Is Erica Stanford Aiming to Become the Worst Ever Minister of Education?
There’s an old saying that you can judge a person’s character by the company they keep.
In Erica Stanford’s case, her connections to Professor Elizabeth Rata of Auckland University are damning.
From information I’ve received and also read on Bevan Holloway’s excellent website “Democracy Begins in the Classroom” it is very clear that Professor Rata is one of the main influencers on Erica Stanford and on the government’s education agenda.
Holloway outlines the reasons for maintaining his site:
“I have been researching and documenting the curriculum change process in Aotearoa New Zealand since July 2024.
In combing through hundreds of pages of OIA and official documents, I have uncovered a coordinated subversion of democratic process that suggests Aotearoa New Zealand is experiencing democratic backsliding.”
I will discuss Rata and others in my next article, however in the meantime this article that Bevan Holloway has posted should ring very loud alarm bells:
Early Warning Signals: Rata Has Te Whāriki In Her Sights
Te Whāriki is our world leading early childhood curriculum, the last remaining part of this country’s rich education heritage that up to now has survived National led governments’ efforts to bring it down – for example it survived the last National led government’s attempt to standardise education through their National Standards debacle.
As is my usual practice I will highlight and discuss selected sections, however I strongly encourage you to read the full article. The education of our pre-school children is at risk, in danger of being dumbed down to meet Atlas Network goals.
Is this what we want?
In correspondence to Stanford Rata
“..rails against the “Learning Approach” and decolonisation, the “political agenda to transform New Zealand”.
One of the effects of the Learning Approach (which she says also goes by the names of “learnification, constructivism, OECD inspired 21st century learning, technological competencies”), Rata says, is for learning activities “to affirm children’s racial identity using ‘culturally responsive pedagogies’”.
Later when I discuss Rata’s background, we will see her underlying beliefs. I’d point out at this stage that we shouldn’t be fooled by her last name, as she is not Māori.
From Holloway’s article:
Rata writes:
‘Students now “spend years in superficial project- based learning, in acquiring skills without understanding, in neurotically exploring their subjective feelings to achieve ‘wellbeing’, in mindless hours on computers, and in cultivating a racialised identity apparently essential for achieving – as the lie has it”.’
Her stated goal is to destroy what she has labelled the ‘Learning Approach” and ending decolonisation’s success, in other words to take NZ back to a monocultural European focus.
More from Holloway:
“Rata makes a number of further recommendations, including: “Replace the Te Whariki curriculum’s constructivist approach with a teacher-directed one so that young children are taught the oral and symbolic (alphabetical and numerical) foundations needed for primary school.”
I’d point out here that the ‘constructivist’ approach that she mentioned is based on extensive research into how children actually learn, rather than on the direct instruction she advocates.
Further:
‘It is an idea she had brought up in an email to David Seymour on 24 June, 2024:
“Although ECE are already private, they need the option to be autonomous from the Ministry and to be able to reject that very flawed Te Whariki curriculum – imposed on all centres since the 1990s.
I’m sure that you’ve thought of the idea and suggest that it’s one worth developing. I mentioned it to Lesley Max and she is very keen so the idea may grow through her networks and enter the media.”
Seymour agrees: “The issue is the curriculum requirements, which Erica is responsible for. I expect her reviewing it will make some progress there.”’
So here we have direct evidence that education policy is being shaped to fit David Seymour’s agenda (i.e., Atlas Network) and that Stanford is a willing accomplice in this.
The final quote from Holloway discusses a joint letter from a number of academics about a document ‘Early Childhood Curriculum Resource – Kōwhiti Whakapae’. In the letter they urge Stanford to take action as the document is not educational but instead is a…
“…political document which promotes identity politics through its focus on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and te ao Māori cultural beliefs and practices. It does not focus on the knowledge and skills needed by young children as a foundation for future schooling. That foundation requires specific teaching to ensure young children’s oral language development, especially in the specialised English and mathematics vocabulary and concepts that provide the basis for school subjects. Apart from Māori and Pacific language ECE centres, this language is English.”
The recent furore over removing te Reo words from junior readers now makes more sense and fits into the overt racism that this country is experiencing under the current government.
Whether from ACT, NZ First, or the National Party, it is all part of the same agenda.
We need to be very open to what is being done and to battle against this with all our might.
