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Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.

Anthony Horowitz

http://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+poverty

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Child Poverty in New Zealand

For the last 5 years, the Child Poverty Monitor has provided an effective gauge of the extent of child poverty in New Zealand. The Child Poverty Reduction Bill, introduced at the start of 2018, will require the government to provide regular measures of child poverty. This will be a significant breakthrough and holds the potential for child poverty statistics to become even more robust.

Child poverty continues to be a persistently harsh reality for too many New Zealanders. The indicators we have followed in recent years show little sign of a significant increase or decrease. Robust and reliable statistics are critical for beginning to address the issues of child poverty.

Data quality concerns, which are being addressed due to the introduction of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, led the Ministry of Social Development not to publish statistics specifically relating to the level of child poverty in the 2018 Household Incomes report.

The 2018 Child Poverty Monitor provides examples of the on-going tangible effect poverty has on children and families in New Zealand, specifically relating to:

Food insecurity

Housing

Health

Education

The introduction of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill provides an appropriate occasion to underscore the role and contribution of the Child Poverty Monitor. Since its inception in 2013 the Monitor has:

Helped build nationwide awareness and understanding of the reality and effect of child poverty

Kept the issue in the public arena and significantly reduced tolerance of child poverty in New Zealand

Set measures to track progress in response to child poverty.

The Bill is an acknowledgement that to move children out of poverty New Zealand will need boldly to address systemic issues. Cross-party support reflects Parliament’s determination to act both effectively and collaboratively in doing so and put in place measures to identify progress.

While the government has a key role to play, the continuing role of communities, whānau and families should not be forgotten. Many are already looking for and delivering locally-driven solutions.

The Child Poverty Monitor uses data analysed by the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service to show how poverty affects New Zealand children and their families. The Child Poverty Monitor: 2018 Technical Report is based on data from Ministries of Health, Social Development and Education, including the Household Incomes report and the Non-Income Measures report.

To find out more about child poverty, you can read the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group report, Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand: Evidence for Action.

https://www.childpoverty.org.nz/!/#/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E50hZECqbAA

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLl3zc5nUaE

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http://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+poverty

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http://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+poverty

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http://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+poverty

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Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn't.

Jeff Bridges

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You cannot tell a hungry child that you gave him food yesterday

Zimbabwean Proverb.

http://www.quotemaster.org/childhood+poverty

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Children deserve the best education, all the time

There is something profoundly pleasing in reading of innovation and success in one of New Zealand’s low-decile schools. Most recently we had the Herald’s three-day series (Kirsty Johnston) and concurrent half-hour website documentary on Papakura High School. Congratulations to all involved, from students, to teachers, to whanau, and to the reporters themselves. What is happening at Papakura High is undoubtedly impressive.

A range of low-decile-school-based initiatives have been in the limelight over the past three decades. For example, my own doctoral studies in the late 1990s focused on a parent-led innovation in a Decile 1 rural area school. The parents and some teachers took New Zealand’s Early Childhood playcentre philosophy into both the primary and secondary levels of the school and, for two to three years, a section of the community was truly gaining from their education everything they thought ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ promised them. Then there were initiatives such as AimHi and SEMO (Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara) in the late 1990s, followed by MEI (Manurewa Enhancement Initiative) a little later. The film festival launch of Trouble is my Business, which centred on the disciplinary tactics of the deputy principal of Aorere College, happened in 2009. Teach First NZ is a more recent, privately-funded initiative, that fast tracks ‘top graduates’ into low-decile secondary schools with promises of great results for students.

While merit can be seen in aspects of all of the above, what is common – aside from the fact that their emphases are on low-decile school students’ achievement – is that the initiatives have made (and are making) little discernible difference to big picture outcomes. Sadly, in the case of Papakura, the trajectory is likely to be similar. Each initiative has its moment in the sun, provides hope, and appears to offer solutions. But ultimately, all are arguably part of a smoke-screen for an education system which has failed, and continues to fail, the students in New Zealand’s economically poorer communities.

