PPTA against $1b for schools

Stuff reports:

The secondary teachers’ union has rejected National’s $1 billion school improvement plan, saying it is an “irresponsible bribe”.

This reinforces my views that most unions are more focused on helping Labour and fighting National, than actually doing what is best for their members or sector.

It would be quite legitimate if the PPTA had said “We don’t believe that there is any need to tie the funding to the mixed ownership model which we oppose, but we welcome the pledge of an extra one billion dollars for modernising schools”.

But instead the PPTA says:

New Zealand needed politicians who were prepared to follow their own advice and manage the schools in a “rational and fiscally responsible way,” he said.

I suspect if Labour had announced one billion dollars (an effective 50% increase) in capital spending on schools, the PPTA would have all but fellated them.

We saw the same in 2009 with NZUSA. National implemented a policy that students who repay their loans early would get a 10% rebate. NZUSA incredibly came out and opposed it, saying it was unfair to those who could not make early repayments! Again I can guarantee you the same announcement from a Labour Government would have been treated as the best thing since sliced bread.

It really comes down to does an organisation operate in good faith or bad faith? I’ll give some credit to the CTU here – they will sometimes give praise to National, for those (rare) policies they agree with.

But the PPTA leadership confirms its position as far more focused on politics than education.