This blog post by Tom Pearce was originally published in The Post and The Press. You can read it here.
Associated Education Minister David Seymour has announced $153m for the return of charter schools (or “partnership schools”). This allows for 15 new partnership schools, as well as up to 35 state schools to convert. Enabling legislation is expected later this year, and is guaranteed to pass thanks to ACT’s coalition deal with National.
In making the case for charter schools, David Seymour talks in terms of flexibility, competition and innovation. He claims our attempts to innovate “from the centre” have failed, and that it is time to let communities lead.
This rhetoric is puzzling given we already have one of the most decentralised education systems in the world. Public schools here have huge discretion over what and how to teach, and the state-integrated schools that are attended by about 10% of our students have even more flexibility.
Seymour’s rhetoric is also driving a huge disconnect with his much larger coalition partner. National are busy overseeing a program of centralisation: continuing Labour’s reforms to the national curriculum to be much more prescriptive, mandating the same approach to the teaching of literacy and numeracy for every child, setting minimum amounts of time spent teaching certain subjects, and introducing nationally standardised testing.
This is because, in reality, the last 35 years of Tomorrow’s Schools have shown that competition and decentralisation do not deliver the innovation and improvement they promised. Instead they have eroded trust and cooperation within the education system, preventing the spread and uptake of innovative practice.
Seymour also claims that by contracting schools based on performance, they will be more accountable and thus more effective. But there is no evidence that charter schools do any better than public schools.
Charter schools in the United States have always lagged behind public schools. It’s possible they have finally caught up, although the study making this claim has been heavily criticised.
In the UK, unlike the US, the first wave of academies showed promise. However these early adopters were not representative. Among other things, they had more government support, greater choice of teachers, and self-selected for more motivated and engaged families.
After 14 years, with 40% of primary and 80% of secondary schools in the UK converted to academies, that early promise is gone. Academies now perform on average the same or slightly worse than public schools, and they vary much more in quality.
New Zealand’s own “pilot” experience with partnership schools was similar. Just like in the UK, early partnership schools here had extra funding and self-selection bias.
The schools did show promise. Students were making progress, attendance was high, and most parents spoke positively of their experience. Several involved a by-Māori-for-Māori approach that seemed to work well.
There were also concerns. A PWC audit found that many partnership schools were not financially sustainable, so when extra government support ended they couldn’t have continued to deliver the same quality education. Some had higher than acceptable numbers of stand-downs and suspensions, others turned away students with high learning needs. Some were operating out of sub-standard premises.
None of this makes a compelling case for charter schools in New Zealand. But there are some things we can learn from the experience.
A review highlighted better teacher salaries, smaller class sizes and greater pastoral care as key benefits. These are things that our public school teachers have been demanding for years, but have been rebuffed by both National and Labour governments.
Partnership schools also reduced barriers to Māori, Pacific and other groups starting special character schools to better serve children in their communities. We can and should address those barriers within the public or state-integrated systems.
Ultimately, evidence from around the world shows that the best way to deliver a quality education for every child is through a strong public education system. It is the thing that unites countries at the top of global education rankings.
Instead of delivering quality education for all, charter schools absolve the government of responsibility for educational quality. If the schools are not performing, they will be closed and parents will have to move their children elsewhere. The consequences for students are huge.
Rather than wasting time and resources on charter school experiments, the government should focus on getting our public schools the support and resources they need for all students to succeed.
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