Editorial, Tuesday September 1, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

WE'VE all heard about the tail wagging the dog in our political system, but it's not the only one. Educational achievement is another dog, which is being wagged by children who turn up at the age of 5 in no position to learn anything, and have no hope of ever catching up.

Lots of kids, certainly in the Far North, are doing very well. This newspaper is routinely littered with stories of young achievers. They will do well at school, however the education system is structured, and they will do well in life. They are happy, healthy, confident, ambitious, and have the family support that has always been crucial to success.

We know, because we've been told, that we have a 'tail,' however, a group of kids at the bottom of the achievement ladder, who are dragging down our international standing in terms of the core academic subjects. But the true nature of that tail has either been hidden, or has been blown out of all proportion by Te Tai Tokerau Principals' Association president Pat Newman. You choose.

Mr Newman has begun wagging the educational tail in earnest, but should not succumb to optimism that anyone is listening. The fact that some - perhaps many - children in this country are stuffed before they start is hardly news, and even those who have heard what he is saying, and agree that something needs to be done, generally lean towards the view that schools must be resourced to provide a fix.

Wouldn't it be better to turn off the tap, to intervene in families where children are being deprived of all hope from the moment they are conceived? That won't happen because we have not yet reached the point, and may never reach the point, where society will accept that giving kids a future overrides the right of parents to raise their offspring as they wish. It has always been our way to attempt to fix the damage after it's been done rather than prevent damage being done in the first place.

The writer doubts that Mr Newman was embellishing the problem when he went public with stories about 5-year-olds arriving at school so badly damaged, so scared of being hurt, so angry with life, that even at that age they responded by lashing out at others, children and adults. He talked about children assaulting teachers, throwing furniture and biting. He spoke on radio of a child who, on his first day at school, directed a mouthful of expletives at the principal and threatened to kill him. What hope is there that that boy will benefit from school, or that any adult will make a great deal of difference?

Mr Newman based his call for greater resourcing of Northland schools on the results of a survey of Northland principals, rather than his personal experience or his individual view of how school support services should be funded. No one has yet disputed the picture he has painted, but he's still talking about ambulances at the bottom of cliffs. And what of the effect that these "damaged" children have on their peers, the kids who do have the ability to benefit from school and who do have a future? It isn't fair on them that they have to share their classrooms with kids who shouldn't be there. They shouldn't have to share precious resources, in whatever form, with kids who in all probability won't benefit greatly from the extra attention.

It is probably safe to assume that Mr Newman isn't talking about kids who reach the age of 5 without the benefit of any real discipline. He is talking about children who are in need of massive intervention if they are to have any future at all. And it has to be asked if school is the place to provide that intervention, even if it can be funded (which it patently can't).

Perhaps the day will come when we begin to join up the dots to make a connection between the way children are raised and the problems they go on to cause, but what we need is a whole new attitude towards parental responsibility. And we are a long, long way from that.

The then 13-year-old boy who fatally stabbed Auckland dairy owner Arun Kumar is a spectacular example. We now know that his mother was selling synthetic cannabis from her home, and that the boy was addicted to it. She had tried to wean her son off that drug by providing him with real cannabis. She used alcohol and drugs heavily while she was pregnant with him, and CYF received 10 notifications of violence between the boy's parents between 1999 and 2004.

At one point the boy, then aged 3, and a younger sibling were left in the care of their sisters, aged 12 and 13, who themselves left the two pre-schoolers at home alone. CYF reportedly noted that the parents were rarely seen, and reached the conclusion that the children were in a dangerous situation.

In 2005 CYF was told that the mother was using methamphetamine and heroin daily, in front of the children, and that gang members had raided the family home. At that point the department reached the conclusion that the children needed care and protection, but they were returned to their mother when she promised to 'engage with community groups.' A month before Mr Kumar died a family group conference identified the boy as being at risk, but his social worker couldn't find him. Meanwhile, at the age of 8, the boy suffered what was described as a traumatic brain injury when he was struck by a car. He was referred to ACC for rehabilitation, but never received treatment.

Mr Kumar's family were outraged when the boy was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, and was sentenced to six years. They said the justice system had failed them, but they were wrong. What is the justice system supposed to do with a boy like this? Hang him? They were let down by a dysfunctional social welfare system that is demonstrably overwhelmed, although the response to this tragedy gives no cause for hope that anything will change. There is to be a review by the Office of the Chief Social Worker. And what will come of that? Nothing, if past experience is anything to go by.

It is unlikely that Northland's schools are populated by potential killers, but this story, and others that have briefly appalled us until something worse happens, lends weight to what Pat Newman is saying about the state of some 5-year-olds. Less spectacularly we heard recently about new entrants arriving at a cluster of Decile 1 schools in Auckland who did not even know their names.

The schools said they were pumping extra resources into those kids, effectively giving them the attention other kids get plus 50 per cent. That's not fair on the kids who turn up ready to learn, and we don't even know if the extra attention is effective.

Surely we have reached the point where failing to raise children in a manner than at least gives them some hope of leading normal lives is regarded, by society and the law, as unacceptable.

State intervention is needed long before these children turn 5, and the job of repairing the damage should not go to schools. Their job is to teach the dog; the tail, now wagging more furiously than ever, should not be their concern.