National Party Miss Opportunity To Help Poor Kids Get Into Best Schools
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is labeling the National Party’s policy to rejig school zoning rules as ‘timid’ and a lost opportunity to remove a fundamentally unfair policy that distorts Auckland’s housing market.
Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams said: “It is astonishing the value the same house attracts in Auckland depending on the school zone. It demonstrates how where your parents can afford to live determines how good a school you can go to. It's a massive regulatory tax on kids trying to get ahead.”
“This postcode lottery is a disgrace. National could have ensured the best and brightest go to the best schools – and no one is forced to go to the duds – by scrapping school zoning. Instead it is bending to the Remuera housewives and wealthy property owners at the expense of kids in poorer suburbs.”
“School zoning
ensures our schools are run like a command economy. As much
as it is wrong, at least it is consistent with Labour’s
ideology. National don’t have that
excuse.”