United Future's education policy

United Future released its education policy [PDF] today - a relatively hefty 12-page document packed with specifics. The contrast with National - which has made some vague promises of "change" but hasn't issued detailed specifics outside of a few very narrow areas - couldn't be more obvious.

As I'm not an educationalist, I don't feel qualified to comment on the specifics of UF's plan (any teachers out there want to take a detailed look?). One thing I do note though is that they strongly favour greater investment of resources in education, with lower student:teacher ratios in primary school, better working conditions for teachers, much greater funding for ICT, ESOL and students with disabilities, and the reintroduction of a universal student allowance. All of which is likely to be a real problem if they are successful in their desire to form a coalition with National post-election. In fact, with an education policy like this - one that seems to have been written by actual teachers, rather than economists - you really have to wonder what they think they have in common with National at all.

Reuniversalising the student allowance

I've long been in favour of restoring a universal student allowance. While the right finger-point about "subsidising privilege" (as clear a case of pre-emptive accusation as ever I saw), this relies on a rather outdated view of who participates in tertiary education. As any glance at the statistics will show, we are now in an age of mass tertiary education: 36.5% of 18-24 years olds were enrolled in a tertiary course in 2006, compared with 26.2% in 1997 (sadly I can't find earlier statistics on tertiary participation rates, particularly in the 1980's, but that gives a good example of the trend). Student allowances aren't about "middle class welfare", they're about supporting opportunity for all. But even if they weren't, the fact remains that under the current policy, many students who want to focus on their studies are forced to borrow for food. And that is simply intolerable in a civilised society.

So, it's good to see that the government is at least costing the option of reuniversalisation. What's not good to see is how quickly they're trying to back away from it. In an election campaign where they're struggling to win a fourth term, Labour desperately needs to give people a reason to support them. It can only do this by showing us a clear left-wing vision and going places National can not and will not go on worker's rights, equality, and social services. If they can't or won't do that, then they have only themselves to blame when they lose.

So would reuniversalisation be affordable? The upfront cost is $2 billion over four years, which would make it a hefty policy indeed. However, much of that money is spent anyway (at least on a cashflow basis) through the student loan scheme, and once this is accounted for, the cost shrinks to $728 million, or about $180 million per year. In good times, this would be significant, but perfectly affordable. But these aren't good times. More importantly, in their budget earlier in the year, Labour spent all the money, leaving them with a cap of about $750 million a year for new spending once health-sector growth is accounted for. This was intended to be a poison pill for a future National government, sabotaging their claim that they could afford massive tax cuts for the rich without either service cuts or more borrowing, but it also constrains Labour. $180 million is less than $750 million, but there will be other spending demands (not least the need for departmental budgets to keep pace with inflation); it could probably be done, but it would be the only significant thing they could do, their "one big idea" for an election campaign or a budget. So, in the short-term, Labour's incremental approach seems to be the best we can hope for (and the costing can be seen as a way for labour to make the case for this to its potential coalition partners, all of whom want to see the reintroduction of a universal student allowance).

Of course, none of this would be an issue if Labour hadn't cut taxes - and on this front I can't help but notice that the $180 million a year cost of a reuniversalised student allowance is only slightly less than the $184 million a year the rich gain due to Labour's shifting of the 39% tax threshold. So, when given a choice between funding opportunity for all and giving money to the rich, Labour chose the latter. Some "left-wing" government!

Revealing

Today, the government announced a 5% boost to schools' operational funding in order to reduce their reliance on "donations" and provide better computer technology.

National lost no time in denouncing it as "pork".

So, there you have it: according to the right, education - a core function of government which provides the basis of opportunity to every New Zealander - is "pork". Meanwhile, promising additional funding for private schools - an explicit state subsidy to private enterprise and the rich's social snobbery - is just fine and dandy. The hypocrisy is both obvious and deeply revealing, both of National's attitude toward the purpose of government (enriching their mates by looting the state), and the utter contempt the party of the few have for the rest of us.

Stuck in the past

Why do we have a shortage of male primary school teachers? One of the reasons is low pay and status (something which forms a nasty feedback loop around feminised and ghettoised professions). Another is concerns about being accused of sexual abuse. But a third is the fact that many of our primary school principals are just plain old bigots:

Many primary school principals believe male primary teachers should be heterosexual, rugby-playing "real men" if they want to be good role models, new research has found.

