where Greenist ideology will be imparted to aspiring young Greenists. 

Hold on.  It turns out that the pupils of Green School--a private school--will be off shore students.  It will also take NZ students.  But only the richest. 

But Green School New Zealand is a private school which charges up to $24,000 a year for New Zealand students and $43,000 a year for international students.

Green Party policy is opposed to state funding being given to private schools, and wants it to be gradually phased out.  ‘Public funding for private schools should be phased out and transferred to public schools,” says the party’s current education policy.

It seems that Green Party ideology and policy just got run over by one of its leaders.  There's a word for that . . . hypocrisy.

Cheated

Deep Inside, Rioters Are Angry 

How Come They Never Learned Anything But Lies?

Our institutions have stolen critical knowledge from young people and replaced it with the poison of identity politics and political correctness.

Stella Morabito
The Federalist

I suspect many members of today’s street mobs have a secret in common: At some deep level, they know they are awash in ignorance of core knowledge. Claiming to be “woke” is cover for the ignorance educrats have systematically instilled in them.

For decades, leftist academics have attacked the study of history and real humanities, and now an Illinois legislator has openly called to abolish the study of history. Recent episodes of Bible burning in the streets of Portland indicate the trashing of America’s cultural memory is well past the boiling point.

Our educational institutions have committed intellectual grand theft. They have withheld critical knowledge from students and replaced it with the poison of identity politics and political correctness. This makes it difficult for students to express independent thoughts, or even to think them. Where does that leave the victims who have been forcibly injected with this ignorance?

They can’t really articulate what has been stolen from them, but they seem to sense the loss deeply. How else can one explain their primal screams and street theater, in which they both accuse and confess “systemic racism?” After educrats and media hounded them for years with the talking point that Western culture is just tales of “dead white males,” how can they even be openly curious about it without the threat of being smeared?

It’s no wonder they can’t, since the rabbit hole into which they’ve been thrown is very deep. Imagine being trained to “think” only with your emotions.

Home Schooling Attacked Falsely

Insecurity Coupled With Ignorance

How Does a Harvard Professor Think It’s ‘Authoritarian’ to Allow Parents to Teach Their Kids?

Katherine Timpf
National Review


A Harvard University law professor has called for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling — claiming that the freedom to do so under our current laws is “authoritarian.” 

“The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Elizabeth Bartholet said in an interview with Harvard Magazine.  “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.”

Bartholet stated that there is “an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” with “very few requirements that parents do anything.  [P]eople can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves,” she said.

Bartholet also stated that homeschooling can make it easier for parents to get away with abusing their children and/or indoctrinating them with white supremacy and misogyny: 

[I]t’s also important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.

I do not, of course, want to minimize the absolute horror of child abuse. It’s disgusting; it’s heartbreaking; and anyone who isn’t a sociopath agrees that it’s necessary to protect our children.

Unfortunately, however, it’s also true that abuse is hardly something that can occur only in a child’s home. In fact, as Harvard grad and homeschooler Kerry McDonald pointed out in a letter to Harvard Magazine in response to its article, “many parents choose to homeschool their children to remove them from abuse at school, whether it’s widespread bullying by peers or, tragically, rampant abuse by teachers and school administrators themselves.”  [Emphasis, ours.]

Appalling Ignorance

Of Fundamental Importance

One of the most powerful and effective theologians in the first half of last century was Gresham Machen.  At the end of his book, Christianity and Liberalism Machen had this to say about education and schooling: 

The rejection of Christianity is due to various causes.  But a very potent cause is simple ignorance.  In countless cases, Christianity is rejected simply because men have no the slightest notion of what Christianity is.  An outstanding fact of recent Church history is the appalling growth of ignorance in the Church. 

Various causes, no doubt, can be assigned for this lamentable development.  The development is due partly to the general decline of education--at least so far as literature and history are concerned.  The schools of the present day are being ruined by the absurd notion that education should follow the line of least resistance , and that something can be "drawn out" of the mind before anything is put in.  They are also being ruined by an exaggerated emphasis on methodology at the expense of content and on what is materially useful at the expense of the high spiritual heritage of mankind.

