Round two for charter schools
For many New Zealand teachers, the unions that represent them and some parents and children, there is a Return of the Living Dead quality to charter schools. We thought they had been killed off but now they are back. Of course their supporters would put it differently. They would say you cannot keep a good idea down.
Either way, the charter schools sequel was highlighted in ACT’s coalition agreement with National. As well as promising the reintroduction of charter schools, the agreement said a new policy would “allow” state schools to become charter schools.
That word “allow” seems mild. When he announced the $153 million policy to create up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state schools in 2025 and 2026, ACT leader and Associate Education Minister David Seymour said “underperforming” schools may find they are “turned into” charter schools.
Charter schools have long been an ideological project for ACT. Inspired by US examples, 17 of them were opened in New Zealand in 2014 but the policy was abolished after a change of government.
Results were mixed, to say the least. The publicly-funded charter schools were around three times more expensive per student than the state equivalent, according to figures obtained and released by trade union the New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa. But Seymour has said the costs will be the same under the new model.
Ministry of Education reports found that charter schools’ reporting of student achievement was unreliable and, in some cases, it was even possible that “performance may have been inaccurately or deliberately misreported”.
There was the notorious example of the Whangaruru charter school in Northland that was closed in 2016 after leadership issues and poor results. The school cost taxpayers $5.2m and its 36 students were accurately described as unwitting victims of a failed experiment.
The ministry said in 2019 that educational improvements are possible under the charter model, and two schools were cited as doing well, but results from other jurisdictions were also mixed.
Is there any reason to think the experiment will be more successful this time? Seymour describes the first, largely failed tranche of charter schools as a pilot programme that is informing a “revised” model. He promises more robust monitoring of standards. But he has to say that, as a second failure of ACT’s pet project would be disastrous for his and the party’s credibility.
And while there may be times when a charter school produces results other schools do not, the evidence is contested and politicised. Seymour cites a positive 2023 report from the Centre for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University in the US, but critics such as the Network for Public Education emphasised CREDO’s links to a right-wing think-tank, the Hoover Institution, and argued the report is misleading.
The announcement of the policy has also produced mixed messages and contradictions.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his highly capable Education Minister Erica Stanford have very successfully conveyed a message about the education system returning to core values, pitched as “teaching the basics brilliantly”, as well as banning cellphones from schools. By and large, parents have liked these messages.
But charter schools will set their own curriculums and hours and will allow students to hold onto their cellphones. Unregistered teachers will be welcome. The policy will create a new departmental agency, independent of the Ministry of Education’s oversight, to monitor the performance of the schools.
Some of the inflamed rhetoric around charter schools seems to stem from personal feelings about teachers and their unions. Seymour’s press release talks about creating an education system without “union interference”. He suggests teachers’ unions are acting in bad faith when he says “the unions will criticise charter schools because they will lose their membership fees and their grip on the sector”. He urges unions to “put the students at the heart of education”. Yet this politically motivated point-scoring does the exact opposite.
There are good reasons to be cautious, and not just because of the chequered histowwry of charter schools in New Zealand. At a time when money is tight and we have been warned to expect a Budget without bells and whistles, it is surprising that funding can be found for pet ideological projects.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that scarce resources would be better spent improving the state system, especially on classrooms and teacher aides, than creating a parallel system.
But if it seems like a luxury to give money to an experiment that may not pay off, that is the nature of coalition politics. This is the second chance for charter schools. It may also be the last.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that scarce resources would be better spent improving the state system...