The Minister, the “Hit Job”, and the Reality of SMART

by ELV

From our Minister's mouth

Why is it acceptable for our Minister of Education to accuse the profession of “fudging numbers” — while reshaping the narrative herself?

Because that’s what happened this week.

On Mike Hosking Breakfast, the Minister dismissed concern about the SMART tool as:

“a bumbling attempt at some kind of weird political hit job”

She accused the sector — including the Aotearoa Educators Collective and Liam Rutherford — of

“fudging the numbers.”

That’s a serious accusation.

So let’s step out of the spin for a moment — back to what was actually said, and what is actually unfolding.

Remember, I am not speaking on behalf of the Aotearoa Educators Collective, they have their own voice. I am also not a union voice from the NZEI. And I’m certainly not trying to compete for airtime while Nicola Willis dominates headlines responding to the oil crisis.

I am just a kaiako in Te Tai Tokerau, moving through the SMART tool PLD like many others, with just a front-row seat to what this really looks like.

What the AEC actually said

The Aotearoa Educators Collective raised three simple points to the media (they would tell Erica directly - but she never seems to listen):

• Less than 60% of schools had signed up for SMART

• Some principals had signed up without intending to use the tool

• There is low confidence in both the tool and the pace of implementation

That’s not a ‘political hit job’. That’s actually a professional concern. It is the truth about what leaders across schools are seeing and feeling.

What the Minister said instead

When asked directly about school uptake in the interview, the response shifted:

“In nine working days, 250,000 students were signed up…”

But that wasn’t the question she was asked. The question was about schools and their uptake — not how many students had been entered into a system. Entering students into a CMS for an AI-driven platform is not the same as schools choosing to adopt it.

Schools were the measure in the question but our students became the answer.

And then came the part framed as support for principals — the same principals being asked to carry rapid, system-wide change:

“I absolutely refuse to believe that any hard working principal… would… fake student enrolments…”

But this misses the reality entirely. What is being dismissed here isn’t just a statistic. Sadly, it’s the professional judgement of principals. Signing up to understand a system is not the same as “faking” enrolments. It’s actually what thoughtful leadership looks like. It’s what happens when schools take a measured approach — stepping in to see, to test, to prepare — rather than blindly committing to something still unfolding.

It’s what is known to the profession Erica, as due diligence in a system moving faster than the space schools are given to respond.

What actually happened in schools

If you want to understand what sits behind that “250,000 students signed up” claim, you have to come back into the real rhythm of a real school.

The truth was a countdown to the end of Term 1, where leaders were told to get every student uploaded before the system closed. It looked like laptops opened over a long weekend — even Good Friday — not out of enthusiasm, but because the window was closing and missing it wasn’t really an option.

It looked like returning to the system during the break to a platform that told you uploads were now closed until Term 2, followed by delays before any child could even access an assessment.

And layered over the top of all of that sat PLD, compressed into a narrow Term 2 window, expected to be absorbed alongside everything else schools already do. That’s what those numbers truly represent. Not confidence or haste to endorse a new tool. Just schools doing what they always do — responding to pressure, meeting deadlines, and trying to stay afloat in a system that doesn’t slow down for them.

And by the way, once they are actually signed up we also have a ‘testing window’ Hence the speed and need. I am sure those test figures will be used in a political advert in the near future to indicate more success.

Signing up Erica is not the same as believing.

Just as signing up is not the same as readiness or confidence and certainly not agreement.

Sometimes signing up is simply what happens when you are told to upload NOW, decide later, train in Term 2 or else.

The Aotearoa Educators Collective didn’t invent concern for a ‘gain’ or a ‘hit job’. Instead they simply named what many of us are already seeing because they talk and communicate to the people inside the system, they listen.

And this is not the first time that numbers are presented in ways that tell a particular story.

Confidence claimed before confidence is built. Narratives shaped to suggest success — while the reality underneath is far more complex.

We saw it in the framing of phonics checks.

We saw it in the dismissal of professional voice around Te Tirit and those ‘disgusting maps’. We saw it when critique was met not with engagement — but with attack.

So when the Minister calls this a “hit job”…be mindful.

Because what is being described as politics —

is actually practice, our lived reality.

When educators speak carefully, professionally, and from lived experience —

why is the response to question their credibility…instead of listening?

Remember, credibility is only questioned when the message becomes uncomfortable for someone.