Winner versus loser schools
10. Schoolchildren—Universal Scholarship
[Uncorrected transcript—subject to correction and further editing.]
10. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Education: Does he agree that a scholarship for every child, as outlined in my speech to the ACT party conference on Saturday, would increase choice, allow greater diversity and flexibility, and improve educational achievement; if not, why not?
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) :No, but I do agree with the member’s opening statement in his speech that education is the key to our long-term prosperity. What I do not agree with is his plan to introduce an education voucher scheme under a new name. Such a scheme would just create winner schools and loser schools, and do nothing to improve overall educational outcomes. Although I disagree with ACT’s voucher plan, I congratulate the party on at least coming up with a policy. That is more than we can say about the National Party.
Rodney Hide: Does the Minister think it is right and fair that families that take responsibility for their children’s education and send their children to an independent school have to pay twice for that privilege, once through their taxes and again through their school fees; if so, why?
Hon CHRIS CARTER: I thought the ACT party stood for choice. Parents do have the choice to send their children to a quality State school or to a private school. The plan by ACT to have a voucher system would simply perpetuate the inequalities we had under bulk funding, which saw the development of winner schools and loser schools.
Dianne Yates: What reports has the Minister seen about the impact of voucher-style education systems?
Hon CHRIS CARTER: I am aware of research by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research entitled Can Vouchers Deliver Better Education?, which reviews international studies for their relevance to New Zealand. It concludes: “Competition for students by schools does not improve quality, achievement, or access. Such schemes favour a minority at the expense of the majority. Competition among schools is hardest on those serving lower socio-economic communities, and in fact depresses overall educational levels.” These outcomes would never be acceptable to a Labour-led Government, and I would welcome Roger Douglas’s, and, indeed, National’s education spokesperson, Anne Tolley’s, campaigning on just such a policy.
Rodney Hide: Does the Minister feel so strongly against giving parents a choice of school, including independent schools, that he would resign as Minister of Education if that were a condition of support from MMP parties for a future Government?
Hon CHRIS CARTER: I think the likelihood of Labour going into coalition with ACT is nil, especially with the addition of Roger Douglas to its party list.
The Netherlands has a
The Netherlands has a voucher system and it doesn't seem to be bad for the quality, nor for the overall cost. Just vouchers probably wouldn't be enough, school boards need to get appropriate responsibility as well, but there is no doubt this might be a big boost for the educational standards.
Mr Carter can complain about National having no policy, but going with the failed policies of the past isn't help us either.
Craig Stuart Propoganda:
Craig Stuart
Propoganda: For Labour education is about their propoganda, their agent for social change, promoting their values. They are not about to let families have choice because then the state looses control. Mr Carter has his own agenda to push and he wants noone to be free to think any differently. State education for decades has chanted the mantra that the only difference between a man and a women is totally to do with upbringing and nothing to do with genetics and the only difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual is totally to do with genetics and nothing to do with upbringing. To think otherwise might be logical but politically unacceptable. Freedom of expression might lead people to suggest that the Honerable Chris Carter has a learned social disorder which would be bad for society by any measure to indoctrinate vulnerable children with such aberant ideas. Such freedom of expression is not allowed in our education system!
Craig, I don't quite follow
Craig, I don't quite follow your argument. (I think ACT has by far the best education policy and would hate people to be put off voting for ACT because they thought everyone in the party had your point of view)
You seem to be having a dig at Chris Carters sexuality. I can't see how that is relevant to anything to do with education. ( I don't agree with Carters ideas on a state only education )
I can only hope that you are not really an ACT supporter and are just trying to make the party look bad! (I recall Graham Capels had a similar viewpoint against homosexuality).
Please let me know if I have taken what you say the wrong way- it is just important to me that people reading this wondering what ACT stands for don't get the wrong impression. My understanding is that ACT stands for freedom. That in my mind doesn't extend to having the right to persecute others for their beliefs or way of life.
I think any form of brainwashing of kids is wrong, but I guess it is probably hard to stop as parents will ultimately tell their kids what they want. You will tell your kids perhaps that your point of view on homosexuality is right perhaps. Others who have strong religious beliefs will have children growing up believing those ideas. I guess it is hard not to brainwash kids in this regard. Parents choosing the school their kids go to is an extension of their right to brainwash their own kids I guess. It is hard to swallow for those of us that disagree with somebody else's ideas on something such as religion that they are forcing it on their children through education.
I do still believe though that every parent probably believes they know what is best for their kids, and I know I do to. I think that having the state decide what and how kids will be taught is a much worse alternative than what ACT proposes, which I think is by far the most sensible thing I have heard as far as education policy.
There should be freedom of expression in education as you state. I guess the limitation on this should be the same as in society where freedom of expression is good as long as it doesn't infringe on somebody else's basic human rights.
You seem excessively paranoid about "vulnerable" kids being exposed to "aberrant" ideas. I am not entirely sure what you base your beliefs on. I myself have lived some time in the eastern suburbs of Sydney where homosexuality is fairly "normal". The thing that struck me was that really as long as people love each other thats what matters. Gay couples hung out with straight couples and their kids. I don't think anyone was particularly paranoid about the gayness rubbing off on their kids!
