Comments on: A slightly more substantive take on Labour’s education policy

By: Sanctuary

Sanctuary — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:56:58 +0000

BTW I have to agree with Danyl’s assessment that Labour’s announcement is smart. I shall now tell a little story. In 1950, US major general William F. Dean was captured by the North Koreans. Upon his release in 1954, he spoke little of the attempts by the North Koreans to brainwash him, beyond observing “I am now an expert on the history of the Chinese communist party”. Having had the misfortune to have had to suffer through a hour of the purgatory of listening to Danny Watson on ZB on Friday, an event I consider fully comparable to four years in the hands of devious communists determined to bend me to their will, I now consider myself an expert on the history of angry fallback callers,and not one of them could find anything to criticize Shearer over about this policy.

By: Sanctuary

Sanctuary — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:46:21 +0000

*sigh* do we REALLY need yet another hubristic court jester of the zombie facts like Tim clogging up teh internetz?

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:36:29 +0000

And both of you are my bitches. Bless.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:13:19 +0000

Nah, he works for Judith Collins

By: Judge Holden

Judge Holden — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 02:59:08 +0000

“You don’t by any chance work for Paula Bennett, do you?”

Very close to the mark I suspect Neil.

By: NeilM

NeilM — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:35:39 +0000

If Shearer isn’t really all that against national standards his next speech on asset sales might be interesting.

That’s the problem with raising the stakes so high. They’ve done this quite a few times but the gst on fruit and veges stands out.

At the time Labour argued with much seeming intensity and conviction that if one didn’t oppose gst on fruit and veges then one was Against The Children. But after the election there was just a collective meh from them SMS that policy was dumped. So much for the children.

All the huffing and puffing over national standards has gone the same way.

Mining? Asset sales? Who knows.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:01:34 +0000

Forgive me Tim. Here I was thinking that I had called bullshit on your spurious and totally unsupported claim that 20% of NZers are illiterate. I didn’t realise that if you say there’s a problem, it’s up to me to prove there isn’t.

You don’t by any chance work for Paula Bennett, do you?

By: nommopilot

nommopilot — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:38:46 +0000

If only we had some standard children to test the standards with

By: insider

insider — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:33:33 +0000

The lack of national standards means anecdote is all we’ve got.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:24:37 +0000

Neil, are you serious?

You ask me to reference sources then you rock up with anecdotal bullshit ;like this “In 30 years as a teacher in a number of schools of varying decile rankings, with friends and colleagues in many others, I am not aware of ANY school with such severe problems”.

Riiight on.