More on Kawerau Intermediate

Let’s be straight up; schooling in Kawerau needs to be reorganised. While I think Anne Tolley ignored a section of the community and that is undesirable, I think she came to the right decision. The current schooling arrangements in Kawerau are unsustainable. The numbers don’t exist to justify four separate primary schools (one of which is a full primary school i.e. years 1-8), one intermediate and one high school. Basically, supply outstrips demand. The costs of maintaining six schools with massively declining rolls are unacceptable.

Tolley has approved the establishment of a dual campus year 7-14 school on the Kawerau College site. The school will be split along the junior/senior high model, meaning there will be one years 7 to 10 school and another catering for years 11 to 13/14. Some specialist facilities will be shared, for example science labs.

Some members of the community are disappointed with the lack of consultation. I don’t accept this; the consultation was more than adequate. The community was given adequate time to submit to the Minister and convey their concerns to the Ministry of Education. Several hui were held for the entire community and each school held their own individual hui to determine what model they would support. Kawerau South, Kawerau North, Kawerau Central and Putauaki all supported the closure of the Intermediate. Even though the Mayor, Malcolm Campbell, even says it is time to move on and make education in Kawerau work.

Tolley’s reorganisation will facilitate a culture change in Kawerau schools. The useless management will be rid of and the deadwood on the College and Intermediate boards will be rid of too. Useless staff will not be rehired either. I understand some Kawerau people, as former students, have an emotional connection to the Intermediate. But they need to put that aside and face reality. The schools have to be reorganised and closing the Intermediate is the most sensible option. When the new school comes to life in 2013 the government will spend millions upgrading facilities and attracting high quality staff. This can only be a good thing.

As an aside, Steve Chadwick is taking a gamble. Should, on a slim chance, Labour form the next government Steve will have to make an about face. She has come down on the side of the Intermediate supporters, but if she came into government and saw the official advice I'm of the view that she would change her position and support the reorganisation. The advice from the Ministry is, I believe, emphatic. Schooling must be reorganised and the best model is to shut the Intermediate and partially merge it with the College.

Kawerau Intermediate will close

Education Minister Anne Tolley has finally confirmed Kawerau Intermediate will be closed and merged with Kawerau College. From RNZ:

Labour Party List MP Steve Chadwick says Education Minister Anne Tolley has steamrolled the Kawerau community and ignored its pleas not to close the only intermediate school there.


Mrs Tolley has announced a new Year 7 to Year 14 school which will replace Kawerau Intermediate and Kawerau College.


National says it would invest $6 million in the new school. But Ms Chadwick says Mrs Tolley deliberately ignored the community wishes not to merge the schools.

Tolley certainly ignored the community, but, in my opinion, the Minister reached the correct decision. The current model, meaning three tiers of schooling (primary, intermediate and high school), is unsustainable. Reform is, without doubt, necessary and welcome.

In 2013 the College will reopen as a junior/senior high school. On the same campus I believe, but with separate facilities. I think the junior/senior high model is largely untested in New Zealand and an American import. This isn’t to say the model won’t be successful. With the right governance and management the school should, in theory of course, be successful. Good governance and management is what Kawerau College has lacked over the past decade. However, I do worry that the Minister is using Kawerau as a test town for the junior/senior high model. I don’t know what is behind Tolley’s enthusiasm for the model; I guess there must be some sort of cost efficiencies in running high school education in that way.

I’m giving my cautious support to the redevelopment.

Lastly, I wish the Kawerau Intermediate die hards would give it a rest and get on with ensuring the best outcomes for children. You lost. You can't do anything more. Accept it and move on. 

Closeup on Kawerau (pt 2)

I know my last post on Kawerau lacked proper structure; unfortunately today’s post does as well. Over the past twenty four hours I’ve been collecting a number of disparate thoughts and committing them to two posts. I haven’t had the time to refine my thoughts and place those thoughts in a logical structure. Hopefully you don’t get lost in this post.

Today I’ll refrain from commenting on the quality of Closeup’s follow-up story on Kawerau. I’ll focus on the issues. On a positive note, the story did identify one of the causes of dysfunction in Kawerau and, thankfully, one of the solutions. It doesn’t take a genius to discover that joblessness is one of the drivers of dysfunction in Kawerau and that jobs are one of the solutions.

The unemployment rate in Kawerau stands at 19.3% compared with 7.5% nationally and 16.1% for Maori. This is unacceptable, but hardly surprising. The simple, simple fact is: there are not enough jobs in Kawerau. The most successful businesses in Kawerau are New World and the local pubs. The main industries, forestry and pulp and paper production, are high skill industries. Secondary industries, read those supporting the main industries, are also high skill, for example engineering, electrical work and heavy machinery work. Most Kawerau residents do not have the skills to even think of applying for those sorts of jobs. This is, in part, a failure on their part, but mostly a failure on the government’s part.

In Kawerau you move from a decile one primary school, to a decile one intermediate school and then onto a decile one high school. This is not a dig at the quality of low decile schools – my primary education was good – my point is that students attending low decile schools receive fewer opportunities than students attending higher decile schools. The teaching staff are, and this may be an unjustified claim, at the lower end of the scale while the resources available to the school, staff and students often fall below what you would expect in a developed country. Once students reach the third tier of schooling they are less likely to at the same level or ahead of their peers at other high schools. Now this is where it gets interesting in Kawerau. Kawerau College is shit.

Kawerau College is one of, if not the worst, high school in New Zealand. Former Principal Steve Hocking left a few years ago in disgrace after allegation emerged that he had smoked cannabis and sexually assaulted a student among other allegations. The achievement levels at the school are well below average, even against comparable schools. The teaching staff are, as is the case with poor performing schools, well under par with many holding primary school teaching qualifications only. The student body is captured in a culture of low expectation. Gang culture permeates the school and career aspirations are near non-existent. Kawerau College has a major role to play in improving Kawerau in terms of creating expectation and equipping students with life skills and job skills.

It is thoroughly normal, in Kawerau that is, to move from school to the dole. Welfare dependency is engrained. There is a culture of dependency, but that is not a reflection on the dependent, but a failure on the part of the state and a reflection on decades of poor government policy. People in Kawerau move from school to the dole because that is the only option. There is the option of higher education, but that option is usually not available given that most Kawerau residents are underachievers as a result of an economic system that selects against the poor, a poor education, low expectation and a culture that does not value education or success as we define it.

One way to improve dysfunction in Kawerau is to create a culture that values success. Which brings me to another point, success in Kawerau needs to be redefined. Success is not a gang patch, success should not be defined by the your spotting prowess, success should be defined by the way you treat others, whether you achieve your goals and lead your life according to an acceptable value system.

Paula Bennett appeared on the show as well. Bennett expressed concern for Kawerau and indicated her willingness to improve the situation. The problem is, she has no solutions and is unwilling to acknowledge the true extent of the problem. I was lucky enough to sit on a meeting she had with community leaders in April. Bennett appeared responsive, however she had no idea how to tackle the problems and the advice and information she received at the meeting from community leaders seemed to fly right over her head.

Paula Bennett is of the view that the community has the power to change their situation. This is true, but to a limited extent. The community can effect a culture change and provide better support for the vulnerable, but the community cannot create jobs where economic opportunities are scarce. The community cannot fund vital services. Nor can Iwi either. It is not the place of Iwi to provide social services – government cannot expect to devolve their responsibilities.

The government needs to provide a hand-up. At the moment the government is merely, and I hate invoking this language, providing a hand-out. Chucking money at a problem hoping it will correct itself. Kawerau cannot auto-correct. The government needs to step in, in partnership with the community of course, and provide direction and support. A Commissioner needs to be placed in Kawerau College, the College Board needs to be sacked (they are incompetent), social services need to be overhauled and centralised for maximum effect, policy needs to be directed at under 5’s and youth, service providers need to focus on upskilling beneficiaries and ensuring they are work-ready, the government needs to invest in the local economy to create jobs and encourage the private sector to invest in the local economy. The Council needs to encourage growth through rates incentives and partnerships with Iwi.

These suggestions are just the beginning. More can be done and must be done. And it’s not up to the community to do it alone – they can’t. This is the place of government, this is the responsibility of government. Doing nothing is a cop out.

On ya Todd

I was skimming over the Whakatane Beacon on Wednesday and came across this:

A building and construction scheme providing job training and education for Kawerau youth will reopen this year. The scheme was originally run by Kawerau College but closed at the end of 2010. Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell, Kawerau Enterprise Agency head Helen Stewart and Rotorua MP Todd McClay campaigned to the Tertiary Education Commission to bring it back.

“This is an excellent result for Kawerau and I am grateful to all those who have put time and effort into making sure that the programme can continue” Mr McClay said.

“Through the continuation of this scheme many more young people in Kawerau will be given the chance to gain a qualification and get a foot on the job ladder.”

