Battle Lines

The Clash of  Dinosaurs and Innovators

The PPTA--the secondary school teacher union--is revealing itself to be out of touch with its own members, let alone parents and their children.  Our readers will recall that the PPTA has placed a ban upon any co-operation or contact between the new charter schools and any of its members, or even with any government school (which suggests that the union sees itself as actually in de facto control of the government schools, a view presumably based upon reality).  As in the parable of the Good Samaritan, if union members and government schools see a charter school they are to cross to the other side of the street, avert their eyes, and hurry on their way.  So runs the PPTA ban--and they must be obeyed.

Except they are not--at least not by their own members, many of whom, we suspect, are more than  embarrassed by the antediluvian stance of their own union.  One of the soon-to-open charter schools is setting up a middle school, South Auckland Middle School.  According to its manager, in a piece posted on Kiwiblog, they have advertised eight new teaching positions, and had 105 applicants--many of them PPTA members.
 

It would seem that "coalface" teachers are relishing the chance to ply their valuable trade in non-government schools, outside the clutches and controls of their own union.  One wonders why?  Well, the possibility of merit-based pay may be one factor--something the union hates with a passion, and therefore verboten in the government schools which it controls. 

Another reason why teachers may be breaking down the doors to get a job at the new charter school is hinted at by Alwyn Poole, its general manager.  He writes: 

Our teachers will have little admin and will be do what they have been trained to do – prepare, teach, assess and feedback to parents and the children. Our clear focus is on the academic improvement of every child that comes to us.

Most teachers would give up their right arm to have the bureaucratic reporting burden and form-filling regime removed from their backs so they could spend more quality classroom time with their students. 

But it is not only teachers who are voting with their feet.  Parents are lining up as well.  The new middle school is licensed for 120 pupils.  It already has 85 applicant families. 

Market diversity and parental choice-- the union's worst nightmare.