The State of Our Public Schooling

Alwyn Poole

“RightandLeft” sometimes comments on education posts/topics on a range of platforms. I won’t name him but he is open about being on the PPTA National Executive and teaching at Birkenhead College.

Last Friday I posted broadly about girls vs boys results in NZ education.

R&Ls comments (in bold) are astounding. My responses are in brackets after his statements.

“The pass rates of different schools will almost entirely be a reflection of the home lives of the students at those schools.”

(AP: Nonsense in a number of ways: the matching boys vs girls schools will have very similar demographics and home situations. Some schools with high EQIs (lots of ‘at risk’ students) are doing brilliantly. E.g., Manukura (PNth) sits in the eighth highest EQI 10th grouping (specific EQI is 498). The UE for leavers’ pass rate for Manukura is 78.1 per cent. Kelston Boys sits in the same grouping (specific EQI 507). Their UE for leavers is 9.9 per cent. If results are just a reflection of home lives…why have teachers/schools at all? Especially for those from poor homes.)

“Teachers are largely the same across all schools.”

(AP: This is the most nonsensical belief the PPTA hold to…for obvious reasons. Any adult who has been a student in NZ schools and any parent who has had children in schools knows it is nonsense (for instance, I had two sons go through Auckland Grammar and a daughter go through Epsom Girls. It was plain to me that the teachers at EGGS at the time were miles better than those at AGS). Pretty much all teachers know R&L’s statement here to be crap also. Unfortunately, that view underpins the collective contract. This is hugely harmful to a whole range of schools desperate for the highest quality teachers but having no options for incentivising,)

“It is very common for teachers to move between high and low deciles schools and between public and private.”

(AP: Again…nonsense. Some teachers move between those groupings (although R&L does not seem to know we no longer have deciles), but there are major barriers for movement. As a department head in two state schools and one private school, a principal at a private school and a founder of two charter schools…it was obvious that I should choose teachers from schools that had high levels of success…and I did so).

“Also, UE is not the measure of success for most students. It is the qualification for university, which a minority of students plan to attend. Level two NCEA is the real entry qualification for most jobs and tertiary study. A large share of Kelston’s students are likely not taking three academic UE approved subjects, so it would be impossible for them to get UE. They will be taking Gateway courses, vocational subjects which are useful for entering a trade but won’t get them UE. They may well make a lot more in the trades than someone going for an arts degree at uni.”

(AP: All of that paragraph is actually deeply appalling. Yes – UE is a qualification that allows you to get into university before you are 20. It is also the top school qualification there is across all NZ high schools (including Cambridge and IB). There are 60 NCEA L3 subjects accredited for UE, so it is not a narrow choice. To get UE a student needs to only do three of those and get 14 credits, at least, in each. It stands students in good stead for apprenticeships and puts candidates well ahead of those with L2 or L3 only. Any school with high aspirations for their students will guide most towards this qualification.

Like many teachers throughout NZ, R&L seems to hold that BROWN students (over 90 per cent of Kelston Boys students are Māori or Pasifika) should be satisfied with lower levels of aspiration/achievement).

It’s well known that the trades are dominated by men. Universities have far more female students than male. So it isn’t surprising to see this difference and it doesn’t mean boys are failing. Boys, who are much more likely to choose a trades path, take vocational subjects at Year 12 and 13 which are not UE approved. That makes it impossible for them to earn UE. I don’t see that as a problem as long as they have made that choice. The trades can be very well paid.

(AP: As above re the worth of UE. Like many teachers throughout NZ, R&L seems to hold that MALE students should be satisfied with lower levels of aspiration/achievement than FEMALE students. The trades can be very well paid – but, on average, university graduates make significantly more over a career span.)

My school gets good results in level two, the key qualification for most post-school work and study. We do especially well for our Māori students in that regard.

(AP: Birkenhead College’s L2 for Leavers is below the national average. Birkenhead only has 75 per cent of leavers with L2 and ranks 270th in NZ. The L2 demographics are:

Birkenhead Level 2 For leavers:

Female: 78.9

Male: 73.7

Maori 59.3

Pasific 54.5

Asian: 88.9

European 80.4

The gaps are significant and if R&L considers that “We do especially well for our Māori students in that regard”, it says a great deal on his views on aspirations/abilities of different ethnicities and genders.

For UE, Birkenhead ranks a little higher overall at 166th. Fifty-nine per cent of their Asian students leave that school with UE, 43 per cent European but only 23 per cent of Pasifika and 11 per cent Māori.

On average, Birkenhead’s Māori and Pasifika students leave a lot earlier than European and Asian students.

R&L does not seem to know the data from his own school. I have no idea why he thinks he is able to  make sweeping statements on the rest of the system.)

We get exemplary literacy and numeracy results for the corequisite, with over 90 per cent success in both. But we have much lower UE results because at least half our students have no plans to attend university and don’t take three UE approved subjects at year 13. They take hospitality, travel and tourism and tech subjects and do Gateway placements instead. Probably a third leave before the end of year 13, moving to a course at polytech or into an apprenticeship. They rarely just drop out.

(AP: This is what happened to the 100 students that left Birkenhead in 2023 in their first year out.

Given that someone in an apprenticeship in NZ is regarded as being enrolled in tertiary – and that we have high youth unemployment – my educated guess is that a fair proportion of the 60 students “not enrolled in tertiary” did in fact “drop out”.)

In fact it’s the slightly more academic students who get UE but then discover they hate university and drop out.

(AP: NZ universities have a course completion rate of 86 per cent, so not too many students fit R&L’s category.)

To sum up: If this is the level of knowledge and aspirational thinking of a member of the PPTA executive, then it is no wonder the ministry is offering them only one per cent per year increase for the next three years.