John Morris finished his 19th year in Auckland Boys Grammar recently. In an interview with the Herald, he stated that the most important influence on a student's education is their family background.
Obviously there are clear and unequivocal reasons why his students are seen to do so well, then.
It's odd to start off with a digression. This isn't actually about John Morris. It's about Hekia Parata's insistence outlined in the Herald editorial today that we don't have a world-class education system, because it's failing Maori and Pasifika youth.
Well, now. Back that truck up, lady.
The last school I worked in, a decile 2, had a Maori population of around 50%. The highest proportion after that were Pasifika, at around 30%, then a mix of Indian, Pakeha, Asian, and a few randoms.
The school was 80% Maori and Pasifika, then. And achieving extremely well. The kids were largely bright, happy, cheerful, and very happy to be there. School is a much nicer place than home, for many of these students.
The teaching work was hard, with most teachers rarely working under 65 hours a week - the school was in a falling-apart neighbourhood that sagged off the edge of a "good" one (whose children all went to a decile 10 school just down the road, which has far lower achievement).
Some parents were trespassed from the school for attacking students; some students trespassed from the school for attacking teachers; many parents in prison; high unemployment; substance abuse almost the norm in some streets; huge overcrowding issues (for example, one of my students lived with 14 others, making 15 in a three-bedroom house).
And some children were extremely dysfunctional. Most weren't - most kids just inhale new skills and knowledge and beg for more - but the kids whose achievement was lower than the rest, well... generally, they had nasty little lives. I really do mean that. We simply can't understand the experiences these children have because of the real, true poverty they live in.
I wonder, sometimes, seeing what I have seen, that the child suicide rate isn't even higher in places like Manurewa and Otara.
But John Morris, headmaster of Grammar, he knows what life is like on the less sunny side of the tracks: he grew up in West Auckland (gasp!) and went to Kelston Boys (nooo!) before going to university (so sad!) and becoming a teacher.
Thank goodness for that - I'm sure his experiences have made him a far better teacher and leader for his disproportionately white and rich immigrant, middle-upper class students.
The author of the article is correct that the underachieving tail in thie country's education system is disproportionately brown, and Hekia Parata continues to imply an undercurrent of insidious racism - but what's the true common denominator here?
It's not crappy teaching in schools, or despicable prejudiced teachers deciding not to help anyone with more melanin than them.
We have a world-class education system: evidence-based, highly individualised and equitable; innovative and creative, despite chronic underfunding - and for once, the editorial in the Herald acknowledges that. I'm still reeling.
...our education establishment regards itself as second to none in the world. The practitioners pride themselves on the equity of the system, its flexible, non-prescriptive curriculum, its examinations that let pupils advance at their own pace and give them second chances. They tell us our system is admired worldwide for these features and that our catch-up programmes such as reading recovery are particularly envied and copied. If these programmes have not improved the performance of some groups sufficiently, that must be a measure of the disadvantage these children have to overcome, not a failure of the education system.
The schooling system of a country doesn't change poor kids into failures.
However, if there were some research tools made to measure poverty (Paula Bennett assures us that this is neither possible, nor a priority) we could look at the link between underachievement and poverty (it is real, and it is serious). Then we could start to build answers, find productive paths forward, ones that don't involve the constant attacks on teachers, who are currently the most undervalued members of society, I'd say.
But Hekia Parata is keeping it simple. Just go for the teachers. Get them in the throat. Why are they not just making these (possibly malnourished, neglected, hungry, poverty-stricken, parasite-infested) kids learn at the same rate as (probably affluent, loved, warm, dry, well-nourished, cared-for) others?!
The next miserable question is, I suppose, what failed policies from underachieving governments around the world will she bring in to solve this alleged debacle in our education system?