Removing the word ‘special needs’ so you don’t have to fund ‘special needs’

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The latest assualt on civil society by the National Government is this desire to cut funding to special needs children by dumping the word ‘special needs’…

Special-needs funding for children over seven ‘slashed’ under new govt proposal

Government plans to “slash and burn” special education funding for children over the age of seven is “short-sighted and stupid”, says the Opposition.

In a Cabinet paper Education Minister Hekia Parata reveals plans to focus special education funding at an early-childhood level and potentially quash funding for those aged 18 to 21 years old.

The proposal would pump most special needs money into 2 to 5 year olds and a big drop in funding would kick in for those aged 7 and over.

Special education funding is delivered through the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS), which received an injection of $62.9 million over four years in the 2015 Budget.

…putting money into children with ‘learning challenges’ when they are aged 2 to 5 is great, but to do so by stripping the money away from 7 year olds and older is just cruel.

Those children don’t stop needing that extra support when they turn 7 FFS! And the suggestion to dump support for 17-18 year olds is madness. If there isn’t any support for that age group, they simply become homeless.

This problem is occurring while the Government ploughs money into charter schools.

Simply dumping support once a child hits 7 is so bleak. How has our education system been allowed to come to this?

16 COMMENTS

  1. Your beauty!!! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…. thank you Hek!

    …..finally a crack that the Green/Labour MOU block can exploit.

    GERM – centred Government via Hekia Parata and See-More are attacking schools. Every time that Hekia Parata speaks, parents and teachers rile up and get pissed off.

    “Bigger class sizes will improve education” She introduced proposals to increase class sizes, which it was subsequently claimed would cause some intermediate schools to lose up to nine teachers. As a result of intense public backlash over the issue, the plan was abandoned soon after it was introduced http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/budget-2012/6930082/Bigger-class-sizes-announced.

    In September 2012, she announced that she planned to close or merge 31 schools in Christchurch and the surrounding Waimakariri and Selwyn districts. Twenty-two of the schools said the information on which the Ministry based its decision to justify the proposed closures was incorrect.In February 2013, Parata confirmed the Government would close seven Christchurch schools due to falling roll numbers and earthquake damage, in addition to two that had already closed voluntarily.Twelve schools would also be merged into six.

    Each of these proposals was met with staunch opposition from affected parties and led to media speculation about Parata’s performance and abilities. The NZEI which represents primary school teachers, said she was “living in a fantasy world”

    Novopay? Parata also oversaw the introduction of the controversial Novopay payroll system which cost $30 million and was supposed to streamline payments to teachers and school staff. It had the exact opposite effect – with thousands of teachers receiving either too much, too little or not being paid at all. It was later revealed that the Ministry spent $650,000 trialling the system. It was rolled out nationally even though more than half of the 731 trial-users felt they were not ready for the system to go live. Education was up in arms.

    Stephen Joyce (the minister of everything), stepped in and saved the day. Dildo Baggins saves Parata’s bacon.

    Parata fell out with newly recruited education secretary Lesley Longstone, who was forced to resign over the debacle. There were calls for Parata to follow suit. In 2013, The Dominion Post revealed ‘internal office tensions’ among her staff; several private secretaries and a senior adviser have left her office in the Beehive. Her senior private secretary resigned just before Christmas and the advisor was only two months into a two-year secondment. At least one Beehive staff member has issued a personal grievance claim.

    Parata ignores OIA request – Daily Blog –
    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/12/01/hekia-parata-breaks-law-ignores-official-information-act/

    Parata’s husband, Wira Gardner, funds Shane Jones Labour Leadership challenge. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11241914

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/hekia-parata-backs-down-over-redcliffs-school-2016070711

    And now SPECIAL needs funding: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/83429927/specialneeds-funding-for-children-over-seven-slashed-under-new-govt-proposal

    Online Charter Schools and Bulk funding. GO CHRIS HIPKINS and Catherine Delahunty

    Mana from heaven for the left. If they can only get their shit together and exploit the hatred and vitriole from Kiwis, whose last hope at equality and escape from poverty, high house prices and unchecked immigration.

    Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…. thank you Hek! You beauty.

    • The teacher unions also need to get their act together, stop pussyfooting and being reasonable and diplomatic. Draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough, no more.
      Oh, and while they are at it demand meaningful pay increases – say, parity at least with backbench MPs.

