An ERO and MOE show: How the Grinches Stole Education

by ELV

After watching the four-hour Education and Workforce Committee video and feeling that familiar mix of unease and sadness settle in, I decided to wrap the whole thing in a little festive mischief — if only to make something so grim feel a touch less evil.

Every Kiwi down in Schoolville

Loved honesty a lot…

But the Grinches in Wellington?

Oh no — they did NOT.

They hated the truth,

Every fact, every thread.

They twisted them, bent them,

And sugar-coated instead.

And high in her tower,

Where the ministry sleeps,

Sat Ellen MacGregor-Reid,

Counting secrets she keeps.

She’d waited for years

For that warm, cushioned chair —

And now that she’d claimed it,

She’d lie without care.

She smiled for the cameras,

Said “All’s fine! All is well!"

While the staff who’d escaped her

Told a far truer tale.

Her answers were fogbanks,

Her details askew,

She dodged every question

Like truth was taboo.

Then down in the basement,

Beneath ERO’s glow,

Sat Ruth Shinoda

With her well-rehearsed show.

Her grin was electric, 

Her charm tightly wound,

But every sweet gesture

Was hiding a mound—

Of stories unspoken,

Of culture gone sour,

Of cracks in the system

She’d paint over each hour.

She laughed as she answered,

She sparkled, she shone —

But everyone watching

Could tell something’s wrong.

For the lies came too easy,

Too quick and too slick —

A tap turned to torrent,

A trick become trick.

And up on the balcony,

Surveying it all,

Stood Erica Stanford,

Queen Grinch of the Hall.

Her suit white as snowfall,

Her gestures refined,

Her voice preaching “progress”

While truth fell behind.

She wasn’t the puppet

We’d once hoped she’d be —

She tugged all the strings

With astonishing glee.

Her scripts were rehearsed,

Her conviction top-shelf,

She fooled half the country,

Perhaps even herself.

For when leaders lie boldly

And feel no remorse,

The system grows brittle

And veers off its course.

And all through Schoolville

A whisper took flight:

 “If those meant to guard us 

Won’t stand for what’s right…

…then who will protect us?

Our kids? Te Tiriti?”

The question hung heavy 

Across every city.

And that’s when the truth

Cut through all the noise:

It won’t be the Grinches

Who safeguard our voice.

It falls to the people

Who still choose the light —

Every kaiako, Every whānau

Who refuses the fright.

For lies rot the rafters,

And truth feels unmanned…

Yet hope keeps on breathing

In hearts that withstand.