Taking the Sign Down: A Call for Stanford to Stand Down

by ELV

There is a moment in the life of a nation when pretending becomes more dangerous than speaking.

It’s not when mistakes are made.

It’s not even when rules are bent.

It’s when the truth is visible — widely known — and we continue to behave as if nothing is wrong.

At Davos this year, the Canadian Prime Minister spoke of a familiar fiction: the sign in the shop window. The one that says we believe in the rules, we agree with this system, this is fine — even when everyone inside knows it isn’t. He named what many countries are now facing globally: the old bargains no longer hold. The rules have changed. And keeping the sign up is no longer neutral — it is dishonest.

Listening to that speech, I didn’t think about geopolitics.

I thought about education in Aotearoa.

Because the politics surrounding our education system have now been exposed to truth. Not rumours. Not ideology. Truth — in testimony, in documents, in patterns that can no longer be explained away.

And the hurt from that exposure is no longer superficial. It is deep. Structural. And fast becoming irreparable.

Curriculum development described by insiders as politically overridden.

Evidence sidelined.

Experts removed.

Professional bodies drawn dangerously close to ministerial power while decisions that shape the profession are live.

And still, we are asked to keep the sign in the window.

Independent.

Evidence-based.

World-leading.

Smile. Carry on. Keep swimming.

This is not governance.

On the world stage, a country that politicises its educational foundations does not look decisive or bold. It looks unstable. Unserious. Untrustworthy. Its qualifications wobble. Its expertise is questioned. Its moral authority drains away.

A US president talking about “buying” Greenland wasn’t just absurd — it was smash-and-grab governance. A casual disregard for norms. A test to see how far power could stretch before someone said no. NATO had to publicly defend what should never have been in question.

An Education Minister pressing for expanded control over the Teaching Council, professional standards, and the shaping of education law, at precisely the moment trust is eroding, reflects the same disregard for norms. Different context, same instinct — to test how much can be taken before someone says no.

And no — this is not about personalities.

It is about behaviour from those in power.

As educators, we know this moment. We see it in children before they have the language for it — when something isn’t right, but the cost of speaking feels too high. We know that quiet compliance is not agreement. It is survival.

But we also know what happens if that silence hardens.

We have not been silent before.

When Te Tiriti was attacked, we did not sit back and do nothing.

We wrote letters.

We signed petitions.

We stood in the rain.

We refused to pretend.

Someone even kindly drew 'disgusting' maps!

When NCEA was reshaped without trust, we spoke.

When Outdoor Education was hollowed out, we spoke.

When professional judgement was treated as an inconvenience, we spoke.

Not because it was easy.

But because silence would have taught the wrong lesson.

What we are facing now is not smaller than those moments.

It is bigger.

This is the point Václav Havel warned us about — when systems survive not because they are true, but because people agree to behave as if they are. When keeping the sign in the window becomes a daily act of self-betrayal.

We do not get to just keep our heads down.

We do not get to keep swimming while the foundations crack.

We do not get to tell ourselves we are protecting children by staying quiet.

Protection does not look like pretending.

It looks like refusal.

Refusal to repeat lines we know are false.

Refusal to carry the fiction that everything is robust and independent when it is being actively undermined.

Refusal to keep the sign in the window when the shop no longer sells what it claims.

Refusal here is not chaos, nor is it disloyalty.

It is the collective withdrawal of quiet consent.

And this time, refusal cannot be solitary.

This is not about one brave teacher.

Or one outspoken principal.

It never was.

This is about educators together deciding that parents deserve the truth — not the polished version, not the reassuring version, but the honest one.

That curriculum integrity matters.

That professional independence matters.

That public trust, once broken, is not easily repaired.

And when trust in an education portfolio is this compromised, leadership must be accountable.

At this point, restoration does not come from reassurance — it comes from change.

If educators do not protect the education portfolio, no one in the Beehive will. That much is now undeniable.

Which brings us to the only remaining question: if the damage is now structural, who carries responsibility for allowing it to continue?

This is the term where we stop pretending.

This is the term where we take the sign down.

Not recklessly.

Not alone.

But together.

We are asking the Prime Minister to act — to stand the Education Minister down, not as punishment, but as the first necessary step in restoring trust.

We didn’t stay silent then.

We will not stay silent now.

The sign comes down.