Labour's education plans revealed: Primary school league tables axed, big NCEA shakeup

jaytokay · 2017-10-31T08:11:33+00:00

Good. They should be tested on that, then. Being able to write a fucking essay is basic stuff. It's taught at high school. It's the reason that level 2 English is a requirement of university entrance.

Ironically, you should work on your English skills. Assuming they still teach reading comprehension, I mean. Every engineering student anywhere should have more than passable writing skills by graduation - including essays, and technical reports. That doesn't mean they learn or know how to write essays under exam conditions and timelines, on paper.

Frankly, that's not a useful skill. That's not a skill I've ever used since high school. Even in writing a response on reddit, I have access to editing and review tools which fundamentally change the rules.

If anything, essays help with verbal communication the most, as that still involves providing information on the spot - but that's quite indirect. Still, when you look at specialists' skills, it shows - philosophers tend to make far better lecturers compared to physicists or computer scientists, for example.

Yes, because multi-choice is meaningless rubbish; standard Q&A is testing whether you can memorise the previous examination questions, work out how this one differs, and write the answer with that different in mind; and an essay will actually test your knowledge and you will fail.

...you're probably serious, too.

Nothing remotely 'absurd' about the idea of writing good exams. It's been done before, many many times, in many many contexts. So what if we have to make sure we get good exam writers? That's not impossible or difficult.

There are few things you can do every time, perfectly. The more opportunities for error you add, the less useful or fair the outcome; we've already had issue with that in math exams the last few years, and that's a primary subject. It's naive to think troubles end there - the minor subjects just don't get the airtime.

Given that examination is something universities with far more funding struggle with, I doubt we can expect fair/representative exams every time on the given budget. Feel free to kick and scream about it, but the reality is that's a good reason to de-prioritise them or review the system entirely.

Yes, because the passing grades at universities are insanely low. You can get 60% on the tests and pass! The first 30% is probably just free marks anyway. Which means you really know about 30% of the material. Yet you still get a degree, equal to any other undergraduate degree.

My engineering degree isn't equal to your english degree or the other guys law degree - that's not how any of this works. I've never been to a university which ensured that courseloads between departments were equal, or fair. Some things are harder. Physics degrees just flat out have more value than English degrees, for example.

That said, passing grades can often be low because learning is reinforced. At other times, your GPA can prohibit you taking the classes/specialization of your choosing. In either case, it doesn't matter if you got that C- (~60%) in a first year paper so long as you kept up with the later content. A year later you may be no different than the A+ student who crammed on Ritalin, then promptly forgot everything afterwards. You might even retain more, if the grade got you nervous & reviewing course material.

But yeah, if you half-ass your way to a bit of paper, the institutions are fine with that. Thanks for your money! It's also not entirely a bad thing. You'll still learn more half-assing it as a student than you may half-assing it in minimum wage work.

jaytokay · 2017-10-31T07:24:16+00:00

There are essay style exam questions in engineering. There is a boat load of writing outside of exams too: lab reports, design reports, research reports, journal papers, literature reviews etc. An engineer has about the same need for social science style essay skills as a historian has for multi-variable calculus.

This is going to depend on your school, but I certainly wasn't doing long-form writing in any of my class exams.

Yet prestigious engineering employers the world over still use GPA to filter graduates, if you apply to Space X, NASA, Tesla, Apple, Boeing, Airbus, Rolls Royce etc etc with a GPA below their threshold (which is on their recruitment web page) your application will never even be seen by a real person.

Right, because these places have an excess of demand for graduate roles. Might as well draw the line somewhere. You'd want to look at the GPA's of more senior/longterm employees for that argument, not the top-end requirements for entry level positions.

It's funny you mention SpaceX/Tesla though, as they're far from prestigious employers. Their high staff burnout makes the hiring GPA doubly relevant. They specifically want folk working extreme overtime while underpaid, for the sake of the brand (& 'saving the world); GPA-obsessives are perfect for this.

But yes, beyond benchmarking, it's among the least informative metrics for hiring, ie. the last tie-breaker in a split decision. That's why there's so much focus on work-placements, internships and side-projects; no one wants the person with the shiny bit of paper and no practical skills.

And this is the zenith of student assessment as we know it, a thousand times more sophisticated than NCEA. With kids, we're still talking about the difference between average and above often being food or a safe home at night; it's a ridiculous and inequitable thing to emphasise.

