Erica, Can You Show New Zealand Where the Expertise and the Money Went?

by ELV

Sometimes an email from a stranger jogs your memory about all of the promises, the redirected funds and the wonderful things that were supposed to happen for children as a result of jobs being defunded and specialist services being dismantled.

This particular email reminded me that reality doesn't seem to fit the story we've been told.

Last year the Government asked us to trust them. They told us significant funding would be redirected into Learning Support, bringing expertise closer to children and strengthening support across our schools. They told us RTLit, RTMāori and Kāhui Ako weren't simply disappearing, instead their valued expertise would remain, but the funds would be directed to frontline support for our tamariki.

Approximately $55 million over four years would be reinvested from RTLit and RT Māori. $118 million would be redirected from Kāhui Ako. Together, that's around $173 million redirected into Learning Support. What a grand statement.

As a SENCO, that sounded wonderful. Who wouldn't want more expertise around our children? Who wouldn't want faster access to that support? Who wouldn't want teachers feeling more confident?

After the announcement, school life carried on while people, good people, lost their jobs.

RTLits were assured there would be opportunities to use their expertise. The Ministry's own information sheet said it wanted to "keep the expertise of our qualified teachers and literacy specialists" and that "opportunities will be available" as new frontline roles were created through the reinvestment.

Curious to see how this reinvestment was going, I opened a survey sent to me by one of those former specialists.

It was simply titled: "RTLit – Where are you now?"

I'll keep the respondents anonymous because this isn't about individuals. It's more about whether New Zealand kept its promise.

I opened the survey hoping to discover these experts had seamlessly transitioned into new roles. I wanted to read stories of literacy specialists coaching teachers, strengthening schools and working closer to the children who needed them most.

Instead, page after page told a different story. Dozens of specialists described fixed-term contracts and part-time work. 'Thirty week' redeployment placements coming to an end. Relief teaching. Private tutoring. Returning to classroom teaching because there were no specialist roles available. Some were juggling two or three jobs to make ends meet. Some were actively searching for new work, but finding very little. Others spoke of losing confidence, losing job security, not keeping up with loans and wondering where their years of postgraduate training or PHDs now fitted into New Zealand's education system.

One former RTLit wrote:

"The introduction of Structured Literacy is the very time we needed more, not less, unbiased literacy expertise in our school communities."

Another wrote:

"My skills as a literacy leader are not and will not be utilised anymore."

One, now an RTLB working on the frontline, said they could see the need for RTLit support more than ever, describing schools desperate for literacy coaching while RTLB caseloads continued to grow.

Others questioned where the promised roles had gone, with one asking: "Where are all the additional literacy roles that Erica Stanford keeps saying she has created?"

These are highly trained specialists. All have postgraduate qualifications funded by the Ministry itself, some with PHDs. Their knowledge hasn't disappeared. It has simply become much harder to find. 

When the RTLit service was disestablished, many specialists accepted the 30-week redeployment package rather than taking severance. They believed the Government's assurance that opportunities would emerge as the new learning support system took shape.

Instead, several respondents describe spending much of that redeployment period being used as relief teachers or filling short-term staffing gaps, rather than using the specialist literacy expertise New Zealand had invested in. Others spoke of fixed-term contracts, piecing together multiple jobs, or still searching for suitable specialist roles.

That redeployment period ends at the close of Term 3. So what happens in Term 4? Do these literacy specialists finally move into the frontline learning support roles they were promised? Or does New Zealand lose even more of the expertise it spent years—and public money—developing? Because if the promise was that expertise would be closer to children, then Term 4 should be the moment we begin to see it.

This wasn't the only expertise New Zealand dismantled in aid of more money to spend on Learning Support. Kāhui Ako disappeared too. Across-school teachers and leadership networks evaporated. Communities of Learning where relationships that had taken years to build just got 'defunded'.

Again, we were told this funding would be redirected to learning support. So twelve months later, I think New Zealand deserves to ask a very fair question.

Can you show us where the money went?

Not the budget lines or press release, but the actual outcomes. The MOE are always hounding schools for outcomes in their attendance and achievement data, maybe we should demand outcomes too. I am sure they could find something we can actual measure such a large amount of money by:

Show us the shorter RTLB waitlists.

Show us the increased ORS approvals.

Show us the Educational Psychologists.

Show us the additional learning support.

Show us the literacy coaches working alongside teachers.

Show us the stronger teacher capability.

Show us that expertise really is closer to children.

Because from where I sit as a SENCO... I still spend my days waiting for support. And I'm no longer convinced my experience is an isolated one.

And it isn't just me asking these questions. Reports are beginning to tell the same story.

Twelve months on, I would have expected to see the evidence everywhere. Yet twelve months later, reports continue to paint a picture.

Dr Sarah Aiono's report, Documented Need, Denied Support, describes principals continuing to receive ORS declines for learners with significant cognitive, communication, behavioural, sensory and personal care needs, despite Budget 2025 being presented as improving access to learning support.

Documented Need, Denied Support _ Still Beyond Capacity_ ORS Declines in Practice After Bu.

Download • 1.29MB

If around $173 million was redirected to strengthen learning support and bring expertise closer to children, where is the evidence that schools are experiencing that change?

Principals are still funding support from operational grants, while former specialists are asking where the promised jobs went. So Erica, this isn't really a question about budgets anymore. It's a question about outcomes.

Can you show New Zealand where the expertise and the money went?