Labour- Get your house in order

The Labour Party team dealing with education really need a wake up call.

First you have multiple errors with basic spelling and math from Trevor Mallard, the education spokesperson for Labour.

Now we have basic spelling mistakes from the associate spokesperson of tertiary education.  How can we trust someone who can not spell visitor to run anything to do with education?

Labour, if you are going to attack National on the education front, learn to spell and count.

Trev caught again

Since Trevor Mallard has banned me from Red Alert for pointing out hypocrisy, I figured I would continue to point out his hypocrisy 🙂

Exhibit A-

With particular reference to the comment by Mallard…

Trevor Mallard says:

March 11, 2010 at 8:06 am

My post will be up this afternoon after one fact check. Will Katrina’s?

That was this morning, we are now after 5pm…. what does Red Alert look like currently?

No sign of that mysterious disappearing post Trev!

A quick look at the page of Katrina Shanks shows that she has come to the party and offered an explanation as to what happened with the poll yesterday!

Dear oh dear Trev, not having a good stint at the moment are we?

Hypocrisy Alert

Trev, astute as ever, has spotted Katrina Shanks (or a staff member) removing a poll. DPF covers the personal hypocrisy of Trevor with removing posts, but on the poll front, let me introduce you to Chris “Stop picking on me because I am gay” Carter.

So Trev,  can you point us to the archive of this poll?  Got a couple more if you want to keep playing this game.

In the mean time, I lay in moderation at Red Alert for pointing out hypocrisy.

Seems Trev can’t Count!

Trevor Mallard is taking Tolley to task in the house and rightly so it would seem.  He does his case no good when he makes basic mistakes though.

From Hansard yesterday…

Mr SPEAKER: By my reckoning and from the advice I have received, the Labour Party has now used its 28 supplementary questions, and that is not counting the one where I gave the Hon Ruth Dyson the opportunity to repeat one of them—I did not count that one.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that this is relatively unusual and I am doing something that I have never done before. I am almost certain that I used five supplementary questions. My colleague the whip counted my asking five supplementary questions, which is what I was allocated. Your—

Hon Bill English: Can’t count.

Hon Trevor Mallard: That is the man who should have—

Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat immediately, and that is the end of that point of order.

Turns out Bill English finally got a numerical statement right!

Let us count Trev’s supplementary questions…

1. Hon Trevor Mallard: Has she looked carefully at the asTTle graphs that are available for parents, which most schools using asTTle give to parents; and does she accept that the information in those graphs provides more, more in-depth, and more useful information to parents than the reports that will be provided as a result of her national standards?
2. Hon Trevor Mallard: What is the difference between the national standardisation used by asTTle and the standardisation required by her national standards?
3. Hon Trevor Mallard: What is her best estimate of the extra time that teachers will spend, and the cost of using a non-standardised system rather than one that is already standardised?
4. Hon Trevor Mallard: In light of the Minister’s last answer, for a teacher currently using asTTle—given that the Minister said that the cost would depend on the system that teachers currently used—what is the Minister’s best estimate of the extra time spent by the teacher and the extra cost to the school of using a non-standardised system rather than the already standardised asTTle system?
5. Hon Trevor Mallard: Did I understand the Minister to just say that asTTle results are based on what students are currently learning; if not, would she care to revise that answer?
6. Hon Trevor Mallard: Does she accept that the asTTle reports for parents provide more, more in-depth, and more useful information to parents than her national standards will; if not, why not?

So Trev… going to correct your mistake publicly?  After all, you are all for people being accurate in the House.

For someone who is the government’s chief legal officer his lack of understanding of process was surprising to say the least.

For someone who is the oppositions chief education spokesperson his lack of numeracy skills are surprising to say the least.