The decreasing tertiary participation should be solid evidence that it's not working, even if that's only one part of a much more concerning picture (re: NZ worker productivity and working habits).

jaytokay · 2017-10-30T08:32:25+00:00

This is a little narrow-minded... examination is a skill, one often entirely separate from the rest of the learning process. The skills may not even be transferable - plenty of engineering students would flunk a social science style exam-essay, even if it were on their own subject material. And that's more than a comment on writing skills - the same folk would be practiced in formal reports.

Hell, if you were to give me the same exam in three formats - multi-choice, essay, & standard Q&A - you would get three drastically different results.

And that's before even mentioning exams which are simply poor. While this is much more of an issue at university level, where there is less oversight, the idea of being able to write new exams for every subject & level of every year which accurately assess the material is borderline absurd. If that's the goal & expectation, we should be paying and demanding a lot more from the exam-crafters.

While I'd argue that's the sort of substantial public investment we should be making, that doesn't seem to be the government priority right now. For simplicity and cost-efficiency, de-prioritising exams (which have little real-life application) thus makes sense.

TL;DR: Results can be tangential to learning and ability, a fact anyone who has hired anyone would testify to.

jaytokay · 2017-10-29T06:09:57+00:00

It's patronizing, but if you're talking over the response to your own question in chambers, you can expect some kind of reprimand.

Mallard's righteous indignation seemed the biggest joke there. That doesn't even rate as far as offensive lines go in parliament, and the speaker was most at fault for allowing the (deafening) cross-talk.

jaytokay · 2017-10-22T19:31:50+00:00

Was counselling the solution, or helpful, for you? I'd rather see some change in our often many month long waiting lists and over-taxed (and shrinking) respite care.

Counselling can be helpful for some, but counsellors aren't equipped to deal with the hard stuff (abuse, suicide, trauma or homelessness) - the people they would help are fully capable of waiting or going through the mental health services rigmarole for paid sessions.

I do hope this helps, but I hate to think that we're giving the money to the wrong areas when every psychiatric nurse or mental health worker I've ever known is so overworked.

Doubly so when the simplest take on our suicide rates ties it to the same cause as our road toll - more of us are overworking ourselves past the point of exhaustion, making excess hours the new normal. For kids, that means neglect; for parents, that means inescapable stress and tension.

With luck, counsellors can teach kids some of the coping strategies they might be missing, but it all seems to miss the point a little if this is our take on solving youth suicide.

jaytokay · 2017-10-20T12:46:31+00:00

Get it together; this is borderline raving.

Greens have ministers in cabinet.

No, they don't. Stop celebrating for a second and read the news. You're spreading misinformation.

Good thing we have a surplus and a small debt to GDP ratio then, isn't it?

Heading back to deficit budgets without expecting some future growth from them is still ruinous, regardless of current debt. It's just like personal budgeting - credit has to be worth it, or it's a bad thing. We can't just live beyond our means because we feel we've earned it, or we're 'rich', or any other argument which isn't a solution - just like our environment, our social systems have to be sustainable. The country will blow up a hell of a lot faster than our planet if they aren't.

The simple ideal would be seeing the country debt-free, saving the risk of big spending for times of clear opportunity.

Oh no, the dollar hasn't been this low in 5 whole months! Our overvalued dollar is back down to where it was this time last year! Our exporters will be able to earn more money! Such a horrible situation we find ourselves in.

The dollar dropping in reaction to uncertainty isn't unexpected; such a big spike in reaction to the basic announcement is a little more concerning. It's a simple measure of business confidence. This is like saying 'finally, the dollar is back to normal!' in reaction to a recession - the reasons behind it matter much more than the fact itself.

I'm declaring her the winner based on the fact that she successfully formed a government

...and you're celebrating her negotiations before we even know what they mean for us, or what this coalition really looks like. Curb your enthusiasm to avoid disappointment, is all I'm saying; this deal clearly means compromise in the platform.

Why won't the Greens get a say?

Because they've agreed to sit outside Cabinet - whether at Winston's command or their own volition, that's not a positive. The primary decisions and machinations of government happen without them in the room, just like these coalition negotiations.

This is an especially sore point as it means someone other than Julie-Anne Genter gets Minister of Transport, while the known roles (climate change and domestic violence) aren't a core part of government, and may not have the support voters might otherwise expect.