The director who set up and runs of one of the better private schools in the eastern suburbs (non denominational but predominantly jewish) Was gay and with his partner have recently adopted. The school gets top results- thus it is popular. As far as I am aware they don't promote homosexuality or religion. Its really just not an issue. The locals there are pretty broad minded and tolerant of other peoples way of life. I live in Tauranga at present. It is an unusual thing that happens here- whenever I go for a run young carloads of teens/young adults yell out the window "faggot". I waved and said gidday to a group of three teenagers as I do to most people when out running a few days ago and they got very aggressive and said don't wave at us you "homo". They weren't your kids were they?
When my son is old enough to go to school I hope I can choose the school he goes to and I will be voting for ACT in the hope that I will have this choice.
Classic stuff Rodney. The
Classic stuff Rodney. The scholarship scheme is excellent and will lead to a higher quality of education all round - not just for the rich either, as Carter seems to be making out.
I don't know why they made Carter Minister of Education - as we found out late last year, he can't spell to save himself and he doesn't have a great grasp on grammar either.
Harsh Call regarding
Harsh Call regarding spelling!
Oddly enough I struggle to spell too, It seems to be the part of my brain that lets me down. Thank goodness for spell checkers!
I went through high school under the impression I was fairly poor at English largely due to spelling. It meant I had little motivation to learn and it wasn't until the advent of the spell check that I succeeded academically ( I got top marks in my compulsory English paper to get into Medical school -despite usual marks of about 60% right through high school- and not having done English in 7th form as I thought I was bad at it! As it turned out I quite enjoyed it!) The education system had just failed me! Everyone is different and everyone learns in different ways. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses
Its a pretty good example though of why we should vote for ACT.
The education system fails a lot of people. (My teachers all thought like you with regard to spelling=dumb). There are many different ways to learn and I don't think the state gets it very right.
I think ACTs policy on education is great as it will allow schools that teach well to succeed. Ones that don't won't. There inevitably will not be equality. But overall everyone will be better off than they are now I believe. Poor teachers will struggle to find jobs unfortunately and poor schools will struggle to find students. I can't see how that is bad. As long a parents can choose where their kids go to school and have teh same amount as before spent on their education I can't see how things could be worse.
The argument against this is of course that some people are perhaps not as good as the government in deciding what is best for their kids. A labour government might say perhaps that those with an IQ of say less than 100 might not be the best judge of what is the best way to teach their kids. That may or may not be correct. the trouble with this argument in my mind is that I am sure all of these parents individually still believe they know what is right for their kids, and that the same group of paternalistic people were happy for the same group of people (that 50% of the population of below average IQ!) to vote them in.
Its a bit of a harsh way of putting things of course but it does seem odd to claim a group of people are incompetent to decide things for themselves on one hand but competent to vote.
Still it would be outrageous to try to decide who should and shouldn't vote!!
I was against MMP when it was proposed, but realise now it allows change to occur in specific areas. I imagine national will get into power. In the old days of First past the Post ACT would have limited usefulness. Now we have to ability to vote for a party like ACT to allow some influence of issues we think are important.
I will be voting for ACT with the hope it gets to form a government with national so that it has influence on some policies that are important to me- particularly education.
Nice work Rodney you are campaigning well!
(ps please excuse any spelling mistake or grammatical errors!)
I think this idea of ACTs is
I think this idea of ACTs is great. But does this mean private schools are going to be more accessable to the middle class ie more affordable? There will be a lot of families out there that will most likely want a private education for their children if its only going to cost a little more to do so as $8000 is a big subisdy for the government.
The reason why a large
The reason why a large proportionate of Maori fail in the current education system is because Maori are restricted by the government educational paradigms. In other words, because the government can dictate how Maori children should learn and how to think it limits the amount of autonomy Maori communities can contribute to make sure their tamariki succeed. Why can’t Maori decide for themselves how they wish their children to be educated? It may be by kohonga, kura kaupapa home schooling or even mainstream? Maori should have the freedom (not privilege) to choose! Only ACT can provide sensible policies which will enable the chance for "personal expression" where Maori themselves have the "freedom" to decide on how they would like their children to be educated. Kia Ora Top Stuff
Yo Rodney, Where you at,
Yo Rodney,
Where you at, holmes?
Love,
Easy
Dear Rodney, I like every
Dear Rodney, I like every thing you say. But your speech in Auckland Conference last week end was brilliant. Open, honest, courageous, relevant, excellent language and choice of words. I am pleased to see a report in DominionPost page2. Regards
The continued vilification
The continued vilification of Sir Roger Douglas is really getting me down.
Labour has obviously invented a perception it wants the public to adopt and is pushing it at every opportunity.(ACT Is hard-right, Roger ruined the economy etc. etc.)
It is the same with the public/private ownership debate, the Govt. has convinced people that private ownership is bad. One can only speculate as to the reason behind this forced propaganda. It seems that Labour has a real marxist mandate that says the state must provide all services no matter what.
With all the talk of hidden agendas a communist one scares me more than a capitalistic agenda.
The public is scared that privatization will equal foreign ownership...
To me that says that the onus is on Kiwis to buy a stake in their own country lest it be sold off. The government isn't their to solve all of our problems some personal responsibility must be taken.
71 years of a public owned welfare state obviously haven't worked well so far, why not try something new?
P.S. I used spell check on this, the school system didn't help me very much either.
The premise of this site
The premise of this site particularly for it certifications, color scheme and template is also stunning. I always fascinated in learning graphics, exin training, web designs and related terms. I hope you would include discussion group in your site soon for eccouncil certification and graphic designing.
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