Why not uniforms for life?

"Once the preserve of secondary, private or religious schools, primary schools are increasingly using uniforms to mask the disparity between social classes at primary level."

The idea that schools are using uniforms to mask economic disparities is pretty damn awful. It recalls a recent conversation I had with a neighbour. My daughter attends a non-uniform wearing secondary school and the neighbour remarked upon it. "[Uniforms] are a great leveller though, " she said. Here's the thing. I don't send my children to school to be levelled. I send them to school to hopefully learn useful things and above all, to think.

But addressing the issue from a practical point of view, clothes have become cheaper and cheaper.

 "....a core reason for many primary schools making the switch was to remove the distinction between rich kids and poor kids, which could be a distraction from children's learning. "It is distracting to see other kids with Nike shoes and changing clothes every day and all these lovely things they have, and you coming in wearing the same pants two or three days. Children can notice those things."

With the advent of recycled clothing nobody needs to wear the same pants two or three days (in any case, do you ever wear the same pair of jeans two or three days? I do). A parent with any nous can pick up good , even branded (if you care) clothes and shoes for next to nothing. Just like you can give your kids breakfast for next to nothing. What is lacking is some effort and imagination. Slapping them all in uniforms might just compound those particular short-comings.

I mean what is so appealing about all looking the same? Well, actually, they don't all look the same. Fat is still fat, short is still short and uniforms amplify physical differences.

Whereas allowed to dress how they want, kids will quickly learn what clothes mean to them. Do they dress for comfort, to conform, to stand apart, to suit their activities and environment, to maximise their best attributes? It gets them thinking. But no. Instead schools opt for this easy, literal dumbing-down of dress sense and, worse, individualism.

Hell. Why don't we pass a law to make uniform wearing compulsory for life if it's such a great thing?

Cut and paste press statement

Here's a good example of an almost immediate and almost verbatim cut and paste media statement appearing in the NZ Herald.



Hon Paula Bennett
Minister for Social Development
Minister of Youth Affairs
5 September 2012
Benefits stopped for those with arrest warrants
People with outstanding arrest warrants will no longer receive a benefit while evading Police says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.
“Of the approximately 15,000 people with a current arrest warrant, around 8,200 are on benefits,” says Mrs Bennett.
“If someone has an unresolved arrest warrant we will stop their benefit until they do the right thing and come forward to the authorities.”
“In exceptional circumstances where someone poses a danger to the public, their benefit can be stopped immediately at the request of the Police Commissioner,” says Mrs Bennett.
Around 58 per cent of people clear their arrest warrants within 28 days. Those who don’t will be given 10 days to clear or challenge the warrant before their benefit is stopped, or reduced by fifty per cent if they have dependent children.

People will still be able to apply for hardship assistance for themselves and their children.
“Most people clear their warrants within a month, so 38 days is a reasonable amount of time to step forward and straighten things out,” says Mrs Bennett.
“Once someone has come forward their benefit can be reinstated but there will be clear consequences for people who continually refuse to acknowledge or resolve arrest warrants.”
ENDS

No benefit for people on the run

By Kate Shuttleworth

 

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett. Photo / Janna Dixon

Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett has announced people with outstanding arrest warrants will no longer receive a benefit while evading police.
"Of the approximately 15,000 people with a current arrest warrant, around 8,200 are on benefits,'' said Mrs Bennett.
"If someone has an unresolved arrest warrant we will stop their benefit until they do the right thing and come forward to the authorities.''
Around 58 per cent of people clear their arrest warrants within 28 days - those who don't are given 10 days to clear or challenge the warrant before their benefit is stopped, or reduced by fifty per cent if they have dependent children.
In exceptional circumstances where someone poses a danger to the public, their benefit can be stopped immediately at the request of the police Commissioner,'' said Mrs Bennett.
"People will still be able to apply for hardship assistance for themselves and their children.
"Most people clear their warrants within a month, so 38 days is a reasonable amount of time to step forward and straighten things out.