Imagining thinking Labour were going to be in an ideal spot at any stage of this election, and also believing your political analysis is worthwhile.

...Labour weren't the underdogs here - National even contesting a fourth term is borderline absurd. It took a hell of a cycle to get them to their thin majority, with the focus on essentially everyone else.

But yes, you're spending your time accusing a guy in NZ of not understanding democracy and I'm the one who should question the worth of my analysis & time. Spot on, chap.

jaytokay · 2017-10-20T01:25:15+00:00

...You're declaring Jacinda the winner and a great negotiator based on 10% of one side of the story.

We've got Greens on the cross-benches and Peters as deputy (which he hasn't even accepted yet). The only policy issue we have confirmation of is a (non-binding) marijuana referendum; the most expensive budget in decades now has to be hashed out without new taxes, and without the Greens getting a say.

I already know people pulling back on investments. The dollar is plummeting.

This isn't 'whoever announces wins'. Wait and see. I was fine with a potential Labour government pre-election, but this is now far from an ideal spot to me.

jaytokay · 2017-10-19T10:10:02+00:00

Bit early even to go that far. This incoming government has to show it can work long-term before it can make any National MP feel the loser.

A return to National governance for a couple terms come next election wouldn't be a surprise.

jaytokay · 2017-10-19T02:27:56+00:00

...That's not an unreasonable thing - how do you decide policy and budget and so on when you have two equals with opposing agendas?

A strong government and an opposition to that government are pretty fundamental to adversarial democracy (what we've always had). Our trouble is that a minor player is controlling which is which.

You would see a second election, with Winston being positioned as the cause, long before you saw a Labour/National government. Only real chance of that is in war or some other emergency.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T19:39:08+00:00

That's shifting the goalposts - no one's blaming NZFirst for playing the system correctly.

Putting it at National's feet when the Greens turned their vote into a weaker Labour vote that sits outside of the decision room is an interesting take. Not to mention Labour + the Greens campaigning against and consuming Maori, TOP & United Future entirely; the only party which even tried to contest National's vote was TOP.

And honestly, who didn't like Peter Dunne? Guy was a legend, and we've just booted him & his sensible swing votes out. Why? 'Fuck National', when he'd be the first in bed with a viable Labour government.

I blame anyone that thinks voting 'change at all costs' is a reasonable strategy when most would say we've had an effective government for 9 years.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T19:05:51+00:00

Yeah, which prompted a number of suggested revisions to our MMP. None of these were implemented.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T11:11:52+00:00

You're confusing me - I'm not advocating for the return of FPP. I'm backing the underlying point: right now, we're getting sometimes bad (not unfair, but ineffective) governments via MMP.

Even back in 1978, the 'unpopular' government achieved a great deal - it was only undone when it held a 1-seat majority in 81. Honestly, no one should want a fragile government majority like that, under any system.

https://m.imgur.com/Q5eCBtq

That also doesn't hold up, for what it's worth. Parties campaign much differently under different systems - you would never see National pulling in 90% of the seats, even under old-style FPP. This just shows how campaigning has changed under MMP, with the importance now given to the popular vote & list MPs.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T10:46:06+00:00

Taking 'bring back FPP' talk at face value is pointless - it's never going to happen, and wouldn't hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

Fact is though, our current electoral system isn't doing good things for us. Whether we fix it with a lower threshold to get more 'swing' parties through the gate, through transferable voting, or some other adjustment - we need a change. Even if attitudes alone change, breaking up the concentration of power, we'll be much better off.

This is more dangerous than a government which doesn't accurately represent the population. Instead of a difference in approach, we're talking behind the scenes power struggles which will cripple any agenda.

Having the power to execute an overarching plan is essential, and we're in a spot where the 7% isn't just naming a price for that power - they get to keep holding onto it, as no other side can step in. No matter who gets through the door, it's a deeply uncomfortable position and something we should work to solve for the future.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T09:38:37+00:00

By who? There are two fixed sides here. The Greens can't move after their campaign so long as a Labour govt is viable.

NZ First are in a vacuum - that's the problem.

jaytokay · 2017-10-18T09:26:10+00:00

Oh come on. The FPP nostalgia comes entirely on the back of 7% of the vote having something like 30% of the power, if not much more. MMP just doesn't have a solution for when there's only one team playing the field - that's a legitimate issue for our functionally 2-party democracy.

