School Boards of Trustees Slam Charter Schools

5 November 2014

School Boards of Trustees Slam Charter Schools

Boards of Trustees in the greater Wellington region are adamantly opposed to the National and Act Parties agreement to publically fund Charter Schools, say Chris Toa, Chairperson, Wellington Wairarapa School Trustees Association (WWSTA), based on a recent survey of their member schools.

Mr Toa reports, “All schools were deeply disturbed about the disparity in funding.” State schools average $7,000 pa per child, compared to recent figures showing the average student in a charter school is being funded to the tune of nearly $21,000 pa, and in the case of one charter school, $38,000. For the five schools operating this year that equates to $7million. There are 358 students enrolled in these schools – a similar size to an average Wellington primary school. Another four schools have been approved to open in 2015, presumably with a similar amount of tax payer funding. “With this potentially spiralling every year Boards were understandably worried about how that will eat into state school funding which many find inadequate now,” says Mr Toa.

“The lack of accountability was also clearly important to the Boards,” he states. Schools in the state system report to the Ministry, the local MP, their community and the Education Review Office. They are compared over National Standards and tightly audited – financially and academically, and they must comply with the Education Act. Everything in a state school is public therefore subject to the Official Information Act. Nothing in a charter school is. The public who pay the $7million have no access to the schools financial, management or academic achievement records or reports.

Mr Toa points out, Boards of Trustees are responsible for making sure that their students are in safe hands. Their teachers are fully trained and registered, and support staff are police vetted. Charter schools are under no obligation to employ registered teachers. Boards raised concerns about the potential for physical, emotional and academic harm in that environment and the fact that we, as the public, would have no ability to monitor this as all information pertaining to charter schools is private.

Mr Toa says, amongst the responses to the survey, a number of school Boards raised the point that there has never been any evidence produced by the government to support the introduction of Charter schools. A letter from the Ministry of Education, 4 October 2012, supports this, “The Partnership Schools / Kura Hourua Working Group (formerly known as the New Zealand Model of Charter School Working Group) has not produced any document that sets out the evidential base behind charter schools.”

A number recognized that ‘one size does not fit all’ in schooling, but there were ample opportunities and flexibility within the current state sector to tailor learning programmes for individual students and provide parents with choice, particularly with state integrated schools who offer a school of ‘special character’. “Perhaps, some of this year’s $7million could have been fed into already established programmes addressing some of the challenges in education and more challenging students,” suggests Mr Toa.

Philosophically, Boards also expressed concern over the future of the New Zealand Education system and our future students, with the agenda to privatize education and to remove both parental and community voice within schools, says Mr Toa. Charter schools are not required to have a Board of Trustees which includes parents and/or the community.

“Representing such a wide range of schools within this region, we have rarely had such a clear and resounding response from our membership on any single issue. We join with our membership and others in expressing our concern about the damage to the current world class New Zealand Education system that Charter Schools may cause,” concludes Mr Toa, “and it does beg the questions -

Is New Zealand big enough to warrant Charter Schools?

How can the Government justify a clear double standard?”

ENDS

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