Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are the teachers' unions right to be upset with Erica Stanford?

Okay, I've got a question for you - and this is a genuine question, it's not a rhetorical question.

Do you agree with the teachers' unions that it's an outrage that Erica Stanford is taking the Treaty obligation out of the Education Act, or do you agree with Erica Stanford that it needs to come out?

Now, I'm asking you this question because I honestly cannot understand why the teachers' unions are causing uproar over this, because it seems to me to be a clear case that this should come out.

It hasn't helped lift Māori achievement in the five years it's been in the legislation. In fact, going by just one metric, which is the proportion of Māori students leaving school with no NCEA qualification at all, it's getting worse.

It was 24 percent in 2021, it's now nearly 28 percent at last count.

So if this thing isn't helping, then it shouldn't be there - because all it is then is just virtue signalling and distracting schools when they should be, as the minister said, laser-focused on educating kids.

So this is where I ask my question - because this is where I get confused. If it doesn't have to be in there, then why are the unions picking this fight? Why are they fighting for yet another pet ideological project?

Did they not learn from the allergic reaction that parents had to the news that the number one thing on the PPTA's agenda for the meeting with the minister was Palestine? That went down like a cup of cold sick.

Is it not obvious to the unions that they are losing the patience of parents who've already had a guts-full of an education system that isn't educating their kids - and the teacher unions making excuses for it, and the teacher unions not wanting to have to do more work?

So it's one of two things that's going on here for me, right?

Either teacher unions really just cannot help themselves when it comes to yet another political distraction and a chance to give a National Party a bloody nose, or they know something that I don't - which is that there is enormous support out there for them fighting the good fight on the Treaty obligation for the boards of trustees. Is that happening?

Am I missing something here? Is there massive support out there for teachers who are fighting this? Or are they burning parents' goodwill because they can't help themselves yet again fighting with a National-led Government?

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