Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Class sizes
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David Cunliffe
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Education policy
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Labour Party
,
Numeracy
,
Steven Joyce
,
Stuff poll
David Cunliffe was especially chipper as he announced Labour's 2000 new teachers policy on Sunday. But by yesterday morning he had admitted to Newstalk ZB that they wouldn't actually all be "new" teachers in the first instance, as immigrants and teachers brought out of retirement would be used to plug the gaps until the "new" teachers emerged from training ready to start teaching in 2018.
Add to the mix Steven Joyce having challenged Labour's numeracy yesterday, and the public will again be suspicious of a new Labour policy. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, and one has to wonder why Labour let its secondee from Treasury go.
Stuff has run a poll over the new teachers/smaller class sizes policy. And it's unlikely to have David Cunliffe grinning Cheshire cat-like as he was on Sunday; check this out:
This will be very disappointing for Labour. The class sizes policy was the centrepiece of its congress at the weekend. Less than a third of respondents believe that the Labour policy will have anything more than a minimal impact on student achievement. Given the policy has also been welcomed by the Greens, far fewer people think the policy will have a major or moderate impact than an average of polls has supporting the Left bloc.
And on the other hand, the 67.4% who believe the policy will have a minimal impact or no impact at all is far larger than National and its allies are polling at present. That suggests that even Left-leaning voters have doubts about Mr Cunliffe's game-changing policy.
When he can't even take his core support with him, how can David Cunliffe expect to win the support of floating voters?
