Editorial: Mediocrity rules under school plan

The Government's original initiative, which it called Investing in Educational Success, is now investing in more of the same. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

More than two years have passed since the Government announced an impressive plan for improving schools by paying them to work more closely together. They were to form clusters under an executive principal and share their best staff who would be lead teachers in their subject. A pot of $349 million was added to the education budget.

Nothing happens in state schooling without the approval of the teachers' unions but one of them at least, the Post Primary Teachers' Association, did not reject the plan out of hand. The primary school teachers' NZ Educational Institute was much more resistant. Education Minister Hekia Parata did not force the issue. Her ministry started rounds of consultation on the details of the plan, including the terminology, "executive principal" and "lead teacher" which were not to the unions' taste.

Two years on, a watered down version of the plan appears to be getting under way. About 10 per cent of schools have formed "communities", not clusters, to meet regularly, share information and compare data. The typical community includes just one or two secondary schools and the rest are intermediates and primaries. It looks like a vertical integration of feeder schools rather than the cross-fertilisation of education at each level that the original plan envisaged.

The bonuses to be offered principals and teachers who take on wider roles have been negotiated down by the PPTA. Its national head, Angela Roberts, proudly told our reporter last week the plan "now is not just about money, it's about non-contact time and about more teachers in the classroom instead of competition for pay". Titles that implied some teachers are better than others were dropped at the union's insistence.

The Government's original initiative, which it called Investing in Educational Success, is now investing in more of the same. The non-contact hours and additional hands in the classroom are the usual benefits the teacher unions seek for all their members in bargaining rounds. The annual salary incentives for taking leading roles in a community of schools have been reduced by up to $10,000. Instead, the Government is offering bonuses of up to $50,000 a year to recruit principals for "high needs" schools.

Even with these compromises the scheme remains unacceptable to the NZEI which is working on an interschool consultation initiative of its own. Hekia Parata must be disappointed with the 10 per cent uptake of her plans to date. She admits she is disappointed that Auckland Grammar, which had joined a community of schools, has since walked away. Headmaster Tim O'Connor said the group's focus did not align with Grammar's plans.

It is hard to believe the data sharing meetings that participating principals describe to us will make very much difference to the way the education system works. The original plan was not "just about money", as the PPTA would have it. It was about promoting talent and spreading best practice. That is unlikely to happen without substantial incentives. But the union has prevailed. Mediocrity rules again.