One respondent in the study - being published in international journal Gender and Education - referred to the "limp" handshakes of two male teachers who appeared ineffectual and wussy when interviewing for jobs. In that case, strong females were hired instead.

So, perfectly qualified teachers are not being hired because they do not meet some archaic standard of manliness. What century are these people living in?

It makes even less sense when you consider the increasing diversity of New Zealand. The old cult of rugby, racing and beer no longer holds sway, and as study author Penni Cushman points out, not everyone will relate to a rugby-playing teacher because not everyone plays rugby. But again, it seems our primary school principals are firmly stuck in the past, and unable to cope with or reflect the modern New Zealand.

Time to increase student allowances

Tertiary education Minister Pete Hodgson has hinted that he might increase student allowances in the budget. Good. As the story points out, it hasn't been adjusted for many years, and desperately needs to be. But while increasing payments will improve the lot of those students lucky enough to receive them, it won't do much to reduce those staggering debt levels, due to the simple fact that very few students are eligible for assistance. According to the Ministry of Education [XLS], almost half a million people participated in tertiary education in 2006, 307,000 of them full-time or full-year (and thus meeting the most basic eligibility criteria of being a "full-time student" in one sense or another). But of those, only 59,000 - one in five - received any form of assistance. And that number has been dropping steadily as incomes have risen while eligibility thresholds have remained static.

So, while a Good Thing, increasing allowances won't do anything at all to help the 80% of students who don't receive them, and who are responsible for most student debt. If we want to do that, we need to significantly broaden eligibility. Adjusting income thresholds so they reflect the current economic situation, rather than that of 1992, would be a start. But ultimately, re-universalisation should be the goal. No-one should have to borrow for food and rent in this country, and I'd have thought a Labour government would recognise that fact.

Literacy and headlines

New Zealand reading skill takes a drop, reads the headline in today's Herald, reporting breathlessly that New Zealand has fallen from 13th to 24th place in the Progress in International Reading Study. But then it goes on to say:

But despite dropping on the list, New Zealand students have maintained a consistently high standard of reading in the past five years.

Their average reading score was 532, higher than the study's international average of 500.

The average score for New Zealand students in the first study in 2001 was also high, at 529.

So, while the headline says we got worse, reading skills actually improved. Except, obviously, for those of the people responsible for the Herald's headlines...

We don't want tax cuts

That's the finding of a Fairfax poll released today. Asked the obvious question - tax cuts or public services? - people overwhelmingly chose the latter:

As for which public services people would prefer, the answer is obvious: health and education. While National likes to talk about "low quality" spending in these areas and question whether spending more money will bring any benefit, when people are facing long waiting lists because the government will not fund enough operations, and have to wait at A&E because of capacity constraints caused by underfunding, that's a difficult case to make. It's also difficult to argue when schools are having to charge parents hundreds of dollars a year in "voluntary" donations for services they should be providing for free. And of course we have the example of the re-universalisation of primary healthcare to show how spending more money on health can make a real difference to people's lives.

Another interesting finding is that we don't want privatisation either, even the "partial selldown" National offers - 56% (including 49% of National voters) oppose any further asset sales.

This is the real choice we face in next years election: tax cuts for the rich and looting the state, or decent, well-funded public services which benefit everybody. And this poll is the reason why National really doesn't want to talk about it, but instead adopts tactics of lies, obfuscation, and spin.

Back to the 90's with National

So, John Key wants to boost the government subsidy to profit-making private schools while allowing the private sector to build and operate public schools. Does anyone detect a theme here? Despite having lost three elections in a row, and seen their extreme free market agenda defeated in every election since 1990 (but unfortunately imposed anyway through deceit and the distortions of FPP), the National Party has learned nothing and forgotten nothing and still wants to drag us back to the 90's. Oh, the worst of it is supposedly gone - Key now eschews bulk funding, just as he denies any plans for full selloffs of state assets (except for Solid Energy, and LandCorp, and anything else his rich mates want) - but OTOH given the deceit exposed in their health policy (which somehow failed to mention that it would be leaving doctor's fees to the market), can we really trust them on that?

As for the policies themselves, they follow National's current policy agenda of looting the state. Increased subsidies for private schools means higher profits for their owners and lower fees for the snobs who choose to exclude their children from the state system in an effort to perpetuate privilege and avoid them "falling in with the wrong crowd" (i.e. ordinary New Zealanders). And renting school properties means giving their owners a perpetual, risk-free revenue stream, while forcing the government to pay an inflated price to cover not just the cost of building the school, but also the owner's profit. As with their health, aged-care and privatisation polices, it's all about redirecting state revenue into the private pockets of National's donors and cronies, and if it happened in Indonesia, we'd make no bones about calling it exactly what it is: corruption and crony capitalism.