The growth of ignorance in the Church is the logical and inevitable result of the false notion that Christianity is a life and not also a doctrine; if Christianity is not a doctrine then of course teaching is not necessary to Christianity.  But whatever be the causes for the growth of ignorance in the Church, the evil must be remedied.  It must be remedied primarily by the renewal of Christian education in the family, but also by the use of whatever other educational agencies the Church can find.  Christian education  is the chief business of the hour for every earnest Christian man [and woman]. 
[J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1923), p. 176f.]

The Slow and Certain Ruin of Schools

The Proposals For Tomorrow's Schools

Briar Lipson
Insights Newsletter 15 November, 2019


If someone threatened to burn down your house but instead left an unsavoury on your lawn, you might well find yourself feeling grateful. You might even feel more empathy towards your assailant’s complaint.

Many school boards will be feeling this way following Tuesday’s announcement about Tomorrow’s Schools. Boards are to retain control of most school matters (excluding enrolments and some aspects of property). The proposed new Crown entities – Education Hubs – have also been dropped in favour of a ministry overhaul.

However, while trimmed and tidied since the taskforce’s original report, the government’s proposals are not without thorns. Buried in a section innocuously titled ‘Learners at the Centre’, the government sets out a legislative amendment which, if permitted, will lead to the slow and certain ruin of school.

At present, the primary objective of boards of trustees is “to ensure that every student at the school is able to attain his or her highest possible standard in educational achievement”. Boards have secondary objectives too, like ensuring their school is a safe place that caters to students with differing needs. However, the order and clarity are important. For an undertaking as vital and complex as education, having a clear primary objective matters.

However, the government is proposing to erase the distinction between the primary and secondary objectives.

The NZ Minister of Education Does the Big 180

Back to the Future

It seems to us that the educrats and teacher unions in New Zealand have taken a big hit, resulting in a substantial step backwards to the future.  

The government education system, at least in senior and secondary schools has been under review.  As a result the system looks like it is going to take a big unexpected reverse step.  We figure that represents significant progress!  Some have been putting it down to the political pressure from larger, more successful schools.

The old view used to be that no student should depart or graduate from a New Zealand school without being judged as educated and competent in some subject or other.  In the relentless drive to produce students who had successfully graduated in something, thousands of "unit standards" (that is, subjects) have been created.  Over 9,000.  Subject inflation out of a misplaced drive to affirm all NZ school students in at least something or other will now been trimmed right down.

Purblind Hipkins Thinks He Knows Best

Messing With Education

Mike Hosking
NZ Herald

One of the things I appreciate most about broadcasting is I have been lucky enough to work in basically all aspects of it: radio, TV, print, commercial, non-commercial, government-owned, and private enterprise.

And the lesson is - nothing beats private enterprise. Private enterprise largely allows you to operate on your merits.  Which is why I feel so sorry for the schools right now who have had to form this coalition to fight the Government on the pending changes, the Tomorrow's Schools reforms.

What must it be like to be sailing smoothly, to be respected, liked, and supported by your community only to have the likes of Chris Hipkins come along with exactly no experience in a classroom (other than spending most of his life at school before he joined the Labour Party) and telling you based on nothing more than a bit of ideology he dreamed up on a whiteboard that what you're doing needs tipping on its head?

What Hipkins is after is centralised control of education. Boards at schools will be irrelevant, super committees will take over and tell you what to do.

And here's the frustration with this: even if they get it up and running the next government will undo it. So if you're a principal, or board member, or teacher, you're chopping and changing at the whim of policy wonks in Wellington.

And here's the further frustration: people like Hipkins aren't interested in your view.

Grand Claims; Vacuous Tinkering

Les Grande Jestures

According to one commentator, Labour Governments are habitually prone to "the grand gesture".  Going back into the Pike River Mine is one example.  The passing of a piece of legislation legalising cannabis for medicinal purposes is another.  

