Just charming

OPINION: How much charm can $26 million buy, asks The Southland Times in an editorial.

That's the reported budget for the Government and Education Ministry to persuade us of the benefits of the national standards in reading, writing and maths that are to be introduced from next week.

The answer to that question is, of course, impossible to measure in any meaningful way, which is arguably ironic since this is also the heart of the ardent criticisms of the new standards; that they will be mis-translated into deceptive league tables, simplistically interpreted as showing that this school is better than that school.

Most people haven't swallowed that line; they understand the need for care to be taken interpreting the data, but don't take kindly to the implication that it's all too, too difficult for them to get their heads around or that there can't be a system reflecting the "value-added" component from schools that are doing well with essentially remedial agendas.

That said, the figure put on this campaign to ease the introduction national standards is, when seen in isolation, a revolting one.

Lacking explanation or context, it seems breathtakingly extravagant.

Some would go further and say it was a sinister manipulation; though the figure is just too big and fat a target for public odium to sustain any suggestion of clever manipulation under way.

In fact, to answer the introductory question, albeit only in a relative sense, $26 million buys a whole lot less charm than a small budget does.

What a tag like that really does is empower every critic of the standards to say that those millions should be put towards improving any educational package, not selling it.

New Zealand Educational Institute president Francis Nelson was being quite mild in her language when she said the campaign risked ranging into propaganda.

The word so far is that the money will be devoted to explaining the new system and training teachers, principals and boards on how it works.

On one level this is some comfort, because it opens up the possibility that the money is marked not for slick salesmanship and pricey advertising, but good, honest education – of teachers and of their employers.

The difficulty with this, however, is obvious.

It's a bit late in the piece.

The standards are upon us. Teacher representatives have been grizzling that there has been insufficient preparation and this does tend to support that view. It is very hard indeed to criticise $26 million as being too little, but there's certainly a case to put that it is too late – or at least much later than it should have been.

For her part, Education Minister Anne Tolley has acknowledged that she "didn't work that closely with boards of trustees last year".

Clearly not. There is now an impression of all hands to the pump, as the campaign enlists support from National's electorate MPs, though presumably they won't be charging for their services.

And the fact sheets and online resources for teachers, also mentioned in reports on the campaign, still fall well short of explaining where $26 million of your money is going.

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