Learning to read is the first step in school education. It is essential to later learning. Read more
It takes talent to lose listeners in a medium still drawing three and a half million Kiwis a week. But Radio New Zealand has managed it with aplomb. Read more
When government makes it hard for a start-up company’s investors to sell up and move on, it simultaneously warns other investors to steer clear. Or, as economists sometimes put it, barriers to exit are barriers to entry. Read more
The Western order that has long underpinned global prosperity is cracking. Not dramatically. Read more
New research finds that incomes per capita in Italy could be 5% higher if the government wrote better laws. Many laws are confusing and hard to understand. Read more
In this episode, Benno Blaschke talks to Oliver Hartwich about the recent Trump-Putin meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, where Trump appeared to abandon the Western position of seeking a ceasefire first in favour of Putin's demand for an immediate "peace deal" that would cement Russian territorial gains. They discuss the troubling implications of Trump applauding Putin on arrival, the bizarre shared ride in the presidential limousine, and how this summit signals a dangerous shift from rules-based international order to great power politics that could embolden other territorial aggressors, particularly China. Read more
Dr Michael Johnson talked to the Wallace Chapman, Ali Jones and Simon Pound on RNZ's The Panel about the educational reasoning behind focusing on English phonics for beginning readers. He explained that teaching consistent spelling-to-sound mappings first, before introducing irregular words including te reo Māori terms, helps young children build reading confidence through mastering fundamental phonetic rules. Read more
Michelle Shocked’s 1988 song “Anchorage” tells of old friends whose lives diverged. One settled in Alaska with husband and kids, the other remained a punk rocker in New York. Read more
Last week a new educational controversy broke in the media. Headlines accused Education Minister Erica Stanford of ‘banning’ Māori words from primary school reading books. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1.1 This submission on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (the Bill) is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative is pleased to submit our comprehensive response to the Government’s Going for Housing Growth Discussion Document focusing on Pillar 1 proposals. This submission represents our analysis of how the proposed reforms can best achieve the stated objective of enabling competitive urban land markets to restore housing affordability in New Zealand. Read more
At the Initiative, we read the latest economic research, so you do not have to. Sometimes we find studies that are clever. Read more
This week’s Herald reported the plight of an Ōrewa family hit with a 72% rates hike – more than $10,000 a year. The jump arises from rezoning, with new subdivisions now creeping up to their boundary. Read more
‘Every five years or so, I crunch the numbers on college grades across the US and report what I’ve found,’ writes Stuart Rojstaczer modestly on his website. What Rojstaczer, a former professor, has found is that grades are going up, and have been going up for quite some time. Read more
Something has gone badly wrong in the public service. From energy policy to financial regulation to education, ministers are too often advised by officials lacking the deep technical background their roles demand. Read more