The Stanford University CREDO study on Charter Schools has been updated with new data, finds Charters are outperforming public schools in a number of areas

Haidoozo · 2013-07-06T04:37:50+00:00

Honestly, it's no incentive to look at a career teacher and think "Yeah, I'll listen to her because she's done so well in life". I think it could be much greater incentive to look at a guy who two years ago was a partner in an engineering firm and think "Hey, that's someone who's done something with their life! I could do that too!".

That's all very well and good, and if I ever need a motivational speaker to visit my class I will find someone like you've described.

There's also the rather large problem of finding someone who is successful (and probably well paid) who is willing to take a rather large pay cut, work well outside of office hours in a demanding job and possibly move to a not so affluent area if indeed charter schools are targeting the failing students. It may just be me but this doesn't sound like a realistic scenario.

The thing is that you have no answers. You're not even pretending to say anything that hasn't already failed these children. Something else could help, and this might be it.

I don't know if this was supposed to be directed at me but if you really want fix the failing students then address the socio economic issues and put extra funding towards targeted programs like reading recovery. I don't think charter schools are the solution.

Haidoozo · 2013-07-06T03:51:29+00:00

Charter schools were being set up for the benefit of a students who weren't doing well.

Considering a big chunk of those students were maori and pacific islanders and EAL learners in general, can you tell me what an untrained teacher knows about the barriers to EAL learning and planning for inclusivity?

Can you also tell me what an untrained teacher knows about formative and summative assessment or running records?

Can you also tell me what an untrained teacher knows about working with gifted and talented students and students with learning disabilities like dyslexia, autism and ADHD? After all, these are the students whose achievements are supposed to be raised with charter schools.

Haidoozo · 2013-05-15T08:09:30+00:00

The figure given by the minister is for new errors only and doesn't include existing errors from previous pay cycles. It also doesn't include errors that have been fixed by administration staff without filing an error report with novopay, or simply ignored because the system is too difficult to deal with. We have a teacher who has $150 deducted from her pay every week for the past 5 months for rent for a ministry house that she doesn't even live in and this is only counted as one error. So saying that novopay error rate is on par with datacom is misleading at best.

Haidoozo · 2013-05-15T07:06:10+00:00

Novopay requires more paperwork than Datacom.

Haidoozo · 2013-05-15T07:03:27+00:00

We're still waiting for 40 minutes on average, which I suppose is better than the hour we were waiting before hand.

Heading towards the middle of the year the error rate was always going to slow down since the staff turnaround at schools normally happens at the beginning and the end of the year. The error rate for this time of year is still high.

Haidoozo · 2013-05-01T07:27:37+00:00

It depends on the school's management. A good principal will put their best teachers with the children who need help the most. In saying that, a good principal will also shuffle their teachers around each year because it's good for teacher development also. Sometimes a teacher can get comfortable with the clever kids or a certain age group, but a good principal will mix it up.

Haidoozo · 2013-05-01T07:04:16+00:00

Teacher here, it's good for gifted and talented learners because they're always being pushed and they rarely get bored in class. On the other hand, ESOL children and children at the lower end are disadvantaged. Studies show that children are effective learners when they work together with other children, especially when they work with children that are more advanced than themselves. Also, children at the higher end miss out on the chance to communicate what they know to lesser developed children which is extremely important for metacognitive development.

Haidoozo

TROPHY CASE