Running to stand still

Secondary teachers are going on strike next month in pursuit of a 7.5% wage rise and improved conditions. This seems high, and the Ministry of Education is certainly working hard to spin it as greedy, but its not. Instead, like the EPMU a couple of years ago, the teachers are being forced to strike simply to keep pace with where they were.

Since the PPTA's last settlement in 2004, teacher's wages have risen 8.74%. Over that same period, inflation has been 9.2% - so they actually got themselves a pay cut. And median labour costs, which the original pay claim was benchmarked against, have risen 16.2%. So, if the PPTA get everything they're demanding, they'll be exactly where they were three years ago. They're running to stand still.

Against this backdrop, the government's outrage at teachers' "greed" looks a little self-serving, and their insistence on a multi-year deal looks like an effort to erode the real increases in teachers' salaries negotiated in 2002.

What opposition to NCEA is about

Sexism. What else can you say when an exclusive boy's school principal withdraws from the system because it "tends to favour girls"? And it looks even worse when he explains himself:

Headmaster Graeme Yule said NCEA lent itself to the girls, who tended to be more diligent with the internal assessment aspects of NCEA.

Otherwise known as hard work and academic merit. Clearly we can't have an education system which rewards that!

Such anti-meritocratic attitudes aren't uncommon in elite educational institutions. Reading this reminded me of an article I read a while ago about the history of the US S.A.T, which mentioned in passing the use of aptitude tests to keep Jews out of Ivy League universities. The theory behind this was that Jewish students were "grinds", who excelled simply because they worked hard, as opposed to having the "innate ability" of, say, the scion of an inbred New England dynasty. The use of an aptitude test (which nowadays we would recognise as being significantly culturally biased) allowed the colleges to weed out the (mainly Jewish) students who were "achieving beyond their ability" in favour of the (mainly white) students who were "naturals" (as shown by their ability to achieve a gentleman's C). Unfortunately, it seems that this attitude is alive and well in the principal of Scots College.

Some history on gender differences in education

I'm digesting the latest copy of the Social Report, the government's annual statistical monitoring of social performance, and there were some interesting statistics which grabbed my attention. Over the weekend, the Sunday Star-Times had a feature on the new gender imbalance at universities, which began with the line

Young women, not content with outshining the boys at secondary school, are now stealing a march on them at universities and polytechs.

DPF has a compilation of the headline statistics here.

In right-wing circles, its traditional to blame this on the new, "feminised", PC education system - and in particular on NCEA. But I'm not sure how well that explanation fits with this graph, on gender-differences in school-leaving performance:

As can clearly be seen, differential performance at secondary school is nothing new; girls have been outperforming boys as far back as records began - and under the "manly" system of external, one-off examinations to boot. So its clearly not NCEA which is at fault. Likewise, I'm not sure how relevant complains about modern "feminised", "PC" education are, when the differential success is pronounced as far back as 1990.

Secondly, the SST's core story - that there are more women than men at university - isn't even new. As the figure below shows, there have been more women than men in tertiary education in every age-group except 15-17 year olds since 1996 (and looking back through past editions, its since 1994). The gap has been consistently widening, just as it has been in secondary school performance, but its been there all along.

So what story are these statistics telling? Clearly, I'd like to see more data, both going further back, to see when these trends started, but also around things like gender differences in school leaving rates, because I suspect the latter is likely to be quite important. There's probably an aspect of natural aptitude in the school stats (as numerous educationalists have pointed out, girls work at school while boys dick around - so of course they do better), which naturally carries on to greater tertiary participation. But I think there's also been a clear change of expectations. Firstly, we are now in an age of mass tertiary education, in which people with the grades are expected to continue on to university. And secondly, there have been changes in expectations around women and work, to the extent that any discouragement in attending tertiary education of pursuing a career which requires it has mostly passed. If a greater proportion of girls are getting the grades which translate into an expectation of university attendance, then that would explain the current gap. Though again, we'd need more statistics to nail this down (anyone have anything relevant here?)

What we are clearly seeing though is the death of unearned male privilege in tertiary education, which should eventually mean the death of unearned male privilege in careers. And that I think is something we should welcome.