Academics and researchers at Massey University have warned against implementation of the ‘Charter School Experiment,’ saying that it would harm the student community and the education sector in general.
As published in these columns earlier, the Government will allow establishment of charter schools on a trial basis in South Auckland, Christchurch East and perhaps Wellington.
The Education Policy Response Group, consisting of 12 College of Education experts, conducted research studies from Sweden, UK and US whose working models would be used in New Zealand.
Group convenor Professor Emeritus Ivan Snook (former Dean of the School of Education at Massey University) said that based an analysis on similar sources of evidence to those used by the government, the Group came to different conclusions.
“The evidence is clear that charter schools have the potential to cause harm to the very groups of students they are supposed to help,” he said.
The report said that while it was encouraging that the National-ACT proposal recognised the need to address educational underachievement through wider economic and social policies, the charter school proposal seemed to persist with narrow assessments of individual student progress.
Increasing inequality
The report said it was a risky proposition.
“Even if some charter schools do show gains for disadvantaged students, it is often achieved at the cost of further disadvantaging non-charter school students and the local community as a whole.”
Professor of Teacher Education John O’Neill said that it was common for charter schools to lead to an increase in inequality based on culture, race or socio-economic status.
“The evidence overall is that while a few highly motivated individuals and families may benefit, charter schools do not provide more choice for most families.
“In addition, they often promote greater inequality of educational outcomes for disadvantaged students, and fail to eliminate the long tail of underachievement that the Government is rightly concerned about,” he said.
According to Professor O’Neill, the Group concluded that if New Zealand is to learn from this experiment, the evaluation criteria must be closely defined and the evaluation study conducted independently of the supervising committee and Education Ministry.
Transparency needed
“To enable this to happen, it is important that transparent data be kept on the home background and prior achievement of students, the nature of the teachers employed and the financial arrangements for the charter schools (including private and corporate contributions),” he said.
Professor O’Neill said that the experiment at the very least should prove that charter schools in New Zealand do not ‘cream’ the most motivated or talented students from other schools, ‘cleanse’ their own school of those who are most difficult or expensive to teach, distort the fair distribution of teachers across the system, or siphon money away from existing programmes for the most disadvantaged students.
Editor’s Note” A related report appears in this section.
Photo : Professor O’Neill
The Charter School Experiment
The Concept of Charter School was suggested by the ACT Party, as a part of its Confidence and Supply Agreement with National Party, obliging the latter to implement the project, initially on an experimental basis.
The Agreement is comprehensive and irreversible so long as the ACT Party remains in the National-led Coalition Government, with assured number of votes in Parliament.
Both parties agreed that to break the cycle of underachievement in schools, a range of mutually supporting reforms is required in the areas of welfare, primary health, education, youth transition and employment law.
With respect to education, the parties have, in particular, agreed to implement a system, enabled under either sections 155 (Kura Kaupapa Maori) or 156 (Designated character schools), or another section if appropriate, of the Education Act, whereby school charters can be allocated in areas where educational underachievement is most entrenched.
A series of charters would initially be allocated in areas such as South Auckland and Christchurch. Iwi, private and community (including Pacific Island) groups and existing educational providers would compete to operate a local school or start up a new one. Schools would be externally accountable and have a clearly defined, ambitious mission. Public funding would continue to be on a per-child basis.
National and ACT agreed to establish an implementation group comprising a private sector chair, and private sector, business, iwi and community representatives along with government officials to develop the proposal.
They also agreed to ensure that it is implemented within this Parliamentary term.
The terms of reference and composition of the group would be agreed by National and ACT, Education ministry and external resources.
The parties have also agreed to set up a task force to produce a comprehensive report on governance issues relating to policy towards state, integrated and independent schools.
