Newshub's Education "Debate"

This morning on Newshub Nation Rebecca Wright hosted National education Spokesperson Erica Stanford and current Minister of Education Jan Tinetti.

As education is my passion and life-work I rarely feel more disappointed when a "leader" in the field resorts to presenting false information or avoiding data/facts. That is exactly what Tinetti did.

I know the NZ High School data set better than most because I do the sector wide data process for LEAVERS every year (can send it to you on request). Labour try to say things were in decline before they came to office and try to blame National Standards. If teachers having to do a few assessments could their teaching/learning to decline so badly - clearly they were on shaky ground in the first place.

The data clearly shows some fluctuations and then Labour - in the last six years - led by Hipkins and Tinetti driving our system off a cliff. This is especially true for Maori, Pasifika and low decile children.

Tinetti tried to close today's debate by saying things had turned around. There is ABSOLUTELY NO evidence for that and she is hiding the Term 2 attendance data until November.

Here is this morning's dabate.