A Performance Is Not a Permission Slip, Erica Stanford

By ELV

There was a time when I taught children how to spot fake news.

I would instruct them to look for reliable sources. Invite them to ask who is speaking. Cross-reference a variety of sources. And most importantly, don’t accept a clip, a headline, or a confident voice as truth.

That was even before the AI generation, where fake news and videos now are ever so convincing. Back then we told students: go to the source. Read the thing itself. The horse’s mouth still mattered… unless the horse is so good at lying, I guess.

Point being, when the Minister of Education told the Education and Workforce Committee she was deeply concerned about the behaviour of the Teaching Council because of a “very damaging”, “very serious” independent report — I paused.

Carefully chosen sharp phrases like — child protection, regulatory duty, serious allegations — catch a listener’s ear.

But how many people have actually read the report? 

Have you?

How many simply accepted the Minister’s summary as fact?

I hope the committee didn’t.

Because when you actually read Debbie Francis’ independent review, you don’t find a permission slip for ministerial control.

This is a report about the Teaching Council growing up — not being caught out.

When you read it you find a critique of culture, clarity, and regulatory maturity — and a warning about what happens when governance becomes personality-driven and politically flavoured.

That is where the truth begins to pull away from what we were told.

What Erica said

After flirting with the Chair briefly, Erica, in her submission in front of the committee, dramatically framed the Francis review as showing that the Teaching Council: did not see itself as a child-protection agency; did not act like a regulator; was too focused on being liked by the profession.

The way she framed that was deserving of an Oscar, but it is actually a work of fiction. Her words implied a conclusion: in her world, these few phrases mean that the Council must be pulled back into line. Her strong intervention is justified. Unfettered control around structural reform — potentially more ministerial influence — becomes the logical response.

But again, that is not what the report actually says.

The report critiques politicisation — it does not prescribe political takeover.

Francis does say the Council has developed an advocacy tone and that its culture carries a “small and big P political flavour”. She warns that emphasis on independence and positioning has sometimes created defensiveness, friction with Crown agencies, and noise that distracts from core purpose.

But her solution is explicit:

Independent — but apolitical.

That is a strong call to reduce political posture, not increase political control.

If anything, the report is warning what happens when politics gets into the walls of a regulator.

Francis is recommending independence stays and politics goes.

The report is anything but a mandate for takeover.

Francis directly rejects the “Minister vs profession” board narrative

Francis writes that focusing on whether board members are elected by the profession or appointed by the Minister is “an unhelpful characterisation.”

Then she clarifies: Once on the board, members must act with a professional and fiduciary duty — not as representatives of factions.

If the public conversation becomes “the Minister needs to put the right people on”, that is the opposite of the governance message Francis is making. Her argument is not about who controls seats. Her argument is about how governance behaves.

She is saying that we need to stop thinking in camps; the Council needs to start governing like a regulator.

To be honest, this interference — the Minister choosing “her” experts because she deems others not skilled — has probably contributed to the personality clash and lack of focus on the true job in the first place. No wonder there is tension when the Minister’s favourites appear to outnumber the profession.

The language problem — “serious allegations”

The other thing that bothers me is the dramatics Erica uses in her language to the committee. She says, in a sombre tone, that the report carried “serious allegations” — but the report is not an allegation document; it is a future-focused list of recommendations.

Allegations imply wrongdoing.

Failure. Exposure. Misconduct.

But the Francis review was not commissioned as an investigation into hidden breaches.

It was written as a five-year performance horizon — a forward-looking improvement review.

That distinction is enormous. Francis is not prosecuting the Council. She is describing what a mature regulator would look like and where this one needs to grow.

Her recommendations focus on:

• shifting from reactive to preventative thinking

• centering safeguarding as the organising purpose

• developing an explicit regulatory framework

• clarifying board and management roles

• moving away from personality-driven leadership

That is a roadmap for potential. Not an indictment.

What the report actually implies about governance

Debbie Francis describes a Council that should be:

• independent (still)

• apolitical in posture

• clear about when it is acting as a membership body versus regulator

• grounded in safeguarding and prevention

• operating within an explicit regulatory framework

• governed by a board acting as one fiduciary body — not competing voices

  
  

If the report has a governance thesis, it is this:

Governance is responsibility, not representation.

But governance recommendations don’t sit in a vacuum. They sit inside context.

Which brings us to a question that matters just as much as what the report says:

How did this report come about?

Those critical literacy skills we ask children to develop — the ones we insist matter — apply here too. Reading this report means going beyond the surface.

We need to ask simple questions. Why was the review commissioned? Why did it arrive when it did, sitting neatly alongside the Education System Reform Bill? And why was it then used in Erica Stanford’s submission to frame an argument that hundreds of sector submissions raising concern were misplaced?

Erica references the Public Service Commission in her statement, saying she was told. That is important, because it can create the impression this was an externally initiated system review.

But the report itself is clear in the footnotes: the approach mirrors a Performance Improvement Review, yet the decision to undertake it was made by the Teaching Council Board.

That distinction doesn’t invalidate the report. It does change how it should be read — particularly when its release coincides with legislative reform and its language is later used to support a political narrative already underway.

This context becomes even more relevant given reporting at the time raising questions about potential conflicts of interest between the Teaching Council leadership and the Minister.

Messages released under the Official Information Act showed contact between the Council’s incoming Chair and Erica Stanford regarding initial teacher education funding — contact that sector groups argued created the appearance of preferential access. Both the Minister’s office and the Chair disputed any wrongdoing.

That does not prove motive. But it is part of the environment in which the review was commissioned, released, and later cited.

Timing shapes interpretation. Context shapes meaning.

When readers apply the same critical literacy we expect in classrooms, patterns become easier to see. Not conclusions — patterns.

Which is why I hope the committee read the footnotes as carefully as the headlines.

Because when a self-initiated review describing declining public trust lands alongside legislative change, it doesn’t simply sit there as analysis. It begins to do narrative work.

Not deliberately. But inevitably.

In that environment, decisions about whose expertise is elevated inside a review become highly influential. The voices centred can quietly reinforce the direction of reform already underway.

That doesn’t mean the report is invalid.

It does mean readers need to understand the context in which it is later used.

The real question Erica should be asking based on the report

Not: Who controls the Teaching Council?

But: How do we protect children and the integrity of the profession without turning the regulator into a political instrument?

Because if the diagnosis is that politics has blurred the Council’s role, the cure cannot be more politics.

The report called for professionalism.

Not a producer’s cut.

Just because you can apparently play the bassoon, Erica, doesn’t mean you should conduct the whole orchestra.