Associate Education Minister David Seymour visits the Vanguard Military School, one of the country's first partnership schools. Photo / Michael Craig
Associate Education Minister David Seymour visits the Vanguard Military School, one of the country's first partnership schools. Photo / Michael Craig
Opinion by Alwyn Poole
THREE KEY FACTS:
• The Government has allocated $153 million to bring back charter schools, with Associate Education Minister David Seymour saying state schools that are “not performing” could be converted to the charter model.
• The funding would apply over four years to establish 50 href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-new-zealand-charter-schools-consider-ditching-bureaucratic-mainstream/K4JZI4YEYBH4FJQ2EUOXX3WK6A/">charter schools - 15 schools would be new while 35 would be converted state schools.
• Charter schools set their own curriculum and teaching hours. They are not operated by the government and can be run as a non-profit organisation or a business.
Alwyn Poole founded the Mt Hobson Middle School and the Villa NCEA Academy in Newmarket and held support coaching roles at Hamilton Boys’ High School and St Cuthbert’s College (Epsom). He now heads Innovative Education Consultants, conducting research into the education system.
The first is that charter schools are a failed experiment with little evidence of success. The second is; if the $38.25 million a year for charter schools was spent on state schools then all of their ills would be solved.
These people take the NZ public, the media and large parts of the education sector for fools.
The last time charter schools were introduced into NZ the opponents of that model stated repeatedly that they were not needed because NZ has a world-class education system.
Because this mantra had not been openly challenged before, that approximately 75 per cent of children were doing okay and that there had been some historical truth to this claim – the claim carried some weight in 2013.
In 2024 the tide has gone right out and the true state of affairs is clear.
In term 4 of 2023 only 50 per cent of students attended school regularly and for Māori and Pasifika this number was 39 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.
Te Kāpehu Whetū marked its final day as a charter school in December 2018. Photo / John Stone
NZ’s international results not only show an actual decline, and one relative to other countries, but they also highlight bullying and deep opinion from principals that they are unable to attract either the quality, or quantity, of teachers required to effectively educate their children.
If we take our highest broad school qualification – University Entrance (UE) – the top 30 high schools in NZ have an average of 87 per cent of their students achieving UE.
For the bottom 30 schools the average is 2.7 per cent. The high profile “Super 8″ single-sex boys’ schools have a range of 50 per cent down to 14 per cent - but they are good at rugby.
In terms of ethnicity, the most recent UE for leavers statistics in NZ had Asian students at 62 per cent, European at 42 per cent, Pasifika at 21 per cent and Māori at 18 per cent. If that is not shocking to you it shows how accustomed we have become to that level of failure.
Girls, at 43 per cent, were 10 per cent ahead of boys.
The world-class mantra is, for the present, dead and buried.
Our current state education system can genuinely be labelled a “failed experiment” on a massive scale - and especially for Māori, Pasifika, students from lower-income families and those locked into choiceless geographical locations.
It can also be labelled a dying star in the international sky.
There is significant evidence of international success for schools that are allowed to operate as charter schools. In the UK 54 per cent of students attend Charters (Academies) – and in many of those situations previously failing schools have been transformed into high-performing ones.
The state-of-the-art Stanford University Credo study in the USA (2023) concluded that - it reversed that narrative and showed that charters have drastically improved, producing better reading and math scores than traditional public schools.
The results are “remarkable,” said Margaret “Macke” Raymond, founder and director of CREDO.
Contrary to the oppositional narrative in NZ, that covered the charter schools from 2014-2017, there were many good results documented in Ministry of Education-commissioned studies and independent studies of individual schools support that assertion.
There is considerable success with charter schooling. It is in no way a failed experiment – as opposed to current state schooling in NZ – and from a system, school, student/family basis many are thankful for the model.
In term 4 of 2023 only 50 per cent of students attended school. Photo / 123RF
In NZ we have 2177 state schools and 333 state-integrated schools. The teacher unions are asserting that the money to be spent on charters could provide 7000 teacher aides and cure all problems. They are presenting a false binary solution as if the money could only go between charter schools or teachers’ aides. Clearly nonsense.
If it did go to teachers there are two immediate considerations.
Firstly – the $38.25m per year is 0.3 of a teacher aide per school and, secondly, each teacher aide would only be paid $54,000 per annum according to the generous teacher unions.
This assertion – like ignoring that the true “failed experiment” is our state school system - takes the NZ public for fools and seeks to perpetuate a system that will deepen our mire year after year.
Charter schools may not be the “silver bullet” but they could well carry the Lone Rangers that have them in their arsenal.
It is time for education in NZ to change, become truly aspirational and serve students of all backgrounds with expertise.
