Stealing Erica’s Thunder: The Curriculum Shit-Show

Oct 18
6 min read

by ELV

Before Erica Stanford rolls into town with her roadshow banners and big promises, educators deserve to hear the truth.

Over the last few years, a handful of small PLD providers, curriculum writers, and school leaders have poured themselves into shaping the New Zealand Curriculum Refresh. They worked ridiculous hours, argued passionately for local voice, and tried to make Te Mātaiaho more than a token reference.

Then, quietly, they were told to stop talking.

Some were dismissed.

Some were bound by NDAs.

Their work was taken, rewritten, or erased.

And now, those same people are watching what they created being re-branded, stripped of context, and — in parts — rewritten offshore.

Yes.

Offshore.

And soon, it’ll all be unveiled at what’s being billed as a “Curriculum Roadshow” — though, let’s be honest, most of us know it’ll be more of a Curriculum Shit-Show.

There’ll be lanyards, corporate coffee, and perfectly timed applause.

Meanwhile, half the audience will be silently calculating how many relievers it took to cover their class so they could sit through a PowerPoint about a curriculum they didn’t write, don’t trust, and won’t be given time or support to implement.

The new curriculum Erica will celebrate on Monday carries an unmistakable Australian flavour — added to the Rata-Johnston-Swain mix. Because the government handed the keys to Janison, an Australian company that won the contract for the SMART assessment tool (a contract worth over $30 Million I might add).

Once that happened, everything else began to shift.

Progress outcomes were rewritten to align with the data model.

Rumour has it Year 9 expectations are being pulled down into Year 8 — not to raise standards, but to fit the new assessment system.

And just when you thought we’d finished the carousel of change, here comes another lap. Because of the NEW new changes, teachers may have to complete their four days of Structured Maths PLD all over again.

Yes, again.

Because in the scramble to align everything with the SMART tool, every PLD provider in the country will now have to rewrite their resources to match this new monster.

The advisory group called it a “curriculum glow up.”

They should just get Guy Fawkes to give it a blow up.

And if you’re tempted to skip Erica’s roadshow and its pre-packaged talking points, word is the AEC Alternative Roadshow might be where the real kōrero is happening — where teachers can actually talk about the profession we love without being force-fed another “change narrative.”

And while we were promised a knowledge-rich curriculum, it’s now becoming more of a Frankenstein monster — stitched together from parts no one asked for, with an Australian accent and a data dashboard for a heart.

Honestly, it’s a joke how many times and how many hands this document has passed through.

Every time someone tries to steady it, another political adviser, ministry manager, or offshore contractor swoops in to have a “quick tidy up.” It’s been rewritten, rebranded, repurposed, and interfered with so many times that it’s barely recognisable as our own anymore.

And that’s the real shame of it.

Because what should have been a moment of pride for Aotearoa — a curriculum shaped by our own thinkers, our own kaiako, our own tamariki — with an Indigenous heart beating at its centre.

A curriculum that honoured Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that drew from the wisdom of Te Mātaiaho, that told our stories in our own voices.

Instead, it’s been gutted, repackaged, and handed back to us with a corporate logo and an Australian postcode.

It has become an international embarrassment.

And for Erica Stanford, it must be humiliating to stand in front of the cameras with a document so badly mangled, knowing how many people she’s silenced, sidelined, or driven out of the sector along the way.

She’s not launching a curriculum — she’s unveiling the wreckage of one.

It’s no wonder teachers and kids have had enough.

That’s what happens when things are rushed, outsourced, and politically corrupted.

The SMART tool that’s not so smart (or ready)

The Ministry told schools the SMART tool would launch in Term 4. We’re now in Week 2 — and it’s nowhere to be seen.

PLD applications for schools to get funding for this roll out has been pushed to November, and the tool itself won’t be used properly until Term 1 next year. That means teachers will be entering baseline data without proper training, and then retrofitting their understanding in Term 2.

It’s the same old pattern: roll it out fast, fix it later, blame the teachers, bodge the data and make wild claims about success.

We’ve been here before — with National Standards, PaCT, e-asTTle upgrades, you name it. And each time, it’s the educators who pay the price for rushed implementation and corrupted data.

Understand – Know – Do: on the chopping block

Word from several writers is that the Understand – Know – Do framework might quietly disappear from the final documents. If that happens, we’ll lose one of the few remaining structures that connected knowledge, conceptual understanding, and practice.

In its place, expect something cleaner, sharper, and more “measurable” — a curriculum rewritten to fit the metrics of the SMART tool rather than the lives of our learners.

And that’s the most dangerous part.

Because when data starts driving curriculum, we stop asking what matters — and start asking what’s easiest to measure.

The magical vanishing of Te Mātaiaho

Te Mātaiaho was meant to anchor our refresh — a living expression of te ao Māori and local identity. Now, it’s barely visible. Whispers say it won’t even be mentioned in the road show.

This is how erasure happens.

Not through confrontation, but omission.

Not by shouting “no Māori content,” but by quietly removing it from the index.

Brian Roche enters the chat

Now we’re told Brian Roche has negotiated directly with principals through PPCBU.

It’s a clever move — send in someone neutral-looking to smooth things over while Erica rehearses her speech.

It’s damage control dressed as consultation, and the timing couldn’t be clearer.

A tidy pay rise here, a mentoring allowance there — just enough hush money to fill the seats at her roadshow and keep the headlines positive. NZEI Principals are standing their ground.

There are people out there — curriculum writers, advisors, and PLD providers — who know exactly what’s happening, but can’t speak.

They’ve seen the drafts, the edits, the offshore rewrites.

They’re the ones who tried to shape this curriculum with aroha and purpose, only to be told their services were no longer required once the contracts went offshore.

They can’t tell their story.

But we can.

And we will.

A message for the journalists

When Erica stands on stage at her curriculum roadshow — polished, smiling, surrounded by cameras — remember this: She is not announcing something brand new. She is launching something that has already been rewritten, outsourced, and sanitised.

So please — ask the hard questions:

Who actually wrote this version?
Why was the SMART tool outsourced to an Australian company?
Why is the tool delayed?
Why are teachers expected to use it before training?
What happened to Te Mātaiaho and the Understand–Know–Do framework?
Who benefits from the data this tool will collect?
What will happen to the PLD tenders for 2027 and 2029 now that timelines and content have shifted “to ensure fairness and consistency”?
How much will Janison profit from the data it gathers on New Zealand’s schoolchildren?
Will this data be stored in Aotearoa or offshore?
Who will own it, protect it, and decide how it’s used?

Because when private companies are paid tens of millions to run our national assessments, the real value isn’t just in the contract — it’s in the data farming that follows.

When the cameras flash and the headlines praise “clarity” and “consistency,” I hope at least one person in that crowd remembers the hundreds of educators who wrote, fought, argued, and believed in something better — before they were written out of their own story.

Erica can keep her thunder.

The real storm is coming from the ground up — from the teachers, writers, and academics who are done being silenced.

The Curriculum Shit-Show List