"Once someone has come forward their benefit can be reinstated but there will be clear consequences for people who continually refuse to acknowledge or resolve arrest warrants.''

Responding to Green assertions about child poverty

I've used my computer time up today responding to a Green candidate brought to my attention by Shane. So it's also today's posting:

bsprout says: "What Key's government is currently doing has actually worsened child poverty and he clearly suggested that there wasn't much more he is prepared to do."

The latest HES finds that using the AHC ‘fixed line’ 60% measure of child poverty the rates were:

2009 22
2010 22
2011 21

And they are down or the same on every other measure depicted.

Table s.2, pg 13

http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/monitoring/household-income-1982-2007/2012-hir-full-summary.doc

bsprout says:"...there appears to be a pervasive view that the 270,000 children living in poverty are suffering because their parents made poor choices and by restricting support will encourage them to get jobs and budget better. The fact is that the majority of these parents are in work or part-time employment."


The Children's Social Health Monitor says:

"In New Zealand, children who are reliant on benefit recipients are a particularly vulnerable group. During 2009, 75% of all households (including those with and without children) relying on income-tested benefits as their main source of income were living below the poverty line (housing adjusted equivalent disposable income <60 2007="2007" br="br" median="median" of="of">

In 2011 there were 234,572 benefit-dependent children. Assuming that non-child households are as poor as dependent-child households (unlikely) the number of beneficiary children living below the poverty line would be 175,929 or 75 percent.

http://www.nzchildren.co.nz/children_reliant.php

That represents a majority of 270,000. There is some overlap between benefit and part-time work but not enough to justify your statement. In fact, those children with parent on a benefit and working part-time are more likely to be above the threshold.

bsprout says: "Only a very small percentage of families abuse the system and to keep tightening the availability of benefits is just punishing many families who through redundancy and lack of jobs are suffering."

Your idea of abuse is probably fraud. My idea of abuse is to add children to an existing benefit at the rate of 18 percent of all children born each year. It is hardly surprising we have a child poverty problem.

http://www.occ.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/9866/No_3_-_Causes_and_consequences.pdf

Final point. Even when NZ had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD (2007 or thereabouts) the number of children on benefits did not fall below 200,000.

Crucial statistic omitted

Concerning the Children's Commissioner report released last week about child poverty and proposed solutions, there is a very short section headed The Causes of Child Poverty. This  is supported by an additional  paper: Working Paper no.3 What causes child poverty? What are the causes? An economic perspective.

The supporting paper contains this fact:

"Wilson and Soughtton (2009) report that about 18 percent of New Zealand children are born to a parent on a main benefit (about 13 percent are born to a parent on the DPB), down from 25 percent in the 1990s."

Here's my question for you. If you were responsible for the final report, the one for public consumption, would you have considered that statistic important and would you have included it?

(BTW the reason the percentage is down from the 1990s is far fewer people on are an unemployment benefit.)

Truth column August 23

My August 23 Truth column is now on-line.

Surprise, surprise – not. The Greens want higher welfare payments.

Last week, they had a private member’s bill to extend the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to beneficiary parents pulled out of the ballot. That means it will probably be debated and has a chance of becoming law.

More

Other truth columns here

Quote of the day

“Every jobs market needs a ladder and, at present, the bottom rungs of that ladder have been sawn off by a welfare state that has trapped the people it was designed to help. The waste of taxpayers’ money is as nothing compared to the waste of human potential.”  
                          Fraser Nelson, Spectator

(Hat-tip Karl du Fresne by way of Neville Gibson)

Sign of tough times in the public service

Things must be tough at Statistics NZ. They didn't produce their usual Father's Day facts this year. Nor, quite correctly, Mother's Day. Never mind, it was always a bit of a feel-good puff piece. It never told us for instance how many Fathers would spend the day in prison, or otherwise estranged from their children, or visiting under supervision - such is the lot of thousands of Dads.

On a cheerier note, soon children will be able to celebrate double-dad days! Father's Day will become Fathers' Day.

Strange times in which we live.