Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
innovativeeducation.co.nz
Dear Shayne
You don’t reply to emails or seem to address issues so I am reaching out through another means.
On Friday you carried an excellent feature by Andrea Fox on NZ’s treatment of tall-poppies.
I have been married to one. Karen Poole, the CEO of the Villa Education Trust, is one of New Zealand’s very best social entrepreneurs. Through her work she employs 75 Kiwis (a number that is growing fast). Through her work, thousands of young people are getting a highly effective and life-changing education at a time when the NZ education system is in its worst historic state and dead last in the English speaking world for science, maths and literacy.
The decile 1 schools she oversees are NZ-leading and her skills set with the resources for those State schools allow them to provide uniforms, stationery and IT, to never ask for donations and to have 15 pupils per class.
They attend school almost always, are fully engaged and make progress. The grads from those schools have NCEA averages above the national mean for all deciles and ethnicities.
She facilitates academic leadership by taking all non-academic (i.e. admin tasks) from principals and academic managers and doing them all between herself and one assistant. She works extraordinarily hard, and I have no doubt that she is NZ’s best education administrator; many people in our schools and in the broader sector would back that up. Even the Ministry has HUGE respect for her (while not being too fond of me).
She has never sought acclaim (maybe that is her Dutchness as a daughter of a wonderful man who spent 6 years – from 7 to 13 years old – under Nazi oppression). She was highly embarrassed a few years back to be a finalist in one of the Women of Influence categories. On top of that, she has been the best mother I have ever seen to three great kids who are now superb, highly educated and massively contributing adults.
Karen is not a public person and I have been happy to take the spokesperson role for the Trust most of the time. Over the years
we have had some good and hard-earned press and publicity. We have also many exceptional public reports; Martin-Jenkins, Cognition Education, ERO.
We have also been vindictively attacked, vilified by teacher unions and blamed for some apparent existential threat to the NZ education system.
A NZ Herald reporter called Kirsty Johnston once wrote a headline article accusing our staff of bribing kids with KFC, of drugs being in one of our schools and of an attempted suicide. None of that was true and the Ministry told her so. The “information” had come to her from a miffed teacher from another school who had done a little work for us but was not up to standard and had lost the role.
Even though Kirsty knew the stuff to be false it still went out and had an impact on our staff and families (especially the family of the boy who was ill – not suicidal). Kirsty was making her way at the time and, to her credit, has become a good journalist. Other papers have at times done similar stunts and the PPTA, NZEI and one other irrational human were sending weekly releases about us to the press.
The PPTA even published a lead article in one of their 2015 magazines, sent to the staff room of every high school in New Zealand, accusing me of calling a student a moron and weird business things. When confronted they told me they knew the information was not credible but that we were collateral damage in their challenge to the Ministry/Government over Charter Schools.
The PPTA still refuse to take this piece down. One reporter got hold of our present and past students’ database and our staff database and wrote to every person on it asking for any possible negative stories on me.
A huge challenge hit us about 3 weeks ago when the OAG pro-actively press-released a report on our Trust (something they said they never do). We understand it was because they knew we were challenging their processes, timeliness, accuracy, situational understanding and professionality. I guess they wanted to get their version out first to preserve what little credibility they have. The NZ Herald published their release, without seeking any clarification from us, with a horrible and demonstrably incorrect headline – especially given that the trustees do their board work for free.
The Ministry wrote a counter press release on our behalf as they knew full well there was no issue. The NZ Herald did not even ask for the press release when they knew it was available. The article – with its headline – remains up. In the past, you could argue “tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper”. In the google age, you guys are carrying harmful fake news on Karen Poole and our Trust to every person who searches under those names.
The NZ Herald also Facebooked the piece, which drew approx 80 comments yelling “fraud”. The post was eventually taken down but the damage is still being done.
It should be clearly noted that there was no finding of wrongdoing at all.
The “Tall Poppy” (your words) consequences in this case:
The article discussed me – even though my duties are completely separate and I have no financial decision-making or payment options. I have never even spoken to our auditors or accountants.
The article also brought the unnamed members of the Trust into disrepute. Worse: it attacked Karen – and the writer even chose the subtle denigration (so last century) of calling her “my wife” as opposed to her role as the Trust CEO, where I work for her (it is a modern thing I know) and am truly a bit part player.
To protect the other four I resigned from the Villa Education Trust that I founded in 2002. Interestingly the the female head of the PPTA, Melanie Webber, also chose to take an “Alwyn’s wife” denigrating professional view of Karen. I guess you don’t get recognised as a high quality, strong female leader if you have ideological differences.
- We have been vilified on social media sites (including the PPTA) and blogs.
- We have lost contracts and contact from colleagues in other schools.
- Our children and wider family have been concerned and impacted.
- In our local, Russell, community, adverse posts were put on the Community FB.
Having had my writing published in MSM (including many times in the NZ Herald), political blogs and overseas, I have now made the choice to completely withdraw from public comment (things like this get to you – and you have to preserve your mental health) with this exception.
The article and fall-out comes on top of:
- The sheer weight of having been in this public sphere for the last 7-10 years – especially through doing good work through Charter Schools.
- Missing my family in the USA and Auckland through the government’s incompetent Covid reponses.
- Working to try and find employment for 200 of the teachers abandoned by the NZEI/PPTA and mandated out of their jobs by an idiotic government who now admit they pick and choose which “health advice” to follow.
- Having to fight with the Ministry of Education day-in-day-out (your education reporter Dubby Henry knows something of that but fails to report on it – is that because of your government funding?)
- The very tough business conditions of Covid (we own 4 tourism linked businesses in Russell, BoI)
On top of all of that you have had a huge personal impact on Karen and me as a couple. We are human beings. What happened that week was neither just nor fair. It has not been addressed. It was one of the proverbial camel’s last straws.
Add to that – Ardern banning even Kiwis in Australia from coming home for Christmas for no reason other than she can … you cannot help but doubt your country.
I will work very hard in the next three months to see our wonderful Mt Hobson Academy Nationwide Online School up and flying with some of New Zealand’s very best teachers and then have a few plans overseas (while still working intensively on supporting all our schools and education endeavours).
For those who say “don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out” … I am way too fast for that.
PS
As I said regarding Andrea’s piece; good article! Can you guys please take your own advice on board? You have so much power.
Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