John Roughan is not impressed.

Labour governments have one habit that annoys me intensely. They love to trumpet big liberal social advances without doing the hard work. The last Labour Government made an art-form of this and the present one is shaping up to be just the same.

This week its Health Minister, David Clark, moved the final reading of the bill legalising medicinal cannabis and hailed it as "compassionate and progressive" legislation that would make a difference to people living in pain and nearing the end of their lives. You could almost hear the violins playing in Labour minds and see the wistful look in their eyes as they imagined this moment in a movie made for audiences susceptible to simplified social history.

You had to read the news reports carefully to notice that a great deal of work on the bill, now law, has still to be done. "Little" details such as, what cannabis products? How will people know they are effective? Who will be allowed to make them? How are you going to restrict them to people genuinely in pain or terminally ill? [NZ Herald]

We predict that another piece of vacuous legislation will be the "reforming" of government controlled schools.

Let Thousands of Flowers Bloom

‘A Matter of Fairness’

By Jay Nordlinger
National Review Online


Betsy DeVos is the unlikeliest villain you ever met. She is warm, polite, earnest, and generous. A wealthy woman, she has devoted her life to getting poor children a better shot at life. Bruce Kovner, her fellow philanthropist and fellow reformer, says, “Betsy is one of the most selfless souls I know.”

She could do almost anything in life, including put her feet up at the beach. (Any beach.) Yet she is in the political and policy trenches, fighting for school choice and other education reform, not for the sake of rich kids but for the worst off. For her pains, she has been called every name in the book.



Betsy DeVos, as you know, is the secretary of education. I say “as you know” because she has unusually high name recognition — something like 80 percent. Can you name the previous secretaries of education, under Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush? It’s not easy. Almost certainly, DeVos is famous because she is vilified — and yet she can use this to her advantage, as people pay attention to her. She has no trouble drawing a crowd or media coverage. The platform of education secretary can be a powerful one, as Bill Bennett proved in the Reagan ’80s.

The current education secretary was born in 1958 and grew up in Holland, Mich. This is a town in West Michigan, settled by Dutchmen, as the name tells you. West Michigan is Dutch country, and they have a saying there: “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” Other than that, they are not the boastful type. If you will indulge a stereotype, they are modest, hard-working, and very, very polite. (I’m from southeastern Michigan, and we’re a different kettle of fish.)

Last March, I watched Lesley Stahl do a number on Betsy DeVos on 60 Minutes. I thought, “West Michigan Dutch meets team of sharks.” DeVos was unfailingly polite and earnest, and she assumed the good will of the other guy. Also, she actually tried to answer the questions put to her, which they teach you not to do on the first day of politics school.

On a recent day in her office, I ask DeVos, “Would you like to say anything about the 60 Minutes interview?” “If I ever did something like that again,” she answers, “I would want to do it live.” She says that the editing was underhanded, although she puts it more gently than that: She feels she was “misrepresented.”

I want to ask her about resentment of wealth, which I think plays a part in the vilification of her.

Cry The Beloved Country

New Zealand At a Crossroads

We have been a consistent critic of New Zealand's state education system.  It has devolved into doomed ship caught between Scylla and Charybdis.  There are a number of reasons why this has become the case.  It is unlikely that reform will be permitted, for it would require a lot of egg-on-face having to be scraped off.  

Even if reforms were agreed and embarked upon, the vested interests are too powerful, to insinuated into the warp and woof of government education, that the reforms would likely fail. 

What are the issues.  The most significant is the much vaunted NCEA.  This madcap scheme decided that everyone in the education must be a winner.  Every pupil had to graduate with a qualification in something.  The NZ Herald has published a piece by an "insider".  His explanation of the extent of the failure of the government education system makes for grim reading.

