David Seymour blasts teacher unions worried about charter schools

• David Seymour has criticised unions for opposing charter schools, claiming they threaten the unions’ existence.
• Unions argue charter schools could privatise education and have been ineffective, citing higher costs per student.
• The Government has allocated $153 million to convert 35 state schools into charter schools and create 15 new ones.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour has lashed out at teacher unions for criticising charter schools, claiming they are an “existential threat” to the existence of unions.

The first charter schools are on track to open in 2025 with the application process now open. The Government has allocated $153 million to convert 35 state schools into charter schools and create 15 new ones.

But unions say charter schools open “the door to privatisation of school education” and have been proven to be ineffective in the past.

Seymour spoke to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning following the release of the achievement and attendance targets newly established charter schools will need to meet.

“The unions aren’t afraid that charter schools will fail, they’re petrified they’ll succeed.

“If you’re the PPTA [Post Primary Teachers’ Association] or the NZEI [New Zealand Educational Institute], then a successful group of schools that have individual employment agreements are an existential threat,” Seymour said.

NZEI Te Riu Roa president Mark Potter said union members didn’t want funding to be diverted into charter schools that “have proven to be expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary”.

“The real threat is the minister’s desire to undermine teacher professionalism and drive down pay, as seen by his approach in the ECE [early childhood education] sector.”

NZEI Te Riu Roa president Mark Potter says charter schools “have proven to be expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary”. Photo / Alex Cairns

Charter schools will get the same amount of funding as state schools according to Seymour, who said there was “misinformation” spreading about the funding of charter schools.

Potter disagreed and said “the previous experiment with charter schools” saw higher funding per student than public schools.

“NZEI Te Riu Roa obtained data under the Official Information Act showing that between 2014 and 2018, charter schools cost up to $48,421 per student annually,” Potter said.

“When adjusted for inflation, that figure jumped to around $60,000. This was significantly higher than the about $18,485 spent in the public system, according to the OECD.”

The funding for charter schools has not been made public, but the performance targets for charter schools differ depending on where the school sits on the equity index (EQI), the new decile system.

“It is clear the minister is trying to pick winners by setting lower targets for attendance and achievement for charter schools with lower equity status, whereas the Government has set all state schools the same targets for attendance and achievement,” Potter said.

Earlier in the year, the Government set a target of 80% regular student attendance each term by 2030.

Charter schools will instead face attendance targets based on EQI, “with those facing fewer barriers having a minimum performance threshold of 60% regular attendance, and those with more barriers beginning with a minimum of 35% regular attendance”, Seymour said.

Seymour said charter schools have the same goals as state schools, such as 95% getting NCEA Level 2.

“The difference with charters is we are putting in hard minimums, where if they don’t do it, we will shut them down,” Seymour said.

PPTA Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie said teachers in the public education system are already dedicated to supporting the diverse needs of students but are limited by a lack of funding and resourcing.

“As far as Mr Seymour’s desire for ‘hard minimum standards’ goes, the reality, from the international charter schools experience, is that setting such stringent performance standards leads to the perverse outcome of the very students that the schools were set up for being excluded, because they are not conducive to the schools’ ability to meet the standards.

PPTA Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie describes the Government's approach to charter schools as "utterly confusing and incohesive".

“This utterly confusing and incohesive approach would be laughable if there weren’t hundreds of thousands of young New Zealanders’ life choices at stake.”

Charter schools were introduced in 2014 by Act until they were abolished under the previous Labour coalition Government.

The Charter School Agency was established on July 1, 2024, to implement and operate the new charter school model.

Abercrombie said privately run charter schools do not represent an existential threat to unions because many teachers in privately run early childhood centres are union members.

“Charter schools have very little to do with educational outcomes and everything to do with opening the door to privatisation of school education. Look at how well that is going in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Abercrombie pointed to the 2011 British Conservative government’s rollout of charter schools (called free schools) as an example of issues with the model.

“In the UK, for example, charter schools were heralded as the solution for black Caribbean males – one of the most marginalised and oppressed groups of students.

“Far from opening up a space for these students to flourish, charter schools have intensified their educational disadvantage,” Abercrombie claimed.

Seymour said the number of applications received for charter schools shows a need in the community.

“There are people who will say we don’t need these policies, actually we’ve had 80 applicants people around the community have put together.”

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.