Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most – ME Awareness Day, Monday May 12th

ME Awareness Day – Monday May 12th – Allan Alach’s personal journey
Read More →The Destruction of New Zealand’s Public Education

National and its cronies are set on a path to destroy New Zealand’s public education at all levels. The privatisation process is on full speed ahead. We have six months to stop it.
Read More →Welcome to National’s Brave New World of Education.

The summer political hiatus is clearly over, and education has been lined up by the National Party as the whipping boy yet again.
Read More →Whatever it takes.

So the crunch year has now arrived – the year where we must ensure the demise of the National led government. All else must be secondary to this.
Read More →Why are teachers used as targets?

I’m not sure, as things stand today, whether I’d encourage anyone to consider teaching as a career. Why should anyone want to paint a target on their chest so that ill informed politicians, media and others, can take pot shots?
Read More →If PISA is the answer, what is the hell was the question?

Late on Tuesday evening, the results of the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests were officially released. The resulting rhetoric was very predictable.
Read More →Rough and ready reflections on PISA test results.

The release of the PISA testing data has engendered the usual media and political hysteria. I’m working on a comprehensive article about PISA and all its failings, which will be posted tomorrow. However there are some quick and probably not too well researched comments that need to be made about the results.
Read More →With ‘friends’ like these…..

As I followed the online chatter (Twitter and blogs) about the tragic affair of the ‘Roastbusters’ I became increasingly disturbed by the descent into personal attacks and character assassinations, and that’s just from the ‘left.’
Read More →The Return of She Who Must Be Obeyed

Having had her fingers slapped over her decision to merge Christchurch schools, Hekia Parata has wasted little time in stamping her foot and resuming the ‘consultation’ process.
Read More →Eviscerating education through deliverology.

the elimination of Learning Media opens the door for private enterprises to take over the provision of all education resources to New Zealand schools, including outfits such as Scholastic, McGraw Hill, News Corp and Pearson Group
Read More →Random Reflections of a Rambler

My body has just returned from the UK; not quite sure where my brain is – seems it was delayed in transit. As a result I’m not completely up to speed with New Zealand issues, and so I thought I’d cover a range of observations that have occurred to me over the last month, influenced by my experiences in Britain.
Read More →Why Chris Hipkins must be the next Minister of Education.

it is the next minister of education that will be so crucial to the future of New Zealand education.
Read More →To glorify democracy and silence the people is a farce.

The overall intention of the oppressors, as described by Friere, is to control the consciousness of the oppressed, to ensure that they accept the world as it is, to prevent them becoming aware of an alternative reality and therefore to minimise challenges to the dominance of the oppressors.
Read More →Hey Hekia, aren’t you missing something?

So one child in five is not achieving? So New Zealand schools are failing children? So New Zealand teachers aren’t good enough (John Key 2011)?
Read More →So what’s the truth, Hekia?

I offer this warning to the people down under and beyond. This misguided emphasis is no more likely to work there than it has in the US—unless of course, New Zealand truly is “opposite land,” where hot snow falls up
Read More →Education soap opera: ‘One in five: The phrase of our lives’

Funding schools on results leads to yet another overseas practice – closing schools with ‘poor’ national standards results, and replacing these with charter schools. And so the wheels turn on their way to a semi-privatised provision of schooling in New Zealand.
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