The Minister Of Education Climbs Down

Painted Up To Look Like Victory

When we were growing up, one of our favorite rejoinders to the odd lecture from parents was, "Don't care!".  Whereupon, our mother's wry retort was,

Don't Care was made to care.
Don't Care was hung.
Don't Care was put in a pot
And boiled 'till he was done.

The Minister of Education, Chris "Hapless" Hipkins has been "made to care" over the matter of  Charter Schools.  Captive to the all-powerful teacher unions, Hipkins was determined to stamp out the dozen or so charter schools operating in New Zealand.  They, said Hipkins, represented a reckless endangerment to our young people.  Under Labour policy they were to have been done and gone.

Minister Hipkins, however, was faced with unexpected opposition--from the public at large.  In the past nine months or so, there has been nary a negative story about these charter schools.  The repeated account was that they have been remarkably successful at teaching students who were falling through the cracks and failing at the government schools.  It seems that the old Kiwi sense of fair play and non-ideological pragmatism came into play.  The media bought into the narrative and generally painted New Zealand's charter schools in a very positive light.

So, Hipkins has reached a compromise.  The dozen or so  charter schools were "changed" into integrated schools or special character schools which means they could basically carry on doing what they proved to be so good at--educating in their distinctive ways kids who were falling through the cracks.

This implies that when the Labour coalition government is eventually voted out, National can get back to creating charter schools with a vengeance.

The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly

Government's Spiteful Behaviour

Maori, particularly Maori educators are continuing to express their disgust and anger at the New Zealand Labour Government shutting down charter schools.  This decision has nothing to do with the quality of education being provided.  It has everything to do with the demands of teacher unions who are incestuously cuddled up to the Labour Government.  There is an old proverb about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.  The Government is in the process of doing precisely that when it comes to education.

A Murupara-based long-time educator has hit out at the Education Minister's decisions to close partnership schools in favour of special character schools.  Pem Bird, who won the 2018 Matariki Award for contribution to education, said, in his opinion, Chris Hipkins' actions were "profoundly disrespectful".

"It's condemning these children to return to a system where Māori and Pasifika underachievement is chronic, intractable and systemic."  Bird said partnership schools were making a positive difference for Māori and Pasifika students.  "They are thriving in these culturally inclusive and wairua uplifting environments," Bird said.  "In mainstream schools where 95 per cent of Māori are concentrated, they are routinely failed. According to figures issued by this Coalition Government, on an average school day around half of all Māori and Pasifika secondary school pupils are truant.
 
The Ministry of Education prefers this status quo of failure to continuing with Charter Schools which have achieved some very positive results in the few short years they have existed.  [NZ Herald.   Emphasis, ours.]

Dr Lance O'Sullivan, another highly respected voice, has also condemned the Government's oppressive tactics in closing charter schools for no good reason.

Why Most Schools Fail

The Essential Core

The government education system in New Zealand has become a behemoth which will never change.  That, we believe, is the most realistic assessment of the vast edu-bureaucracy and the educrats who run it. 

Debates over the "system" inevitably turn into discussions about quality teachers.  Most people instinctively realise that any and every education system will fall over if teachers are second grade or inadequate to the task. 

Allan Peachey, former principal of Rangitoto College was pretty clear on this.  Finding and securing the best available teachers was a core part of a principal's duties and responsibilities.  He describes what he looked for when recruiting teachers to work at Rangitoto College.

Exemplary Excellence in a School

Standards

A few weeks ago a copy of Allan Peachey's What's Up With Our Schools came across our desk.  Peachey's brief bio can be found here.  He died of cancer in November 2011, after a stellar career in front-line, hands-on education.  His impatient contempt for educrats and teacher unions is legendary.  His success in leading Rangitoto College is still spoken of with great respect amongst serious educators.  

Here is Peachey's take on how to raise and maintain high standards of behaviour in a school.

It is not possible to completely eliminate bad behaviour but I have found that the time spent on this can be greatly reduced if the school and its staff articulate very clear, consistent and challenging expectations of the students, and pay attention to the basics.

