Erica’s Play for Teacher Performance Pay — The Real Teaching Council Takeover
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
by ELV
URGENT INTEL — Erica Stanford is making a play for teacher performance-related pay — and we know this.
We said it before about the Curriculum Shitshow.
We proved it with the Learning First intel (thanks to Bevan Holloway for his OIA that proved it on 3rd November).
Trust us again.
This is the next stage.
While the media noise distracts everyone with test scores, teacher shortages, and “dire training” headlines, the real story is unfolding quietly under the cover of bureaucratic reform: the Teaching Council Takeover.
Tomorrow, Parliament reads Day 3 of the Teaching and Training Act changes — and with it, the beginning of a complete shift in power over who defines “good teaching” in Aotearoa.
Right now, the Teaching Council is our firewall.
It keeps professional standards in the hands of educators, unions, iwi, and the profession itself.
Erica wants that firewall gone.
Once the standards move inside the Ministry of Education, the Minister decides what “effective teaching” looks like — and that is the gateway to performance-related pay.
Erica says this is about “lifting quality” and fixing “teacher misconduct” and “dire training.” That’s the decoy — the dead cat thrown on the table to keep everyone talking about the wrong thing.
Behind that noise sits the real intent: a centralised, data-driven system where teacher pay is linked to measurable “impact,” not professional trust.
If she said that out loud, it would spark uproar in Parliament and across every school in the motu.
So she won’t.
But her advisors and think-tank allies already have.
The Evidence — Hidden in Plain Sight
From the New Zealand Initiative, the think-tank that feeds policy ideas directly into National’s bloodstream:
“The Ministry of Education can reasonably be viewed as a monopsonistic purchaser of teaching services… coordinating and centrally funding salaries for the vast majority of teachers.” — Dr Eric Crampton, The Post, 25 Aug 2025
Then the reveal:
“The government could set a new, higher pay scale for new teachers meeting a higher standard… or create promotion tiers for exceptional teachers.
Every other service sector manages to link pay to performance… Doing it in education would allow the government to attract and retain superb teachers at less than enormous cost.”
That’s performance pay.
Written clearly.
And the structural mechanism to deliver it — Ministerial control of the Teaching Council — is being legislated right now.
Dr Michael Johnston, another from the New Zealand Initiative, has set the philosophical groundwork:
“An overly sociocultural philosophy of teaching… insufficient focus on the science of learning… poor preparation of teachers…”
“At the heart of these deficiencies lie the Standards for the Teaching Profession.”
Those standards — our collective values, our Tiriti partnership, our professional soul — are exactly what Erica intends to rewrite.
Once she controls them, she controls certification, renewal, pay scales, and progression.
That is performance pay.
If this passes, “effectiveness” will be defined by data.
Progress and pay will be measured by metrics.
Teachers working with trauma-affected, neurodiverse, or high-needs ākonga — where success looks different — will be penalised for the very work that matters most.
This has been the ultimate play all along.
All Erica needed was to tweak a few clauses in the Teaching and Training Act — the quiet kind of legislative housekeeping no one looks twice at — to unlock everything that comes next.
Once the Teaching Council falls under her control, the rest follows like dominoes.
Collaboration will fracture into competition — why do you think Kāhui Ako have been left to crumble?
Whanaungatanga will be replaced by compliance.
Teaching will become transactional — a system of winners and losers, data points and dashboards, not people and purpose.
And all of it will be dressed up as “raising standards.”
This is not a time for polite silence.
Share this.
Speak it.
Shout it.
Tell every teacher, every trainee, every parent, every MP.
Erica’s play for the Teaching Council is a play for performance-related pay.
Once she holds the pen that writes “effective teaching,” it’s over.
We told you about the Curriculum Shitshow.
We told you about Learning First.
Now we’re telling you this:
the real battle for our profession begins now.
And here is the paper trail for proof, for any in doubt: The conditions for performance related pay sit here...