The great 'consultation' sham

[rumpelsnorcack]

I watched a guy tweeting from a meeting with the ministry last night and it was very concerning. Here, I'll give you a taste of some of the more worrying tweets (these are all from @edmuzik):

"You have been through so much, and yet we are asking you to go through some more" - woman from the MoE #SaveManning (so ... 'we know what we are doing is really bad, but we're doing it anyway'?)

"Manning will close at the end of 2014 ... Unless you choose to have it closed sooner" - woman from MoE. With a straight face #SaveManning (so 'consultations' means 'we're going to do this unless you want to advance the timeline further'?)

In response to question about zoning the school says "parental choice is important", as the ministry chooses to reduce parental choice... (this one is a worry because it's the same situation for Freeville, and clearly some of the arguments we are presenting aren't seen as important by the ministry)

My mum asks what they will do in ten years if they have sold off the land that Manning is on. MoE woman says she'll build a new one! (they'll build some new land? Wow they're awesome.  Alternatively, even suggesting they'll build a new school is ridiculous.  If you know you need the new school why are they closing this one?)

The property guy from MoE calls this a "desktop exercise" and someone calls him out, asks him what that means #SaveManning (yeah this one was obvious from the start - this is about penny pinching pen pushers, not about education quality; Again bad for Freeville, because it have a lot of damage and clearly its excellent education doesn't matter to the penny pinchers)

Of the four factors the ministry are counting as building cost, one is ... maintenance of the building for the next ten years! #SaveManning (no, seriously ... they are including maintenance into their costing calculations? This is a school with some brand new buildings which presumably require very low maintenance - again shades of Freeville *sigh*)

"The buildings are safe, but it's cheaper to rip the down and replace them". This is turning into a farce #SaveManning (ministry speak for 'whoops, we underinsured all the school buildings in the city, and need to find a way to cut costs')

I ask why we can't wait for next years census data b4 making a decision, MoE woman says their data is better. Won't show us it#SaveManning (this is the MOST frustrating thing. They say they have this amazing population data but they won't show anyone. How the hell does anyone counter their 'facts' if we can't see what they are basing those facts on?)

Seriously - this is rather horrifying.  Our consultation meetings for Freeville are this week.  There was one this morning, one tomorrow night and one on Saturday with the minister herself.  But if this is the quality of response we're getting from the ministry then this sham of 'genuine consultation' is exposed for what it is.  I don't think anything anyone says, no matter how well-reasoned and thoughtful, is going to make any difference. This 'consultation' is literally just so she can say 'I listened ... but I'm still doing what I was always going to do.'

Comments

[lorelaisquared.livejournal.com]

UGH! I hate, hate, hate your government. They are a travesty. They are going to destroy education in the city and then they'll leave it for someone else to clean up.

[rumpelsnorcack.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's pretty foul. We'll see what it's like with the minister at school tomorrow.