I often wonder what people think when they read of isolated yet innovative programmes in low-decile schools.  Some may think ‘Whew, that’s the answer – now if we could train all teachers to be just like that Superman or Superwoman then the problem will be solved. There’s nothing like some good discipline to sort out the unruly’. Or, ‘National standards will make teachers lift their game; obviously teachers in low-decile schools are not working hard enough.’ Perhaps readers’ hearts are warmed when they read of the McDonald’s style teacher education programme, just for low-decile schools, which trains graduates for all of six weeks before they learn at the chalk face, with our children as part of their experimentations. Money saved on Teacher Education? That’s good, plus that should fix things, importing a business model into education. It worked in America so it should work here!

None are sustained, or in the long term, effective. Low-decile schools and innovative programmes have their star turns, and then the norm re-emerges. In secondary schools, rolls continue to drop, staffing levels decrease, and curriculum choices become more and more limited as zoning policies enable white and middle-class flight. In primary schools there can be problems attracting staff – transience is a huge problem, poor health and inadequate housing impacts on individual children’s learning and school resources (including IT) are limited. A natural corollary of this is the statistics which emerge year after year via Unicef/PISA and the Ministry of Education, which demonstrate New Zealand’s unacceptable and shameful gap in levels of achievement between students in poverty (especially Pasifika and Maori), and all others.

So what, you may ask. Surely these ‘solutions and innovations’ are worth applauding? Yes, of course, most are. But how acceptable is this ‘ad-hoccery’ in our democratic society where education is supposed to be the medium by which everyone is empowered to reach their potential? Not just some students who happen to attend particular schools during their moments in the sun, or those in mid-to-high decile schools who – all credit to the staff, community and the MoE – tend to consistently experience fine and admirable forms of education.

While equity funding is part of our school system, one needs only to look at the state of the buildings in Papakura High to know that something is sadly awry with education’s funding/policy system. Students in our state schools experience very different physical conditions on a daily basis. It wasn’t too long ago that we read of black mould on classroom walls in a Northland/Tai Tokerau school.

My position is that an education system is not good enough if it educates some of the children well all of the time, and particular groups well only some of the time. All children deserve the very best education, all of the time.

I want to shift the focus from just the schools and the teachers themselves. I have worked in low-decile schools for long enough to know that my colleagues there are invariably hardworking, passionate and professional. Plus they possess specific attributes and skills that many other teachers do not have, such as an ability to form warm and constructive relationships within their unique school communities. Boards of Trustees are well meaning elected volunteers, with their school communities at heart – they too, work very hard.

We must especially look beyond schools for solutions. The wider, macro situation is where problems and relative poverty germinate and grow, and they impact on all aspects of schooling. In New Zealand, such issues include unemployment, underemployment, low wages, unaffordable and/or unhealthy housing, poor access to healthcare, inadequate public transport, and an increasingly mean-fisted social security system. At the same time, education policies often take little account of individual children’s or community’s circumstances. All of the preceding factors tend to impact negatively on what can, and what cannot, happen in schools.

Since the 1990s, neoliberal policies instigated and carried out by both major parties in government have had a profoundly destructive impact on the lives and education for children in economically poor communities. Until we step back and deal with these wider issues, we will continue to cling onto glimmers of hope, such as those we now witness in Papakura High. Our children, all children, deserve so much better than this.

A registered primary school teacher, Dr Vicki Carpenter has taught and/or held leadership positions in Porirua, Manurewa, Tekapo, Karetu, Moerewa, and the Hokianga. More recently, Vicki lectured at the University of Auckland in initial and postgraduate teacher education.   Currently Vicki is a second term elected Board member of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, and Chairperson of its Audit and Risk sub-committee. She is a monitor of Teacher Education programmes for the Education Council. She recently co-edited Twelve thousand hours. Education and poverty in Aotearoa, New Zealand 2014, Dunmore). Vicki has published and co-published a wide range of articles and chapters. Social justice and issues surrounding equity are central themes in her research and writings.

https://www.cpag.org.nz/children-deserve-the-best-education-all-the/

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Back-to-school costs: A looming spiral of debt

It's my daughter’s first day at intermediate and my stomach is in knots. I know she’ll be ok. She knows how to slap on a fake-it-till-you-make-it grin and step out into the world. But this tactic isn’t going to work for me.

