UK teacher warns against charter schools
A secondary school teacher from England is warning Kiwi educators about the arguments to reintroduce charter schools which have resulted in the opposite more than two decades on in his country, he says.
James Kerr, also an executive member of the National Education Union, spoke to teachers and principals in a meeting organised by secondary school teachers’ union PPTA in Wellington on Friday. He also presented to Parliament’s select committee on proposed charter school legislation on Wednesday.
Budget 2024 allocated $153 million to establish 15 new and 35 converted charter schools that won’t need to follow state school curriculum, starting in 2025. Associate Education Minister David Seymour said they would provide educators with greater autonomy, diversity and flexibility and raise educational achievement, “especially for students who are underachieving or disengaged from the current system”.
The reintroduction of charter schools in New Zealand did not surprise Kerr. But it was “frustrating” and at times absurd to hear arguments “almost word to word” to those in the UK more than two decades ago when charter schools were first being introduced.
“We’ve heard a lot of the same arguments, and then the reality of it has played out and exposed a lot of that is baloney,” he said.
Though numbers started small, now 80% of secondary schools were charter schools – also known as academies – as were 40% of primary schools in the UK.
“We were promised this idea of autonomous, flexible, very distinct and unique schools that would have freedom to be able to plough their own course,” Kerr said.
“The reality is, we’ve kind of ended up with bigger and bigger national chains that are quite remote from their communities.”
The charter schools saw the increasing standardisation of curriculum, frequent assessments to produce achievement data and “draconian policies” that excludee students who would not produce the results the school wanted.
“I think we would say bluntly it was never really about addressing those needs. “The argument around equity and the argument around addressing disadvantage just hasn’t played out in reality,” Kerr said, warning of the similar arguments used by Seymour, particularly for Māori students.