Essayist and author Nassim Taleb is more than a little tedious on Twitter. But he gets one big thing very right. Read more
In a letter to a select committee last week, Liz MacPherson, chief statistician of Statistics New Zealand (SNZ), said about 240,000 individuals had only partially completed the 2018 census. This, on top of the 480,000 individuals who did not complete the census at all, increased the census data gap to more than 700,000 individuals (or 14.3 per cent of the population). Read more
It seemed a simple enough question. It was, really. Read more
A shocking 700,000 individuals - or 14.3 percent of New Zealand’s population - either partially completed or did not complete the 2018 Census. More shocking than the numbers themselves was how this information was made public. Read more
“Unintended consequences” are outcomes unforeseen by purposeful action, an idea popularised by American sociologist Robert Merton in the twentieth century. Since then, the so-called law of unintended consequences has morphed into a warning: intervening in a complex situation tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes. Read more
Flames and smoke on the roof of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris: When I saw the pictures, still half-asleep, early Tuesday morning, my first thought was the fire was so high up that perhaps some aerial firefighting support was called for. Upon further consideration, and with the benefit of having woken up by then, I realised that was a daft idea. Read more
Last week, we all saw the first-ever image of a black hole scientists have been able to create. Once sucked into a black hole, you get pulled apart into smithereens while time stands still. Read more
Big organisations get up to a lot of stuff that looks pretty silly from the outside – and even from the inside. Corporate retreats with ridiculous team-building exercises. Read more
Since the release of the Tomorrow’s Schools report last December, the education community has been talking about nearly every aspect of school organisation: Who should govern schools? For what term lengths should principals be appointed? Read more
“Decile is not a proxy for school quality”. Principals, teachers and education professionals have said this for years, and yet students have been flocking out of low decile schools and into high decile schools all this while. Read more
Saturday morning, reading the news, sipping the first coffee of the day in my sunlit balcony: Life is good and simple. Until I remembered my promise to take my daughter shopping for a new unicorn doll that morning. Read more
“What do we want? Evidence-based policy! Read more
They say hard cases make for bad law. Hard cases are emotionally wrenching. Read more
Complaining about a housing crisis in New Zealand has become a national sport, spawning all sorts of wrong policy remedies. New Zealand’s housing issue is a supply problem: The country’s rules and institutions are not conducive to a thriving building industry. Read more
The question of how to help schools face challenging circumstances was a key focus of Monday’s Tomorrow’s Schools review discussion held jointly by the Initiative and Victoria University’s Faculty of Education. The Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce is clear, and the Initiative agrees, that there is a serious and stubborn problem of underachievement among students from certain ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Read more
