Yes, this is a “re-brand”. 

Welcome to the first of my “Democracy Needs Early Warning Systems” monthly newsletters. 

Right now, we’re in this weird in-between space in education in Aotearoa New Zealand, everyone busy with implementation yet unaware of the extent of the danger we are in. 

It has long been very clear to me that, while what’s happening is occurring within education, it’s not really about education at all. We are the focus of an exercise in democratic erosion, almost a test for what is possible in a stable democracy when a group wants to capture the state and turn it to serve their own ends. This newsletter is designed to alert you to how that’s happening.

My initial report in early August 2024 laid out how the MAG acted illegitimately, intentionally subverting public service guidelines as they captured the Ministry. These are facts, no matter how much the Ministry tries to place the veneer of retrospective legitimacy over them. It was the first step.

Since then we have seen increased capture of the Ministry of Education. Particular private and commercial interests have had an inside lane. I charted that process through my report into the maths textbook procurement, which should be a scandal given the gap between what the Minister has said to Parliament and what emails reveal. That was step two.

We are now entering step three.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a structured this or that fan. If you’re cheering the changes on, just be aware that you are also a cheerleader for our slide into what democracy scholars like Steven Levitsky call competitive authoritarianism. 

Here are the warning signs from the last month.

ALERTS

The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) has opened for public consultation until 12 June 2025. The changes propose fundamental changes to how educational decisions get made. 

For instance, the proposed changes to section 127 of the Act (school board objectives) make educational achievement the sole objective, relegating other objectives (which are currently of equal importance) in that section to “supporting” status. Alarmingly, reference to local curriculum is removed, replaced by the term “teaching and learning programmes” — a change that has been discussed in briefing papers to the Minister since April 2024 as a way to use legislation to reduce the space schools have to make decisions about what the curriculum looks like in their context. 

Also proposed to be removed is section 5, which contains within it the requirement for consultation when it comes to curriculum development, as well as the education learning objectives. I wrote about the implications of this in April. You can read that here.

Meanwhile, the draft English curriculum for Years 7-13 consultation closes on 13 June 2025. This document emerges from the writing team put together by MAG member Elizabeth Rata before the MAG had Ministerial sign off for the MAG’s recommendations, a tiny team that was ready to get to work before going through Ministry procurement processes. The consultation window coincides with term-end pressures, not doubt an attempt at ensuring minimal sector engagement. 

The timing isn’t coincidental. The Education Act amendments would eliminate future consultation requirements while the curriculum changes embed particular pedagogical approaches. Together, they create what constitutional scholars call “competitive authoritarianism”—using legal mechanisms to achieve ends that couldn’t be achieved through transparent democratic processes.

A curriculum is secondary legislation. For secondary legislation to be lawful, it must be developed in a way that is consistent with the Act it finds its basis in. When a curriculum has been developed in a way that is inconsistent with the Act, what does that mean for the curriculum? Where does that leave schools and boards, legally?

INVESTIGATION PREVIEWS

I wrote an analysis of the draft Years 7-13 English curriculum in an attempt to get my head around its implications for my own teaching. In doing that, it became apparent to me it is a document designed to constrain rather than expand knowledge. Unlike Te Mātaiaho, which treated learners as meaning-makers, this iteration reduces them to passive recipients of predetermined content sequences. The prescriptive text lists and rigid assessment frameworks mirror the control mechanisms documented in my previous investigations. It is a curriculum that makes it almost impossible for schools to meet their obligations under the Education and Training Act (2020), which is part of the reason why it’s being amended.

Yes, we’re in the realm of retrospective legality. 

That analysis is helping to crystallise my thinking as I continue to comb OIA docs, Ministerial briefings, and Select Committee transcripts for the next report. That report adds more detail to what exactly the MAG was up to, including when they started writing curriculum documents despite clear public service guidelines saying they are not suitable for that work.

That physical report will examine how these legislative changes connect to the network capture documented in Curriculum Overreach. In it, I aim to show what I’m seeing: how temporary advisory overreach becomes permanent structural change. 

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RESOURCE UPDATES

I have developed two resources to help leaders navigate this time of democratic erosion.

The first is a free 2 page guide called “The Philosophical Audit”, designed to help you identify what’s been stripped away and what your school community still needs.

The second is called “Strategic Leadership in a Post-Te Mātaiaho Era” and is a comprehensive toolkit to support three the three avenues I see you have during this important time: adopt/adapt/resist. 

You can find out more about them at bevanholloway.com/equip  

Journal article

I also contributed an article to NZATE’s ‘English in Aotearoa’ journal’s special edition focused on the draft curriculum. My article explored the legislative questions the curriculum’s development raises. The edition is free to download.

DEMOCRACY WATCH

Hannah Arendt wrote that power belongs to a group only as long as the group stays together. The curriculum changes work by fragmenting professional communities — isolating teachers in prescribed sequences, reducing principals to implementation managers, converting boards into compliance bodies, everyone compelled to act with allegiance to the Minister, not the legislation.

Democracy’s strength lies in collective action. David Taylor at Northcote College has made a stand. Where are the others standing with him? Every time educators gather to discuss what learning really means, every time trustees ask hard questions about process, every time parents insist on genuine consultation — these moments rebuild the democratic relationships that make resistance possible.

The machinery of capture depends on our isolation. Our defence lies in reconnection.

What specific questions will you raise about how these Education Act changes might affect your school’s decision-making autonomy?

What is your moral obligation given what’s really happening?