I've sourced second-hand uniform items, I’ve been donated stationery items and I’m still wracked with anxiety at somehow having to pay several hundred dollars for her uniform, shoes, fees and activities. And let’s not even talk about Bring Your Own Device! At this point I’m reminded of that fortunately-unfortunately campfire game. Fortunately, her dad will pay half of these costs. Unfortunately, her brother is going on school camp this year, which will add another $170 to his school costs. Fortunately, he doesn’t want to play sport this term. Unfortunately, his school bag just broke. This is the way of it, of course, single parents on low incomes are always treading water. The problem is that when we start the year facing several hundred dollars of costs, well, it’s almost impossible to keep your head up.

So I was relieved when I saw the words “we may be able to help with back to school costs” on the Work and Income website the other day. I clicked on it and my smile turned wry. This “help” is a loan. I meet the income test for this loan, but there is a sole parent asset limit of $1,794.51. Aside from being an enigmatically arbitrary number (that fifty one cents!), that amount is a paltry savings buffer for a sole parent. All you need is your car to break down or emergency dental treatment, and that’s it. You’re down to absolutely nothing. And when you’re destitute, debt is the last thing you can can afford. So, thanks but no thanks.

I’m one of the lucky ones. My mum is helping me out this year. It takes a village to pay for a child. But wait, isn’t that what we’re already doing in New Zealand? Isn’t our compulsory education supposed to be free? It strikes me that what I’m dealing with here is a struggle to find an individual solution to a collective problem. National MP Nicola Willis recently suggested lengthening the school term as a solution to parents’ struggle to fund/find childcare over the summer holidays. Putting aside the question of how effective her solution might be, I want to acknowledge that at least she’s recognised the possibility of a broad solution. I just think her question needs a bit of reframing. Because the ��problem” of the cost of childcare or schooling can be taken out of this deficit model. The cost of going back to school isn’t just my “problem”, the way affordable childcare isn’t just my “problem”. This isn’t about keeping parents working or staving off the spectre of debt. This is about how we collectively find ways to give our kids what they need to thrive. Education is a social cost because we are all investing in our shared prosperity.

I asked my kids what they thought the cost of going to school should be. “Well, the thing is,” said my nine-year-old with his characteristic sagacity, “that money for books and shoes and tablets ... It doesn’t go to the school.” Which is a good point. And begs the question of why we are willing to fund our MPs’ travel allowances, but not our kids’ stationery. Not to mention that if school costs were funded by taxpayers, I’d be very surprised if my daughter’s school could get away with charging $75 for a hideous pair of tartan skorts without the national media furore that it deserves.

The question is, how can we save low-income families from the looming spiral of debt caused by school costs? One answer to this question could be something like the Back to School Bonus Australia phased out in 2016. Yet any targeted grant, like Work and Income’s loan scheme, is individualised poverty stop-gapping. The thing is, every child in Aotearoa should be able to start their school year with the books, clothes and equipment they need. We can answer the same question by asking another one. We can ask how we can give our kids what they need to flourish at school. How can we make sure they all have what they need to be able to learn well, for their own future and our collective future growth? How can we can support the wellbeing of all New Zealand children so their futures are open to possibilities?

https://www.cpag.org.nz/back-to-school-costs-a-looming-spiral-of/

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Business as usual for the poor in 2016

So the new report tells us that for low income families and children in New Zealand their opportunities are staying low. They are not getting considerably worse, but there are large numbers of kids are not getting some of the necessary care to help them thrive. In other words, we are consistently doing a poor job at giving all plants in our garden a chance to flower.

Here is the data from 2015 and 2016

Child Income Poverty In New Zealand 1980 to 2016 Source (Perry 2016)

http://morganfoundation.org.nz/poor-families-children-new-zealand-year/

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Are there more poor families with children in New Zealand this year?

Last week the Ministry of Social Development annual reports on the incomes and material wellbeing of New Zealanders were released. The release happens at the same time every year and results in the same quibbling over the measures of poverty and whether there are or are not 300,000 plus children who are ‘poor’ and whether there is any real poverty in New Zealand.

The left say ‘more children are poor’ (pretty unclear really) the right say ‘fewer people are poor or at least it is not getting worse’ (how being at a standstill on this is a good thing I will never know). Outside the echo chamber of Wellington the public is left thinking ‘yeah but really are there poor kids and what can you do anyway’? And again the critical action is not taken to ensure all children thrive.

If children were plants in the tropical rainforest garden of Aotearoa then some plants are getting little or no attention and care.

http://morganfoundation.org.nz/poor-families-children-new-zealand-year/