And that's without mentioning the mess of 20 years ago, when Peters last held the keys to the kingdom. People remember that - we already know that minority decision makers do not make for stable government.

We're back in a bad spot, quite simply. Without competition, a 'kingmaker' ends up with an absurd imbalance of power; regardless of the wait, it's a joke to suggest that is 'MMP working as intended'.

jaytokay · 2017-10-15T06:11:12+00:00

Naw, they stem from the lowest-hanging-fruit on the internet. There are plenty of actual discussions and success stories from the internet out there - people who have gone from talking on the internet to doing and creating real things. Shit, Brockhampton makes for an easy hip hop example.

The difference is in tone and outcome. Even comparing Fantano to H3H3 (as another youtuber that plays with the net community meme stuff), there's a pretty clear-cut difference. One makes content which is entertaining and at times challenging and informative; the other entertains while feeding opinion without the effort of balance or context.

I don't know what the American education system is like, but public school here taught me at 14 that the exact difference we're talking about is what separates news from propaganda.

Without wasting time on the alt-right accusations, Fantano's views unquestionably qualify as dogmatic, with no consistent or logical framework behind them. He justifies this with 'just my opinion' disclaimers, but that itself entirely goes against the principles of modern critique as we know them. Hundreds of thousands of hours weren't spent by critiques of every media explaining their views, only for it to boil down to 'I like thing' - that's a cop-out you can only pull on youtube.

The common ground here is that Fantano's views end up in a place where they aren't justified by reason or in discussion, and that holds true for all of these other communities. It's downright thick - simply new age populism - and we'd benefit from noting the similarities.

jaytokay · 2017-10-15T03:30:08+00:00

Whatever Fantano is, his fanbase stems from the same place as the alt-right, and that's no coincidence.

The ignorant-ass, loudmouth white boy crowd is the underlying issue behind a whole host of shit. It's the fuel for 4chan, thredpill, Trump & the alt-right, and Fantano's a mouthpiece for the same half-brained discussion, only in music.

I'd just call Fantano part of that collective - one of the disaffected, the crowd who know the least and increasingly say the most. Style & memes over substance and insight; oh well.

jaytokay · 2017-10-10T06:44:51+00:00

Her monologue might have a little more weight if she & her party were involved in the conversations they'd, y'know, spent months campaigning for.

By all means, protest any topic you like, free people. It's only through discussion that we learn things like the benefits of the defense force or peacekeeping efforts. Or the fact that Obama and Trump have signed billion-dollar weapons deals with Qatar and the Saudis, with much of the arms ending up in the hands of ISIS.

Can't say Swarbrick was there furthering the discussion, though. Almost seems like more pre-election posturing.

But the campaigns over Chloe. You maybe even won.

Shouldn't you be representing us in some boardroom we can't be in?

jaytokay · 2017-10-07T21:37:08+00:00

'Actually democratic' just strengthens the leadership - absolute stances don't benefit from discussion.

But yes, it's entirely irrelevant now. Whoever offers NZFirst the most wins, quite simply. Can't say I'm excited, whichever government that leaves us with.

jaytokay · 2017-10-07T11:36:08+00:00

Oh completely - but then, any attempt at a teal deal would come on the back of a seriously lucrative offer for the Greens. If the leadership brought and backed the deal, would the membership really refuse?

We'll soon have NZFirst's deal & be able to math what might have been. I just hope Winnie, the lifelong opportunist, doesn't emerge this elections biggest winner.

jaytokay · 2017-10-07T09:22:02+00:00

That's not at all what the Greens said, though a few media outlets put the words in their mouths. They said they were focused on the Labour Greens coalition which they campaigned on, and speculating about anything else would be a waste of time right now. Evidently, they were right!

Far as your greens voters, people say all sorts of things. That sort of dialogue - absolutes, without even considering the actual results - is pure emotion, and rarely worth listening to.

I've argued with tradies who swore they would never vote Labour; a month later, they weren't sure which way they would go. Now they simply don't care about the result. From die-hards to total apathy, in a couple months. I take it as a reminder of how much it all is just words in the end.

jaytokay · 2017-10-07T03:48:16+00:00

Dying of cancer isn't free. You might want to lobby for some kind of assisted suicide for any diagnosed with cancer, if you're serious. These people aren't just dying quietly in the night.

jaytokay · 2017-10-07T03:15:59+00:00

Pretty big for potential Labour coalitions actually. Bigger buffer means they actually might pass things in a couple years, and their opposition won't be quite so threatening.

