Norman LaRocque: Zoning gives choice to the rich alone

The recent headlines about school zoning highlight the draconian and unnecessary restrictions that too many parents face in getting their children into the schools they want.

After Auckland Grammar said it had investigated and removed 45 boys from the school this year because families lied over living in-zone, other prominent schools admitted they too investigate pupils' home addresses to make sure they are legitimate.

Having schools hiring, or acting as, investigators to try to catch out families giving false addresses is no way to help educate children, especially when there are successful and recognised methods for beating zoning issues.

Supporters of school zoning argue that requiring schools to enrol all children from a local community helps gets rid of biased student selection, thus leading to a student body that reflects the socioeconomic, ethnic and political mix of the wider community, less segregation and a universal quality education.

But contrary to what proponents believe, more rigid school zoning laws do not remove selection from the system. They simply change the mechanism. Instead of students being selected by schools, they are selected by whether or not they can afford to buy a house near the school of their choice (selection by mortgage).

Children of low-income families are excluded from attending popular schools because they cannot afford to live near them, and have fewer options if the local state school is not suitable for their child.

High-income families have all the choices - they can choose a particular state school by moving to the relevant zone, an integrated school or an independent school if they wish to pay fees.

Removing zoning can provide increased choice by breaking the link between where a family can afford to live and where children can go to school.

In Auckland nearly 37 per cent of schools have an enrolment scheme. But because schools with enrolment schemes tend to be larger, the proportion of the student body affected would be far higher than is suggested by that figure.

Zoning legislation raises a fundamental issue: Why should some parents have their right to choice of school denied especially when we know school quality varies, in some cases quite considerably?

As the Christchurch Girls High School Board of Trustees wrote in its submission on the 2000 zoning legislation: "Parents should still have the right to choose a girls school for their daughter's education."

Research from the Smithfield Project carried out in the 1990s after dezoning shows that Maori and Pacific students took the greatest advantage of choice. The proportion of Maori who attended their local school fell from 82 per cent in 1990 to 69 per cent in 1993. For Pacific students the fall was even greater (from 87 per cent to 67 per cent). For Pakeha, the figure went from 75 per cent to 72 per cent. That's called voting with your feet.

We must recognise that both zoning and choice are imperfect alternatives.

The real issue is which one is better, not which one is perfect. In my view, the costs of zoning exceed its benefits. The changes to zoning laws in the mid-1990s under National and later under Labour had no policy basis. It is time to review them.

We must also remember that zoning is, to some degree, a side show.

The key to introducing real choice - and so competition in education - is to move to a school funding system that ties funding to each student, so that all schools whether public, private, not-for-profit, for-profit, community or church receive the same funding for similar students.

A move to such a funding system must be accompanied by an opening up of the supply side of the education sector so that schools are well placed to respond to changing demand.

This can be achieved by, for example, doing away with artificial restrictions on integrated school enrolments, funding the expansion of popular schools (public or private) and allowing unpopular schools to be taken over by well-performing schools.

School funding should be allocated depending on whether a school helps to meet the country's educational, social and economic objectives, not by whether it is publicly or privately owned.

Other sensible reforms would include moving away from centralised bargaining arrangements, providing better information on student outcomes and loosening the inflexible regulatory structure.

Strengthened school choice would also provide for much greater accountability for performance.

We let competent adults choose their government. Surely it is time to let parents decide how and where they want their children educated, rather than have them forced into the one-size-fits-all straitjacket of today's education system.

* Norman LaRocque is policy adviser to the Education Forum, an education policy advocacy organisation.