Amidst the propaganda blitz that Stanford has launched on the education sector, it might seem finicky for me to keep brining up issues around process. Surely, if Stanford’s arguments are right and a structured, knowledge-rich, assessment-driven system will solve the crisis she has diagnosed, then it really doesn’t matter how it’s put in place? In fact, given the urgency she has told us exists, isn’t it best to get the approach in place as fast as one can? – the ends justify the means. That is exactly the argument Ministry leaders have used in select committee.

But what do you expect from those with power when they are making decisions that affect you and those you love?

Do you expect them to listen to a wide range of evidence and experts?

Do you expect them to engage with multiple perspectives?

Do you expect them to follow proper processes?

Because if you do expect these for yourself, you better defend them regardless of who is in office, and regardless of their policy programme.

Stanford’s curriculum change programme has only paid heed to one form of evidence – the science of learning, knowledge-rich, and structured approaches crowd. These approaches work for some learners and have some merit, and place, but are all far from settled as whole system approaches.

Stanford’s curriculum change programme has not engaged with the wide diversity of experience, culture, and needs in the sector. She seems to have been overly reliant on the ideas of the likes of Elizabeth Rata and Michael Johnson.

Stanford’s curriculum change programme has failed to adhere to regulatory and public service guidelines and processes, the very things that act as guardrails to protect the integrity of our democracy, and thus you and your place and voice in this country.

As a result, we end up with situations like the senior English curriculum being changed at the last minute, in a way that makes it a fundamentally different document from the one that was about to go to the sector. It is hard to see how those changes could have been done in a way that followed process.

And yes, it does matter that those changes resulted in the removal from the curriculum of Māori and Pacific authors. It does matter that they were replaced by Shakespeare and 19th century texts.

Who did this? On what basis? Who was consulted? Who advised? Why did Stanford approve this version?

If we let this slide, follow the logic and you end up with power that is unbridled, that can operate with impunity, and that is more likely than not to act in the interests of the few.

If that becomes the way power operates in this country, what are you going to do when the other team assumes power?