Is the Listener the National Party house magazine? Oh, and by the way, we have won over NS

I gave up the Listener a number of years ago because it changed to a life-style publication and to being a political expression of the complacent middle-class.

Overall, I see the Listener as a metaphor for the national diminution of imagination and ethical concern.

If New Zealand is in a parlous social and economic state, and I think it is, far more than our bent media projects, I ascribe blame particularly to our elite – we are very poorly served by it. Its stodginess, lack intellectual plasticity, and narrow tribal loyalties are no-where better represented than on the editorial pages of the Listener.

I know a retort might be that the Listener and its editorials regularly walk away with publishing awards. Well, it’s the elite congratulating itself and, anyway, what is the competition – Investigate Magazine?

I want not to range in this posting to the many links between the Listener, its writers, and right-wing politics; I want to focus instead on what seem strange and suggestive parallels between a recent Listener editorial on 30 June, and a prime ministerial statement in the New Zealand Herald three days later.

Be ready, though, for a most welcome and surprise conclusion.

Obviously, the strange and suggestive parallels are coincidental? How could they be otherwise? The Listener, by what must be a process similar to osmosis, has picked up in advance on the backdown by John Key on national standards.

The editorial starts with references to how drug cheating at the Olympic Games is being treated; then how there is a need for flying squads (my terminology) for NCEA checking; and concludes with how NCEA league tables can lead to undesirable practices. But, having been mentioned, these undesirable practices are carefully quarantined from informing the surrounding editorial (a well-practised writing manoeuvre of dodgy writers). That completes the first section of the editorial.

How do we know, the editorialist asks, if the public is getting value for the huge amount of money the government is putting into public education? We can compare the performance of health boards, the editorialist asserts, why not schools? (This will go down as a classic for editorial statements on education.)

‘Perhaps it can in time, but not yet,’ the editorialist opines.

The editorialist has now introduced the main point; the main point that will serve to provide cover for the embarrassing fact that what teachers said would happen, did happen, and the prime minister has had to backtrack.

Iwi authorities, the editorialist informs us, are also asking us whether they are getting value for money. Oh spare me.

All this, of course, serves as a distraction from the devastating education effects of increasing poverty on the children of the poor. The middle class, including the Maori middle class, is terrified that one day the poor will wake up to the fact they are being taken for a ride and become politicised.

The editorialist having injected the main point of the editorial (and unconsciously provided the prime minister with the possibility of a soft landing) proceeds to unburden him- or herself of a wondrous Alice in Wonderland line of argument.

‘This week, white flight from primary schools was raised as a problem that undermines New Zealand’s cherished egalitarianism.’ (A fat lot of such cherishing goes on in the columns of the New Zealand Listener.) Racial mix may be a factor in children changing schools, the editorialist says, but so might a school’s sporting facilities or, ‘because they do not want their children crossing a main road.’ The one factor parents can’t use, the editor complains, is school comparisons based on academic achievement.

But hold on, editorialist, didn’t you call the phenomenon under discussion ‘white flight’? How does white flight connect with factors like sporting facilities, main roads, and academic achievement?

The next paragraph hints at another bit of National Party thinking, occurring unconsciously, of course, about replacing NCEA with straight exams.

But that is a diversion.

The editorialist gets back on argument, making references to national standards information being too unreliable at the moment; expressions of hope that in the future a way can be found to produce credible information, allowing that information to be able to be related to school deciles for comparative and ‘added value’ purposes.

The short final paragraph continues the backdown cover it has serendipitously provided. In a sense as heartening to the critics of national standards as dispiriting as it would be to their supporters.

The editorialist says until the government can come up with a credible measurement of what schools add to children’s learning ‘league tables purport to represent something they have no right to claim.’

Now let’s see how all this matches up with the prime ministerial statement. The statement, it should be noted, came only three days after the appearance of the editorial.

Key said the national standards information was ‘too ropey’ to show parents and ‘may not be released this year.’

Are you already starting to pick up on the strange and suggestive parallels I referred to? The Listener editorialist can only be congratulated on being up with the play, indeed, ahead of it.

Key elaborates on this for awhile, then gets to his next major point: ‘The ministry of education had told him the data was not up to scratch … however … over time the Government hopes it will be more consistent …’

‘Hopes it will be more consistent?

Oh dear, how the mighty have fallen.

Have you got it? We’ve had a victory (though only partial at this stage) over national standards. Hekia Parata has realised she can’t keep battling teachers and, for once, the ministry has had the freedom to say something accurate about school education. Key, who a few weeks earlier was bristling in favour of league tables, seems to have wearied of it and given way.

A step in establishing the case for strange and suggestive parallels, but think about it – yes, a step towards a significant government defeat.

Note the tentativeness and passivity in Key’s presentation, and his foregoing the opportunity to attack teachers.

If national standards go, so do league tables, performance pay, and all the rest. We are nearly there. However, we should act on our partial victory temperately, not driving Key into a corner. National standards are, after all, set to hang around until put to the sword by a change of government.

Key then suggests that the best way to produce information as an alternative to league tables was ‘in consultation with the education sector.’ ‘Consultation’ – how the wolf has become a lamb.

(There is no way schools will agree with league tables of any sort, or national standards in the long run, but there is scope for school guarantees on quality schools standards, and increased information on school performance being provided to school communities.)

And, in perfect harmony with the Listener editorial, Key suggests that any information produced, to be useful, would need to be related to school deciles.

How marvellous, such minds in independent harmony.

And taking it all in, pretty bloody marvellous for us too.