      • NZEI and PPTA are combining to defeat the GERM policies of NATZKEY.

        http://www.standupforkids.org.nz/g-e-r-m/

        Yes Rosie, but Textor and Crosby and the advisers will drive a wedge between PPTA and NZEI. There’s no way that National, ACT, UF and the Maori Party will want to go into the next election round fighting against, or having fought against teachers, unions, children and parents.

        Expect more funding (or both) for one or other of PPTA and NZEI. Natz will try and divide and conquer NZEI and PPTA.

        Defeat the GERM

      • Rosie – NZEI and PPTA are meeting in joint meetings next week to stand against the GERM policies of National, ACT, UNited Future and Te Maori Party.

        Watch this space!

  2. Try as I might I cannot comprehend why National are doing this. Clearly they are running on empty, now reliant on stat rigging, are stuffed on the property front, doing anything for homeless people or wage growth, at the forefront of environmental decay and are out of ideas, but this? As said a child does not cease requiring assistance because it has turned the magic age of 5.

    The only logical explanation is it will save money, possibly use private providers and profit someone connected to National and then with the inevitable failure, bury a piss poor service in a veil of smoke and mirrors.

    Those tax cuts, that as an economy we have never recovered from, have cost us dearly!

    • Early childhood providers are mostly private businesses so it’s essentially a handout to private business. These businesses could have been providing this support before but it wasn’t profitable so they didn’t.

      It will be interesting to see how much of the money govt pays goes to supporting the children and how much goes into the owners pocket. I guess we will never know. The Comm for Children should be pushing for auditing of these funds and standards for the services.

    • It’s not the tax cuts that have cost us dearly, but where the tax monies have been allocated. Like the increase in spending on spying . . . That extra has got to come from somewhere . . . not out of thin air, despite what our Leader would have us believe.

  3. It’s staggering they would remove reference to special needs children (as if suddenly these children don’t have special needs) because of supposed stigmatisation while at the very same time introducing an Orwellian sounding Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

    Then, having attacked the school decile system for so long as one which apparently labels communities, they want to start labeling individual children instead!

    This woman Parata is out of control.

  4. What about the kids of immigrants/refugees coming into NZ older than 5 (or 7)? What if they have special needs?

    I don’t know if these are all false flag issues, special needs funding and online learning, so that the govt can push through their bulk funding while everyone is pushing back against the special needs/online learning policies.

  5. Parata is one of the inner circle of evil.

    Yep GCSB gets a 65% increase in funding of $60 million, but people’s kids get their funding cut.

    Shocking!

    National hates children apart from money to be made from them for cronies.

  6. They can waste money on many things such as the $26 million on trying to change the flag, 1080 that is killing our native species when they could cut unemployment by paying people trap, donate money to overseas countries, (to just quote a few) but can’t educate NZ children with special needs! This is just nuts! Absolutely crazy! This is discrimination at it’s worst against children. What an earth is going on in Aotearoa Hekia Parata? You are a native New Zealander. I would have expected you to have more compassion than this as a lot of your people’s children suffer with learning disabilities. Get your act together or resign! National you are doing this country a lot of damage! You need to be sacked. Either start looking after New Zealand and it’s inhabitants or get out! Enough is enough!

  7. Yep, spot on there Martyn and above posters supporting special needs students and teachers.

    It’s all about saving $$$$. So if a name change can give this dodgy government a few more dollars to play with, all the better for Key, English, Parata and mouthpiece Joyce. The savings will make the books look good, particularly for election year!

    Every student, regardless of abilities must be respectively valued. They all contribute to NZ in their own individual way. I like to think their contribution makes NZ a better place. However, Key & Co refuse to recognize this fact and look at education (much like everything else they get their grubby hands on) in monetary terms, where cuts can be made.

    Now it seems online education is being mooted by Parata as keeping up with 21 century education trends. Really? I see it as being more to do with cost cutting, closing schools and culling teachers and support staff! Anything, regardless of the consequences, to save a buck here and there.

    Education in all its forms is the way towards a progressive future and we must not allow it to be tampered with by odious, crooked politicians, hell bent on feathering their own putrid nests and those of their greedy cronies.

    The streets people, the streets. The streets are there for our taking if we want to voice our dissent at the bent, uncaring, crass values this government adheres itself to! A good shake up by the people to demonstrate support for special needs Kiwis, teachers and most of all the absolute right of access to good, decent education etc for every Kiwi.

    In fact, a mass protest against just about every area of the social fabric of NZ this government is rapidly destroying in general, is long overdue!

  8. Although my son was obviously ‘different’ from the age of 3, it took until he was 8 to get a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    The proposed changes will short-change a lot of ‘high-functioning’ kids that don’t qualify for official support until they are older.

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