The correct uniform is to be worn at all times, and if it isn't we will deal with it; we will not pretend that we haven't seen it.  Swear within earshot of a teacher, and you have sworn at the teacher; the penalty for that is exclusion from school.  Deal with these little things and the big things take care of themselves.  Graffiti is rare in our school, but when it appears it is immediately removed, and it is certainly not to be tolerated on classroom desks.  Zero tolerance works.  [Allan Peachey, What's Up With Our Schools: A New Zealand Principal Speaks Out (Auckland: Random House, 2005), p. 20.] 

Of course the reason one would maintain a standard of zero-tolerance over behaviour and would practise strict enforcement of the code is that teachers can then spend far more time teaching and extracting the best from students.

Government Education System Set to Get Worse

NCEA and the Dodo Will Have a Lot In Common

We find ourselves amused at the prospect of the New Zealand government education system imploding because its centre cannot hold.  The pagans have had a free run for nearly fifty years.  The government has built an education system after its own image.  It now appears to be a decomposing mess.  

Hapless Hipkins is the fresh new Minister of Education.  He has announced a review of the NCEA system.  For those who live outside New Zealand, NCEA stands for National Certificate of Educational Achievement.  It has busily been defining standards of knowledge which can then be "taught" and the student can pass an exam or complete some work to get a certificate of achievement, with which he can then whip down to the local employer, show them the earned certificate, and get a job.

An important philosophical precept of the NCEA system was that it be designed so that no student need fail.  The system would produce an achievement in something or other for every student blessed to partake.  National certificates have grown like mushrooms.  There are now, we are told, 9,360 National Standards.  You can get NCEA certificates in beginning, medium and expert tiddlewinks. If anything exists which does not yet have a NCEA certificate wrapped around it--be patient, it is surely coming.  Since everyone is good at something, and since "something" would eventually have an NCEA certificate attached, every student would graduate out of NZ schools with a recognized qualification in something.  No child would be left behind.

This novel approach to education has had at least two unintended consequences.

A Couple of Notes from the Travel Diary, Part II

A Home School in Action

Yesterday we were discussing the thralldom to crystal methamphetamine as it is being experienced in provincial New Zealand.

A more positive experience on our travels was had when we stopped off at a small country town for coffee and some food.  Working in the cafe was a woman and a young girl whom we estimated to be about ten years old.  We were intrigued about the young girl.  This was a school day, and clearly the child was not at school.

It became obvious pretty quickly that the older woman (maybe the girl's mother or "auntie") was involved in training the younger girl in the disciplines of commerce: serving customers, operating the "machinery" in the shop, taking orders, and so forth.  What impressed us was the way the young attendant spoke to us.  She looked straight at us, greeted us, and asked how she might assist us.  There was an air of confidence about her that can only come when a child is exposed to the encouragement and loving support of adults, of whanau.

We looked at the menu, asked a couple of questions, and her older colleague helped her answer.  We placed our order, she entered it into the electronic cash register, then operated the card payment equipment, and delivered our receipt.  We then went outside in the sunshine to tables and chairs surrounded by a neat garden, growing all kinds of herbs and vegetables doubtless being used in the culinary creations inside.

In time the young girl delivered our coffee, then the snacks.

Between the Promise and The Reality Falls the Shadow

Educational Doggerel

Are Modern Learning Environments Preparing our Children for the Workforce?

Peter Slaney
Principal
Manukau Christian School

In a recent conversation with a colleague I was told that the traditional schools no longer serve the needs of students because they do not prepare students for the 21st century workforce.  The unstated claim was that the student-centred classrooms and modern learning environments that are currently in vogue are doing a much better job of preparing them.  Is this the case? 

A good starting place will be to determine what qualities and skills employers are actually hoping to find in their new graduate employees and then work backwards from there.

Attributes sought by employers according to national Association of Colleges and Employers provides the following breakdown, and this is fairly consistent with what other agencies say.

