Free Press - August 18 2015

ACT’s new regular bulletin

New Partnership Schools Kura Hourua are Go

Last week the Government announced a new round of Partnership School applications. Interested parties who would like to run a Partnership School have until October 30 to submit their proposal for running a new school. They should have an innovative idea for running a school that will help the Government’s priority learners, Maori, Pasifika, special needs, and low income students.

Success so Far

So far nine Partnership Schools have opened in Auckland and Northland. These include the Vanguard Military School, South Auckland Middle School, Middle School West Auckland, the Rise Up Academy, Pacific Advance Senior School, Te Kura Maori o Waatea, Te Kura Hourua o Whangarei Terenga Paraoa, Te Pumanawa o Te Wairua, and Te Kapehu Phetu (Teina). With the exception of Te Pumanawa o Te Wairua, whose difficulties have been well publicised, the schools early results range from above average to outstanding. You can read more about the schools and their outcomes HERE .

Rise Up Academy

Rise Up Academy was featured at length in the Herald’s series on Auckland http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11496798. The woman behind the school, Sita Selupe was Next Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 2014 and won a Sir Peter Blake Trust Leadership Award this year. As the Herald reports: “The school's results seem to show that it works. Last year Rise UP's children reached national standards in reading, writing and maths at a rate of at least 20 percentage points above the average of the other children in the Mangere and Otahuhu areas. They were also well above the national average, and within their contract obligations.” You can read more about Rise Up HERE.

Vanguard Military School

Vanguard has been an outstanding success, with 96 and 100 per cent of students achieving NCEA level 1 and 2 last year. The school has been featured extensively in the media and visited by the Prime Minister. It has innovated by economising on space and equipment to reduce its class sizes. Along with its unique military theme it has allowed students, many of whom had been highly disengaged from education before, to succeed. You can read more about Vanguard HERE.

Te Kura Hourua o Whangarei Terenga Paraoa

Free Press readers may recall the story from last week regarding Te Kura Hourua o Whangarei Terenga Paraaoa in Whangarei. It is the school where a student teacher had this to say "All of us in the military, when we met those kids, we knew there was something special going on… I just thought, oh well, whatever a charter school is it works for these kids, I want to be part of it." For working at the school he was blacklisted from teacher training by a teachers’ union. You have to wonder why when the schools’ NCEA results are above average in its first year.

South Auckland Middle School

The school’s results are above average for some subject and year levels, and below for others. The School has proved a popular choice, filling up rapidly with its focus on serving years 7-10 (intermediate and the first two years of high school) and focus on project based learning. You can read more about SAMS HERE.

The New Schools

Free Press accepts serious difficulties at one of the original five schools, which have been addressed by the Government forcing dramatic changes in management and governance as a condition of continuing to be funded at all. The four new schools have been operating for a little over six months and all are showing smooth running, innovation, and promising results.

Why the Negativity?

The success of Partnership Kura may surprise casual readers of the media. This week Free Press analyses some of the negativity towards Partnership Kura and its sources.

Worst Opposition Education Spokesman Ever?

Labour’s Chris Hipkins is so bad that at least one commentator believes that New Zealand First’s education spokeswoman, Tracey Martin, is doing a better job of holding the government to account. Why might they say that? Parliament has sat for 63 days since the election, and on each day there are 12 oral questions. That’s 756 questions, of which just over a third are asked by Labour members. Education is the third largest area of expenditure (second if you separate Superannuation from social welfare benefits), and yet Hipkins has asked 12 questions, less than one in 20.

Obsessed with Partnership Kura

There are nine Partnership Kura out of 2,540 schools in New Zealand. Staggeringly, 9 of Hipkins’ 12 questions have been about Partnership Kura. That leaves three question in the past year for the other 2,536 schools. One has to wonder what Hipkins’ real motivations are.

Tall Poppy Syndrome Writ Large

Why are the opposition so obsessed with Partnership Kura? These are nine small schools doing things differently with promising results for students who have chosen to go to them. The cost? Approximately one dollar in every thousand spent by the government on education. Wouldn’t it be nice if this initiative received some positivity from the opposition, not to mention the teachers’ unions, who know that Partnership Kura are not required to employ teachers on union contracts.

Total Hypocrisy (or real Chutzpah?)

In a snap debate on the continuing woes of Solid Energy the Greens Gareth Hughes stood up like a nun lamenting a closed abortion clinic. The MP who tweeted “Fantastic news. The end of coal for power is nigh” on Thursday 6th August had this to say on Thursday 13th: “ I would like to start by saying that the Greens’ sentiments and our thoughts are with the workers, their families, and the communities on the West Coast and in Huntly.”

Keep Our Liabilities?

Gareth Hughes has always been a slogan slinger with as much direction as a cork in a washing machine. But Clayton Cosgrove has substance, and he made a more hypocritical speech. It was a rip snorter, grunting and flaring at what he sees as the poor government management of Solid Energy, but Labour supports government ownership of State Owned Enterprises. Remember ‘keep our assets?’ Of course he’d say the problem is that the wrong people are in government, he could run it. Either the people of New Zealand elected the wrong government, or Cosgrove’s belief in state ownership is incompatible with democracy.

A More Consistent Position

The reality is that over the past 30 years there has been $2 trillion dollars worth of privatisation in over 100 countries. These privatisations have been studied to death. There have been studies of the studies. The jury is in: private and privatised firms use capital more productively than publicly owned ones. Solid Energy is now another stark piece of this evidence, at cost to the many who may lose their jobs. The principled position is that the Government should not own commercial enterprises, full stop.

NZ Post is Next

Postal services are in tough times the world over due to technological changes. Pre GFC, NZ Post’s dividend yields averaged five per cent, even as the rest of the economy has recovered, NZ Post’s yields have remained around 1.5 per cent. They are getting very cheap capital from the taxpayer, and the government should follow successful Post Office privatisations such as that in Germany to relieve taxpayers of this burden and risk.

And the Rugby

After the successful introduction of David Seymour’s bill, Parliament is set to debate, and hopefully vote in favour of letting pubs open on August 26th, in time for the Rugby World Cup. It is a victory for common sense, letting responsible adults enjoy the game amongst friends and family.

ends

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