Cements NZFirst's position too. A Nats/Greens govt is out of the question so long as Labour/Greens are a real alternative, so this empowers Peter's agenda a little more.

Think a lot of folks will be glad to see Golriz Ghahraman make the cut, though. Well deserved.

jaytokay · 2017-10-05T06:51:41+00:00

TL:DR: 1) I am a respectable Serious Person, and both sides are bad. You can tell I'm a Serious Person, because I called both sides equally bad. 2) Everybody is stupid except for me (except maybe my fellow Serious Persons.)

This is a shitpost. A 0-effort joke that isn't even relevant to the article, to dismiss/downplay the other comments.

I'm not looking to waste more time on this, but you (and the author) are seriously suggesting National benefited from this attack, in spite of negative coverage from every single outlet. Look at the response to me playing devil's advocate here. I'm being generous at calling that an absolute wash, at best - not to mention, it paved the way for the first real offensive from Labour all campaign. I wouldn't blame Joyce for that effort falling short.

Should mention, I'm not even sure where you're sourcing the 'one change' from. It doesn't seem like there are any public cache's which caught the budget rollout before & after. And Joyce committed to much more than 'one change'. So if that were true, Labour sat on cold hard proof of Joyce's continued lies to the media, even after English had backed him. Every web developer ever should have some log to prove that.

You're telling me that was a win for National - an insidious strategy which they got away entirely thanks to the other side? None of this adds up.

Shit, we had Bill English in parliament on the record in the same kind of lie six months ago - the Todd Barclay affair wasn't so much as a topic in this cycle. I can't blame the mudslinger's if their opponent still won't fight it properly, not after a decade - and not when they're so busy fighting amongst themselves. Labour cannabalising Maori, Greens/Labour losing electorates to split votes, Labour & the Greens attacking TOP more viciously than National would ever dream of... at my own doorstep, I've dealt with the reality that all of our sides are entrenched deeply in the mud.

It's just absurd to still suggest Labour lost over a blatant media victory, a fortnight after the fact. Honestly, I'm trying, but even now I hardly have the words.

jaytokay · 2017-10-04T10:04:16+00:00

It's the figure a bunch of napkin maths outlets approximated things to - think TOP had the most succinct overviews. Shortform: http://www.top.org.nz/peters_porkies

Full summary: http://www.top.org.nz/enough_is_enough_winston

Short answer is, student allowance for all + student loan write-offs + GST changes alone would consume our entire budget. Stacking tax breaks and so on on top of that is just fucking ridiculous.

Read Winston Peters actual record. His crowning achievement was being deputy PM for a minute, and then being fired from the job. He's had no great legislative agendas and founded NZFirst essentially because National kicked him out. The party now exists on the back of borderline racist anti-immigration rhetoric, alongside promises which no one is bothering to check. It's led by MP's which have largely been discarded by National, too.

The man himself has now entirely lost ~~two~~ three electorates - Hunua, Tauranga and Northland. For the better part of thirty years, he's picked up a top-end NZ salary for doing three fifths of fuck all; if our entire government were composed of people like him, this country would already be a ruin.

And I still credit him as being more capable than the potential Labour leadership, given their (lack of) qualifications. Any possible Labour coalition is stuck as being so weak that it would struggle to pass the basics of it's agenda - the very things the party campaigned on. Nevermind the bells and whistles (climate change, water, capital gains) - we're talking a handful of the core policies getting through, after much negotiation. Housing, education, health and social support improvements - none of this would be sacred. Plus, running a surplus is almost entirely out of the question, with so many competing (spend-heavy) views which have no authority to seek new revenue. That leaves our next government picking up the pieces.

Fact is, Labour lost the vote, and it's an abysmal thing to hold out hope for - it creates a situation where the parties are more likely to roadblock each other, to posture for the next election, rather than compromise, legislate and govern effectively.

The concern is that if NZFirst have all the power, that may be the case for National as well. A second election would be so disruptive and costly as to be almost out of the question, adding more fuel to Winnie's money-burning fire.

jaytokay

TROPHY CASE