% OF RESPONDENTS
Leadership	80.1%
Ability to work in a team	78.9%
Communication skills (written)	70.2%
Problem-solving skills	70.2%
Communication skills (verbal)	68.9%
Strong work ethic	68.9%
Initiative	65.8%
Analytical/quantitative skills	62.7%
Flexibility/adaptability	60.9%
Technical skills	59.6%
Interpersonal skills (relates well to others)	58.4%
Computer skills	55.3%
Detail-oriented	52.8%
Organizational ability	48.4%
Friendly/outgoing personality	35.4%
Strategic planning skills	26.7%
Creativity	23.6%
Tactfulness	20.5%
Entrepreneurial skills/risk-taker	18.6%

Source: Job Outlook 2016, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Source: Job Outlook 2016, National Association of Colleges and Employers accessed 17th April, 2018.

Note the high rankings of written communication skills and a strong work ethic.

An Ill-Disguised Power Grab

Taking the Log Out of One's Own Eye

The Ministry of Education is engaged in a power grab.  It is seeking to acquire new, additional grounds to de-register private schools.  It is proposing that private schools lose registration unless they maintain "adequate physical and emotional well-being of students" ostensibly to the same standard as government schools.

What could be wrong with that, we hear you ask?  "Heaps", as the dung merchant said.

Here is one submission made to the Ministry on the matter:

Education Consultation

Ministry of Education

PO Box 1666

Wellington 6140

Thank you for seeking views on the proposed change to the registration criteria for private schools. We wish to focus exclusively upon the matter of student “emotional welfare”.

One central question is begged in the proposal to empower the Minister to deny registration for (or to) a private school over inadequate “emotional welfare” lies here: by what standard will the Minister determine that the emotional welfare of students would be, or is, at risk in a particular school? How will the Minister define “emotional welfare” is another way of putting the issue. (For the avoidance of doubt, we are using the title “Minister” to cover whatever officials within the Ministry that will be involved in the registration or deregistration of a private school.)

Will the Minister proceed to determine whether a private school is fit for maintaining the emotional welfare of students after consultation with the respective Board of Trustees, Principal, senior school management team, staff, and parents involved in the school? Or, will the Minister make a determination by consulting only with himself? Or will the Minister have recourse to a panel of expert therapists specialising in the “emotional welfare” of young people? Or will the Minister succumb to a facile following of medical-fads-ju-jour?

The Minister and senior officials at the Ministry will be aware that the history of state intervention in such matters is not exactly covered in glory.

Education Far Too Important For the State to be Involved

State Incompetence Is Endemic

Charter schools are going to close in New Zealand because of an antediluvian ideology gripping the hearts and minds of the Government.  That ideology can be summarized by the following maxim: "the Government does it best."

New Zealand has been pretty much a socialist country ever since European settlement.  Historian Michael Bassett characterised our dominant national ideology as "Socialism Without Doctrines".  He meant by this that New Zealand has always been a pragmatic nation.  "If it works, it's good" has been the idea.  A corollary sits right alongside this naive pragmatism--"when the Government does 'it' it's the best", whatever "it" may be.  It is held generally true by many that the Government is without interests.  It works for the good of all.  It does not seek its own interests.  Its contribution is objectively for the best.  It is not driven by selfish motives of profit.  It puts the nation and the community first--and so forth, and so on.

Of course, this is all silly nonsense.

NZ Education System: Ideologically Driven Mania

Stupidity That Beggars Belief

The New Zealand government education system is a mess.  It is the product for which both major political parties (Labour and National) are to blame.  Both parties bought into the fundamental egalitarianism of the system: no child should leave school without a qualification.  No child would be left behind.  

The egalitarianism of the Left required that there be no failures, no rejects, no-one without qualifications.  In order to achieve this, the government education system has had to broaden its curriculum to the point that its entire system has become either insignificant or meaningless.  So many of the creaks and groans of the current set-up arise from the utopian attempt to build an education system which would enable every child to "pass" in some subject or other.

Simon Collins, the NZ Herald education reporter has illustrated the problem: