Teacher strikes

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#2248846 31-May-2019 07:30

What I found disappointing yesterday was that the teachers are upset that the Budget did not have anything for them. Negotiations are in place, how can that mean that the Budget holds the resolution? They went on strike this week and announced another day in June but the Budget yesterday is supposed to resolve that? They were told that there is no more money, so how can the Budget have more money?

surfisup1000

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#2248852 31-May-2019 08:09

gehenna:

surfisup1000:

You speak the language of mediocrity.

Perhaps read the whole thread before going any further, if there is any mediocrity being spoken it's the quality of your posts in comparison to a lot of the well reasoned and expressed arguments on both sides throughout the thread.

Cry me a river. So only people with the same opinion as yours are well reasoned.

Pay equality does result in mediocrity. This is the very core of socialism, that everyone is equal .

Look at NZ education today, kids are falling way behind on international comparisons.

Teachers performance pay does work very well overseas.

You shouldn't read GZ if you don't like opinions different to yours.

Hammerer

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#2248865 31-May-2019 08:52

tdgeek:

Hammerer:

I hope that the teachers get a better deal than what is offered. They're not the only group to miss out because of government neglect (e.g. nurses, caregivers, ...) but they do have an opportunity to get something now. I support them pressing hard for whatever they can get.

The current government promised many things so the current government could win the last election. Now they're prevaricating on meeting the expectations they created. The saying is "hoist by his own petard" because the government is being blown up by a bomb they created.

...

Remember, this issue wasn't created in Nov 2016, its built up over many years. This Govt will try to fix what it hasn't created. If these longer standing issues are all fixed in one year, thats a HUGE cost. Many years of short funding delivered in one year is a tough call. And while many will want this change right now, if its stops other funding then they won't. It will take time, I dont see how that can be avoided

I disagree about the genesis of this strike action. The primary spark for the current conflagration was the last election campaign which led teachers to believe that Labour would address the pent-up demand in a more committed manner than they have to date. While the current government hasn't created some of the issues, almost every issue existed when Labour last had more than one term as the government. Many of those issues are now much worse.

My wife is a secondary school teacher and she repeated to me many things that teachers were being told or were hearing before the last election. It's difficult to know if there the story was being changed in the retelling but many of those statements were also publicly reported at the time. I considered some of the comments to be crazy because they were creating an unrealistic expectation among the unionists and the teachers. The clear intent was to induce teachers to vote Labour instead of National which, of course, some teachers did.

Even in the measured tone of the Labour education manifesto there is a clear emphasis on raising the "value" of the teaching profession. I'm not convinced that the current government is working to achieve this.

https://www.labour.org.nz/educationmanifesto

Quality Teaching

All the research is clear, the quality of teaching has the biggest in-school influence on student achievement. Labour is absolutely committed to a high-status, high-trust teaching profession. We want to attract the very best teachers, provide them with ongoing development opportunities throughout their careers, ensure they are well paid and respected, and receive all the support that they need to thrive in their roles.

A highly valued, highly trusted teaching profession

We want teaching to be one of the most highly valued, sought after careers there is. We recognise the role government has to play in setting high expectations of our teachers and then giving them the freedom and autonomy they deserve to get on with the job. Throughout their careers we want teachers to feel valued, supported, and have opportunities to continually grow in their jobs.

Personally, I support two changes which have been mentioned already but which the PPTA strenuously opposes:

Some sort of performance pay system. The current system is failing to recognise the impact that better teachers have. It is possible to design a system that will show that good teachers are more highly valued and more highly rewarded. It won't be perfect but it will provide new opportunities to enhance the profession to hold existing teachers, attract new teachers and reduce the impact of the worst-performing teachers.
Increasing the ability of schools to get rid of poorly performing teachers. Aspects of poor performance don't just affect students they affect other staff at the school because some teachers willl not work cooperatively with their colleagues and other staff at the school, or will not update or upgrade their teaching and course content, or, as teacher-in-charge or head of department, will make a subject area unattractive to students and other teachers.

Technofreak

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#2248867 31-May-2019 08:55

If I understand some of the arguments, the pay issue is to address retention and recruitment. While pay is certainly one factor I'd suggest job satisfaction and the problems imported into school life from dysfunctional families is by far the biggest reason for lack of retention and recruitment.

Things like;

She quit when one day an 8 year old said to her

"If you tell me off again, I am going to tell my Dad you touched me and he'll make sure you go to prison!"

These are some of the things they've had to deal with in the last nine months;

- Extremely violent behaviour from a student where the classroom is absolutely trashed.

- A child admitting they are being physically abused by their guardian so bad, Oranga Tamariki had to remove the child and place them with relatives.

- Numerous students exhibiting self-harming behaviour, again where Oranga Tamariki are called in.

- One student threatening to bomb the school, attempting to cyber-attack the school and email bomb the teachers.

- One student who thought she might be pregnant (who was still at primary school).

Until these are addressed no amount of money will fix the teacher problems. Teachers aren't trained as social workers/psychologists and they didn't join up as a teacher to do that sort of work.

In most jobs it's not the money that is the deciding factor on whether or not people leave for another career. I'd suggest most teachers aren't there for the money, they are passionate about education.

In reality it is a job satisfaction issue and not a pay issue.

There are much bigger issues than the teachers pay and until they are addressed the teacher "pay issue" won't be addressed either.

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tdgeek

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#2248869 31-May-2019 08:59

Hammerer:

I disagree about the genesis of this strike action. The primary spark for the current conflagration was the last election campaign which led teachers to believe that Labour would address the pent-up demand in a more committed manner than they have to date. While the current government hasn't created some of the issues, almost every issue existed when Labour last had more than one term as the government. Many of those issues are now much worse.

My wife is a secondary school teacher and she repeated to me many things that teachers were being told or were hearing before the last election. It's difficult to know if there the story was being changed in the retelling but many of those statements were also publicly reported at the time. I considered some of the comments to be crazy because they were creating an unrealistic expectation among the unionists and the teachers. The clear intent was to induce teachers to vote Labour instead of National which, of course, some teachers did.

Even in the measured tone of the Labour education manifesto there is a clear emphasis on raising the "value" of the teaching profession. I'm not convinced that the current government is working to achieve this.

The issue existed under Clarke. So that, plus 9 years of underfunding has left us here. Is the current Government needing to provide 9,10, or 11 years catchup in one budget? Thats not possible. If they did somehow, then every other sector that has the same issue will as well

tdgeek

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#2248874 31-May-2019 09:05

Technofreak:

If I understand some of the arguments, the pay issue is to address retention and recruitment. While pay is certainly one factor I'd suggest job satisfaction and the problems imported into school life from dysfunctional families is by far the biggest reason for lack of retention and recruitment.

Things like;

She quit when one day an 8 year old said to her

"If you tell me off again, I am going to tell my Dad you touched me and he'll make sure you go to prison!"

These are some of the things they've had to deal with in the last nine months;

- Extremely violent behaviour from a student where the classroom is absolutely trashed.

- A child admitting they are being physically abused by their guardian so bad, Oranga Tamariki had to remove the child and place them with relatives.

- Numerous students exhibiting self-harming behaviour, again where Oranga Tamariki are called in.

- One student threatening to bomb the school, attempting to cyber-attack the school and email bomb the teachers.

- One student who thought she might be pregnant (who was still at primary school).

Until these are addressed no amount of money will fix the teacher problems. Teachers aren't trained as social workers/psychologists and they didn't join up as a teacher to do that sort of work.

Maybe the teachers should have focussed only on non pay issues?

Those examples are shocking. Perhaps if the kid is registered as a concern then removed from that class to a special class, then that teacher can continue teaching and the parents can be told to sort out the child? Its not the teachers issue to sort out the child or to be exposed to it

blackjack17

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#2248877 31-May-2019 09:07

Are there poor teachers out there? Yes Are these teachers a significant proportion of the population no. By and large in my experience (9 years teaching) poor teachers don't last long. The workload is to high and the pay is too low for them to stay in it.

Students know which teachers aren't good and I don't know if you realise this but teenagers can be a little rough, when you don't have the respect of your students (and you have them for a full year) they can make your life unpleasant. Teaching isn't easy and if you aren't very good at it or you try to coast it will catch up on you.

Poor teachers get poor annual reviews (yes we get on going teacher evaluations including classroom observations and performance targets) which means action plans need to be put in place to lift the level of competence.

Poor teachers can get fired just like any other profession. Where you have poor teachers in schools it is more a school management issue and this will get reflected in ERO reports (most of the time)

A big issue at the moment is schools need to keep these poor teachers in place as they have no one to replace them with. If the status of teachers was raised higher (more pay) and the workload decreased then you would see teaching as a more desirable profession with more competition for positions, which would make it easier for schools to get rid of teachers that aren't performing.

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blackjack17

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#2248919 31-May-2019 09:11

tdgeek:

Maybe the teachers should have focused only on non pay issues?

Those examples are shocking. Perhaps if the kid is registered as a concern then removed from that class to a special class, then that teacher can continue teaching and the parents can be told to sort out the child? Its not the teachers issue to sort out the child or to be exposed to it

What special class? If a class is created for these difficult students it removes a teacher that can be teaching regular classes which means you need to increase class sizes for all the other classes.

Schools are funded based on the number of students 1 teacher per 29 students (or something like that) If you have one teacher teaching a special class of 10 the other 19 students need to be spread amongst the other classes.

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tdgeek

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#2248921 31-May-2019 09:13

blackjack17:

tdgeek:

Maybe the teachers should have focused only on non pay issues?

Those examples are shocking. Perhaps if the kid is registered as a concern then removed from that class to a special class, then that teacher can continue teaching and the parents can be told to sort out the child? Its not the teachers issue to sort out the child or to be exposed to it

What special class? If a class is created for these difficult students it removes a teacher that can be teaching regular classes which means you need to increase class sizes for all the other classes.

Schools are funded based on the number of students 1 teacher per 29 students (or something like that) If you have one teacher teaching a special class of 10 the other 19 students need to be spread amongst the other classes.

Ok, leave it as is, and allow teachers to be stressed and they will continue to leave the profession

frankv

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#2248933 31-May-2019 09:23

tdgeek:

They were told that there is no more money, so how can the Budget have more money?

Politicians lie.

When politicians take a pay cut so that there's money available for something else, I'll believe that there's no more money. There is *always* more money; it's just that it has been allocated to other things that the politicians think (perhaps rightly) are more important. For a special interest group, there will always be some activity being funded that they deem to be less important than their own special interest. Hence, we have a bunch of special interest groups doing a whole lot of political things to make their own special interest appear to be as important as possible.

tdgeek

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#2248937 31-May-2019 09:37

frankv:

tdgeek:

They were told that there is no more money, so how can the Budget have more money?

Politicians lie.

When politicians take a pay cut so that there's money available for something else, I'll believe that there's no more money. There is *always* more money; it's just that it has been allocated to other things that the politicians think (perhaps rightly) are more important. For a special interest group, there will always be some activity being funded that they deem to be less important than their own special interest. Hence, we have a bunch of special interest groups doing a whole lot of political things to make their own special interest appear to be as important as possible.

That's life. If you say you cannot afford a movie ticket, you can. If you cannot afford a PC upgrade, you can. Thats the same thing. When you say you cannot afford that, or a politician says there is no money, we all know that doesnt mean the bank account is $0.00

Or we take 40 million off health to give to education, take 40 million off roads to give to health,. take 40 million off education to give to roads

Its not a lie. Its life. We do it at home we do it at Govt. If we lived in Brunei, we would not need to

People complain about all Govts. Mostly its because you didnt give me what I want as funds are apparently a bottomless pit. Or we tax too much, then we don't spend as much on stuff, so we borrow, but then we borrow too much. (Unless you finally gave me what I want) A line has to be drawn as we will never have enough funding to do everything today. People know that, but still complain

tdgeek

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#2248974 31-May-2019 10:32

Our high school has advised that there is one days strike, different days for each Year, starting next week, and 20 June the entire school is closed, so this is 2 days of strike action

frankv

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#2248979 31-May-2019 10:42

tdgeek:

frankv:

tdgeek:

They were told that there is no more money, so how can the Budget have more money?

Politicians lie.

When politicians take a pay cut so that there's money available for something else, I'll believe that there's no more money. There is *always* more money; it's just that it has been allocated to other things that the politicians think (perhaps rightly) are more important. For a special interest group, there will always be some activity being funded that they deem to be less important than their own special interest. Hence, we have a bunch of special interest groups doing a whole lot of political things to make their own special interest appear to be as important as possible.

That's life. If you say you cannot afford a movie ticket, you can. If you cannot afford a PC upgrade, you can. Thats the same thing. When you say you cannot afford that, or a politician says there is no money, we all know that doesnt mean the bank account is $0.00

Saying "I can't afford" is different from saying "There is no money". "I can't afford" for something under $100,000 means I am choosing not to buy whatever it is. "I can't afford" for a million dollar item is the same as "There is not enough money"... I absolutely couldn't raise a million dollars to buy a new Ferrari, for example, even if my life depended on it.

Politicians have chosen not to pay teachers what they are worth, but there is a budget surplus of $1.3B. They're wanting teachers to "take one for the team", sacrifice themselves for some greater good. Phrasing it as "there is no money" is just spin to obfuscate that the choice has been made.

Teachers, like other public servants, have been sucking it up for a long time. At the same time, other sectors are doing very nicely thank you, and not being asked for sacrifices. In some cases, they're not even being asked to contribute at all. After a while, it looks like the savings being made at the expense of the teachers (and other taxpayers) is going into the pockets of those other sectors.

People complain about all Govts. Mostly its because you didnt give me what I want as funds are apparently a bottomless pit. Or we tax too much, then we don't spend as much on stuff, so we borrow, but then we borrow too much. (Unless you finally gave me what I want) A line has to be drawn as we will never have enough funding to do everything today. People know that, but still complain

Right. But that's my point. If you *don't* complain, you will be forgotten and your pay rate and work conditions and lifestyle and happiness will slide. So you ignore it when politicians tell you there is no more money. You *must* complain. The more your complaints are ignored, the more effort you must make to be heard.

gehenna

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#2248985 31-May-2019 10:47

surfisup1000:

Cry me a river. So only people with the same opinion as yours are well reasoned.

"in comparison to a lot of the well reasoned and expressed arguments on both sides throughout the thread"

tdgeek

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#2248991 31-May-2019 10:57

frankv:

Saying "I can't afford" is different from saying "There is no money". "I can't afford" for something under $100,000 means I am choosing not to buy whatever it is. "I can't afford" for a million dollar item is the same as "There is not enough money"... I absolutely couldn't raise a million dollars to buy a new Ferrari, for example, even if my life depended on it.

Politicians have chosen not to pay teachers what they are worth, but there is a budget surplus of $1.3B. They're wanting teachers to "take one for the team", sacrifice themselves for some greater good. Phrasing it as "there is no money" is just spin to obfuscate that the choice has been made.

Teachers, like other public servants, have been sucking it up for a long time. At the same time, other sectors are doing very nicely thank you, and not being asked for sacrifices. In some cases, they're not even being asked to contribute at all. After a while, it looks like the savings being made at the expense of the teachers (and other taxpayers) is going into the pockets of those other sectors.

Right. But that's my point. If you *don't* complain, you will be forgotten and your pay rate and work conditions and lifestyle and happiness will slide. So you ignore it when politicians tell you there is no more money. You *must* complain. The more your complaints are ignored, the more effort you must make to be heard.

Its fair to remove surpluses in order to spend more. If I was PM I would do that every budget. If we were to vastly increase teachers, we also do that for nurses and doctors, we also add a lot of infrastructure for those two sectors, and we build more road and rail as every road or rail that is proposed is wrong as its about this other road or rail. Plus, a common comment is that many many other employees aren't getting many pay increases as well, so its also fair to add a general wage order of 10% for everyone. Its just all not possible right now. Its not about being wrong or disagreeing, its just too much money that is required everywhere.

Then we tax breaks for brand new EV's didn't happen in the budget, commented today.

I dont disagree with you but we need it everywhere, we need to strike gold again

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