First she changes the end of school assessment back to the old says where 50% of students are doomed to fail .Now she is going hard out to white wash the cariculum by deleting all Te Reo from school publications and not teaching NZ history only the white colonist versions. My grand daughter told me at the weekend that they were studying early explorers of NZ.When I asked if that included Kupe and Co the answer was no because they were here before the white people. I pointed out that they too were explorers because they sailed here in their Waka just as Cook sailed here in his ship .
This comment is so out of touch with what is actually happening in schools and I personally have 3 kids still in primary school and two more in high school – and these kids are constantly bombarded with Maori everything and in fact have no understanding whatsoever of anything to do with Abel Tasman / Captain Cook (if you want to talk about navigators) but sure as shit know about Kupe and for that matter also Matariki backwards and literally believe that Maui fished up the North Island – this is no different and just a reversal of the ‘cultural indoctrination’ that Maori kids faced with in the past in the expectation that they will become ‘Brown Europeans’ which was equally wrong.
Your kids are being well educated then with the best of both worlds .They will come out as well rounded adults knowing a lot more about life other than just the materialistic worship of money and flash throw away shit .Good luck to them in the future .
Only if your definition of well educated is being indoctrinated to speak in pigeon English and unable to differentiate beteeen myth and reality.
Pidgin English – written in a hurry . .
you are the pidgin bro – you are like every other lost European living in Polynesia – the on-to-it ones lost the chip on their shoulder decades ago
Education in NZ is an expensive pursuit with embarrassing results. Regardless of all the excuses, the last 5+ governments and the MoE have failed to deliver quality. We could have spent money on snake oil salesmen and got better results. Stanford is trying but the MoE will ensure she fails. The new system will get bogged down in nice to have considerations. The Crimson man is right. Why is a minor country with an awful recent record in education inventing another C grade qualification? Better to have the internationally recognised ones for university. We could keep home grown qualifications for non-academics. Internationally no one really cares about cultural components so it’s best to face that.
I have read some of Ratas views and ideology she is living in the past her views on anything Māori are racist and she is antiquated and border line evil. In the 70s we had to do Shakespeare as part of School certificate and I was not interested in it. I remember my father saying, how is Shakespeare going to get you a job and he was right it never got me a job. But we were forced to learn what pakeha thought was bests at the time, yet now they are poo pooing on their own system that we had rammed down our throats. The college I went to had no Māori subjects, no treaty and history was all about the rest of the world, nothing about NZ history and we were forced to learn Shakespeare.
Rata and Stanford spreading racial hatred against da maaris in the hope of distracting all humans in New Zealand from the 1% and foreigners ruling over them.
Natactwack aren’t aiming for anything much except to get in the news, creating controversy and pretending that they find it all amusing, coming from the rabble of the lft and who cares about them. Worst Min of Ed huh, ‘What we care’ – we achieve what ever we do. The rights’ motto – The Left don’t know their a from their e. (Just quietly – we won they lost because they’re bloody hopeless and all they can do is talk while we are ACTION.) I think I’ve got it sewn up neatly. What do you think!
The new qualifications will ensure fodder for the factories and dole queues because some children will be doomed to fail from day 1
If we were in the UK would it be fact-tories?
Yes 50% like back in my time .If too many passed they scaled results back so there was only a 5o% pass rate .
Some would have been failures no matter how good the system but there’s no point in yet another C grade system dreamt up by the government.
What factories? They’ve closed shop or gone off shore years ago and power’s too dear for what’s left. In any case, they’re not what they used to be. A cousin has worked in a Fonterra factory since he left school (gotta make a crust somehow, right?), now workforce a fraction of what it was and almost everything is automated and run by computers and robots. The dole que is the only option for those doomed to fail … unless of course you’re on the autism spectrum. Then the world’s your oyster!
No factories left in NZ now so straight to the dole que or jail
She is tasked with elevating culture arguments around education into a media-oxygen sucking win for the government and provide cover for a tanking economy.
Teachers are now, predictably, being lined up as the next target of right-wing ire. So far, so very predictable.
Just like the nurses are being vilified by Brown for hilighting how poor the health system is funded since the scalpe was taken to staff numbers and the freeze on hiring new nurses.
I had a look at this publication “at the marae’. Nice try but very primitive and I think our children deserve better. That is ‘children’, not ‘kids’.
stepford clone. whining about the oven temperature spoiling the baking of a very simple cake.
this fundamentalist government has been going after our kids from day one
Looks like she is waiting for Seymore to service her on the couch
He wouldn’t know how Gordon.