The point I want to make is that Todd McClay is a decent electorate MP. I like Steve Chadwick and she was, by all accounts anyway, an excellent MP for the Rotorua electorate. However, and I am surprised to be thinking this, Todd McClay is just as good and possibly better. McClay has a Kawerau electorate office (Chadwick did not) and he makes a genuine effort to get out in the community. I am not aware of many other tangible gains McClay has made on behalf of the Kawerau community, but the perception that he cares about the community may be enough to pull him through this election. Kawerau is a solid Labour town, probably one of the most Labour friendly towns in New Zealand, so I didn’t expect McClay to give the town any attention at all. However, it appears that McClay actually understands what it means to be an electorate MP. Of course this isn’t enough to make me vote for him, but I appreciate his efforts.  

On Kawerau schools

From the Whakatane Beacon:

KAWERAU College principal Steve Lewis believes the town’s children will achieve better educational outcomes if the under-threat intermediate school is taken out of the equation.

Mr Lewis said it was “well known in academic circles” that when a child changed schools they could lose nine months progress. 

“By moving school at age 11 and again at age 13, some children may only make six months progress in those two years.

“While the intermediate may provide some awesome experiences, one more break between primary and secondary results in an unnecessary loss in academic progress.

Firstly, it is probably undisputable that when a child moves school he or she loses up to nine months progress. Even taking this into consideration I still do not support any moves to integrate the intermediate with Kawerau College. Integration should always occur on a case by case basis.

In my opinion it will be a social disaster to send intermediate age children into a high school environment, especially the Kawerau College environment. Intermediate age children are just that – children. Barely adolescent. Any merger between the two schools would expose young children to a toxic environment dominated by apathy, gang aspirations, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide dangers and disaffection among staff and students alike. It is reckless to expose young children to such an anti-social environment when they do not have the intellectual capacity to fully appreciate what they are surrounded by and nor do they have the capacity to determine whether what they are surrounded by is good, bad, normal, abnormal or otherwise.

Intermediate age children at Kawerau College would become prime targets for gang wannabes. A pool of vulnerable children who can be controlled and ultimately moulded. It would be utterly sickening to see young intermediate kids emulating the behaviour of the senior school.

It would take a grossly irresponsible and self interested principal to suggest that the two schools merge. Mr Lewis should consider wider factors. It is not enough to consider the advantages to classroom learning. In my experience most of the learning actually happens outside of the classroom.

Intermediate is a crucial bridge between childhood and adolescence. It is unwise to destroy that bridge and throw young kids in the deep end. I hope the Minister sees sense and opts for option B.

Randomness

I have wanted to blog about an issue affecting the Eastern Bay for a few days now. The problem is nothing significant is happening at the moment. Right now the big issues, in my opinion, are Whakatane Mayor Tony Bonne’s election overspend and the proposal to move the Rangitaiki Ward under the governance of the Kawerau District Council. However, both of these issues are presently in limbo, Tony Bonne’s spending is currently under police investigation and the Rangitaiki Ward proposal is currently before The Local Government Commission, therefore there is not much I can add to what I have already said here and here. With this in mind I scoured the Whakatane Beacon website for something to blog about – anything really – and this story caught my eye.

Whakatane High School’s first roll increase in 10 years has not come at the expense of its neighbours, with Trident High School and Edgecumbe College both reporting similar increases.
Trident principal Peter Tootell said he expected the school to have a starting roll of around 1240, up from 1224 last year.

Historically, Whakatane High School (WHS) has outperformed Trident and enjoyed the largest roll as a result. However, over the past 10 years that trend seems to have reversed markedly. Compared to WHS Trident now enjoys a higher roll and a higher NCEA pass rate. Trident had a 77.5% pass rate at Level 1, 81.6% at Level 2, 76% at Level 3 and 69% of Y13 students gained university entrance. WHS results are considerably lower. Of course you should never take NCEA results at face value. The above figures do not take into account the percentage of endorsements at either merit or excellence level or scholarship passes (endorsements are an indicator of a robust teaching program and a talented student body while scholarship passes are an indicator of individual academic excellence). The figures also do not take into account the mix of internal and external credits (internal credits are far easier to obtain) and the figures are not broken down according to gender, ethnicity and decile. Essentially you can manipulate statistics to tell any story and I think many schools do this. They present you with raw figures which sound very impressive but upon investigation are revealed as nothing great.

He said Trident was inundated with requests from students, particularly from Opotiki and Kawerau, after parents were informed in term 3 of the hostel’s planned shut.
They did not want to go to their local school, preferring to attend school in Whakatane.

Kawerau College has been in decline for two decades I believe. For as long as I can remember many parents have sent their children to WHS, Trident or Edgecumbe College. Others have sent their children to boarding school. This comes down to the fact that Kawerau College is absolutely inadequate – an epithet of mediocrity. This is unfortunate, every student deserves a quality education.

I don’t think there is much of a point to this post. I just wanted to highlight a story I found interesting.