Gilmore Aaron: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:13025] 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 I agree with the previous speaker Kelvin Davis about some of the things he said. I think he is a smart man and a very good person. He understands education and he has been a very good teacher. But I also think the Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill represents an idea whose time has not yet come. 
I will talk about a few things and one thing in particular. It was my son’s parent-teacher interview at school today and my partner managed to go along to see my son’s new teacher who is a first-year teacher just out of college. Lo and behold my son is doing quite well. He is exceeding the standards and I think that is great. He is a 7-year-old who is performing at the level of an 8 or 9-year-old but given his wonderful mother that does not surprise me. 
One of the issues is that we are dealing with many other things in terms of the education sector. I generally like voting for bills with the word “freedom” in the title. I believe freedom should reign. But this bill has some issues which have been pointed out by prior speakers. 
I will talk a bit about Colorado. Louise Upston and I and a number of Labour members were in Colorado about 3 weeks ago and we met with a senator there. She was introducing a bill to put in place a performance-based pay system that is very unpopular in that state. She pointed out some of the extreme problems that exist with implementing that policy in Colorado. If this policy from Sir Roger Douglas was ever to be adopted there is a lot we could learn from what those people are doing in America. I encourage Sir Roger Douglas to look at what is going on in Colorado and to learn about that. 
With regards to this bill I agree with Kelvin Davis. I grew up in an environment where I went to a low-decile school and I agree that there would be some potential issues in low-decile areas with this bill as it is currently drafted. I think the intent of Sir Roger Douglas is admirable. He means well with this bill but the reality is that there will be a lot of problems in some areas. We are not yet ready to take into account some of the measures that Sir Roger Douglas wants to adopt. That is not to say that I do not agree with some of the concepts behind what this bill could do. As I said there is a lot of work to be done down the track. I point out the value of learning from international experience particularly what Colorado is doing. 
I will explain what is being done in Colorado. Effectively the legislation will cut the bottom 5 percent of teachers and give their funding to the top 5 percent. The top 5 percent of teachers will be paid double the salary of an average-performing teacher. I am not saying that is the right way to go but that is what one state in America is doing. It is putting a trial in place to see how that system operates and it will be very interesting to see whether it works. 
We should learn from examples of what works and does not work in terms of what Sir Roger Douglas is trying to achieve. I do not want New Zealand to be a test case for a policy like this bill because there are some things that we are looking at. [ 
Interruption 
] I will tell that member opposite about national standards. The school that my son goes to and my daughter will start at in about a month’s time performs very well. 
Sue Moroney 
: Your son is a guinea pig. 
AARON GILMORE 
: The students are doing very well and the parents love the reports they are getting. Boys’ performance is one of the problems in New Zealand education because they are underperforming relative to girls. Boys at the lower level are not performing. 
I agree with Kelvin Davis that national standards in themselves will not lift achievement but they will identify those students who are not doing well and need some help. That is a very positive thing. In some cases we know who those students are; in other cases we do not. The implementation of national standards will allow us to identify not only the students who are doing well but also the teachers who are doing well. The systems currently in place reward teachers who are not doing well which is not necessarily the best way in the long run. I admire Sir Roger Douglas’ attempt to put in place a system that he thinks will deal with that problem. I do not think the bill will do what he wants it to do; there may be better ways to do that. There are other things that we are looking at in the education sector. The time will come when a policy like this will be in place. We can learn from overseas experience how to reward good teachers. We can learn from the experience of Colorado schools and other places around the world but this bill as it is drafted will not achieve what Sir Roger Douglas wants. It will not achieve what the Government wants either. That is a reason why National will vote against it. 
In time we will realise that schools not having the ability to choose the good or bad teachers in this current environment will put too many restrictions on a bill like this. I agree with Kelvin Davis. One of the issues is that some schools do not have the ability to choose good teachers over bad teachers. Until we get those things right until we have the right people becoming teachers this bill will not be effective.