Free Press

ACT’s regular bulletin - Inequality

The OECD report on New Zealand last week noted inequality concerns – particularly equality of opportunity. The report said our education system is struggling to improve outcomes in poorer communities. True. ACT is working on this via Partnership Schools, but there is a long way to go. When you look around the world of education innovation, you see just how timid we are in NZ. Still, the opposition parties are apoplectic about our timid progress – they prefer stasis. But peek over the fence at Nevada!

School Choice
Education researcher Matthew Ladner describes school voucher programmes as the rotary telephones of the school choice movement — “an awesome technology that did one amazing thing.” But States such as Nevada (and Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee) are implementing what he calls the iPhone of school choice programs.

The iPhone of School Choice?
Nevada governor Brian Sandoval has signed into law the nation’s first universal school-choice program. This opens up options for every single public-school student, going much further than the traditional voucher model, as it comes in the form of an education savings account. Parents control and can use this to fully customize their children’s education.

It Works Like This
Parents in Nevada can have 90 percent (100 percent for children with special needs and children from low-income families) of the funds that would have been spent on their child in their public school deposited into a restricted-use spending account.

Algebra, with a Side-Serving of Music Tuition
Parents can use those funds to pay for a variety of education-related services and products — such as private-school tuition, online learning, special-education services and therapies, books, tutors, and dual-enrollment college courses. It’s an à la carte education.

Could it Work Here?
Might parents in NZ be interested in an education savings account for their children? We reckon yes. After all, it’s their money. So, which political parties will tell Kiwi parents there is no way they can be trusted with this degree of choice? All of them, except ACT.

Experiments
It’s great to see increasing numbers of countries and states encouraging innovation and experimentation (or as Labour would say, experimentation on vulnerable children). We have had some experimentation in NZ: there was that numeracy project mentioned last week (oops) and NCEA (hmmm).

OECD on Transport
According to the OECD Auckland and Wellington are the 2nd and 3rd most congested cities in Australasia, behind Sydney. The solution is blindingly obvious. We need to build the necessary roading networks and finance them on a user pays basis.

Time to Upgrade the Operating System
We need to update our transport funding mechanisms and shift to widespread tolling on our roads – electric cars won’t be paying fuel tax. With modern technology we can know when and where cars move, and bill them accordingly on a user pays basis. As the OECD report suggests, this should also involve greater use of congestion charging in our cities – the cost to the network goes up at peak times, so price accordingly.

OCR Cut by 25bp
Down a quarter percent, that is. The Bank is just doing its job, which is controlling inflation, not asset prices (like housing or share prices). But it would help if Auckland Council would also do its job, facilitating people building new houses instead of blocking them.

Keep Politicians away from Monetary Policy
Like the rugby boor who wants to endlessly debate past refereeing decisions, we have Russell Norman, with time on his hands now, tweeting about the OCR decision: Would Reserve Bank have made (mistaken) decision to start tightening last year if Board (w broad economy reps) were deciders not just Gov? One thing Russell obviously is not, is an expert on monetary policy.

Adventures in Labour
News broke last week that some Labour Party activists representing Labour’s right and centre leaning thinkers were about to launch an organisation along the lines of the Progress think-tank in Britain. So what, so normal, you might think. Of course they would be debating ideas. But not so fast, this is the Labour Party of which we speak.

Because there are Matters of Scripture
It’s a bit like Galileo suggesting that perhaps, on the balance of evidence and theory, we might just need to consider that the earth moves around the sun, rather than the other way. Pandemonium ensues inside the Labour caucus, hilarity outside. The Labour Inquisition is under way.

ends

© Scoop Media