Martin Tracey: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19096. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First):Kia ora. It is interesting to follow the Hon Nikki Kaye and I think very highly of this Associate Minister of Education. However she is wrong on so many points that it is a real disappointment.I want to address first of all—so that New Zealand hears this—the fact that the Minister spoke and actually said that it was the National Government that set standards. The suggestion is that education in New Zealand has never had any standards. That is an affront to every teacher who has ever worked in the New Zealand school system which took us to the top of the OECD with regard to our results and our people are highly recognised and our education system is so well-recognised that this Government can sell it. When those statements are made it is said as if we never had standards and as if it took a National Government to put a line in the sand that says: “OK now your children can jump over it.”New Zealanders need to understand that the New Zealand Curriculum had curriculum bands. Instead of saying that every child on this day at this time after this year would jump over this particular line it treated them like human beings. It treated them with a 2-year spread across the academic achievement levels in the New Zealand Curriculum. It was world-recognised and this Government put it at risk.This Government then tried to convince you New Zealand that teachers were untrustworthy. In 2009 this Government and this Prime Minister John Key said that primary school principals lied to parents on report cards and that that was why the Government needed to give them a template that told them exactly where they stood with reading writing and maths. And that was it—no holistic vision and no aspiration in education—and that lack of aspiration is actually carried out and is proven through the estimates.So if people want to go and have a look at page 79 of Vote Education let us have a look at the aspirations—“What is Intended to be Achieved with this Appropriation”—for partnership schools. Let us just have a look. These were the schools that were going to be the silver bullet for our most vulnerable. These were the schools that the National Government wanted to take the credit for lifting achievement for our Māori our Pasifika and our low socio-economic groups. The targets for these schools in this appropriation are that in reading they will have 68 percent of their students at the standard 64 percent in maths at the standard and 60 percent in writing at the standard. I kept hearing “five out of five”. I am sorry but I kept hearing that five out of five were going to achieve these things. What we have got here is a Government that is quite happy to have 40 percent fail the standard. It sets it but it is happy to have 40 percent fail it.Now let us have a look at the targets it has put on mainstream schools. In reading it is 81 percent in maths it is 77 percent and in writing it is 74 percent. So apparently mainstream schools which are not funded to the level that partnership schools are under these appropriations have got to achieve higher targets before this Government will give them any credit yet it is funding partnership schools under this Budget at a ratio of one teacher per nine students. New Zealand have a listen to it. This is the same Government that wanted to up your children’s class size not that long ago. It is funding these partnership schools at a ratio of one teacher to nine students and it has said in the legislation that for 5-year-olds it can be one teacher to 15. This is the Government that wants you to vote for it later on this year because it says it is strong on education—this is what it is.The Associate Minister stood up and said—and National members will stand up again and say—that more money than ever before has gone into education in New Zealand and I am not going to contradict those members. Of course the Government had to rebuild Christchurch. That is in that money. I mean what was it going to do—not build schools down in Christchurch? Do not be ridiculous. Of course there is more money because the Christchurch rebuild is in there. What about the $4.5 million rebuild going on at Mahurangi College—why? Because the buildings are leaky. Who passed that law? Who passed the law that allowed those materials to be used in our State schools so that we have now got to do a complete rebuild?The Minister talked about the number of buildings that had to be refreshed and turned into modern learning environments. That money should have been set aside anyway. There has always been the replacement building fund so that is not new money either New Zealand. Do not let the Government tell you this is new money. But do ask the Government New Zealand—have a look through these appropriations—how much has been spent on the PaCT tool. You do not hear much about the PaCT tool any more. It stands for the progressive assessment something or other tool. It is a digital tool New Zealand that has been created through a computer program so that teachers—not necessarily qualified and registered teachers—can go on and enter data on children.