Flailing Political Leaders Can Do Great Harm

Ignorant and Out of Touch

Our present Prime Minister appears to be thicker than two short planks.  Either that, or she is lazy and does not engage her mind before opening her mouth.  

The previous government followed a trend in the United States and allowed the establishment of Charter Schools in New Zealand.  The present Labour government is moving to close them.  Monopolists and statists never appreciate competition, and this case is no exception.  Nothing, but nothing must be allowed to compete with the failing Government school system.

Our Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister stood up in Parliament to mouth off against the Charter Schools.  What became immediately apparent is that neither had the foggiest idea of the subject.  Their ignorance was appalling and appears invincible.

One of our local bloggers published a right royal fisking of the hapless pair on the subject.  The comments of the politicians are in bold.  The fisk is in italics.

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister:

Partnership Schools can transition to a state school:

In reality there is no transition right. Partnership Schools have been told by the Ministry of Education that there is no transition to one of the recognised (Designated Character, State Integrated, Private) forms of state school, rather that they must close as Partnership Schools, they must then make application to open as a State School, and that the Minister / Ministry will consider that application. None of these options for Partnership Schools provide the key enablers outlined under ‘Background’ below that have been so essential to the early success of Partnership Schools.

Partnership Schools don’t follow the NZ Curriculum: 

Without exception they all do.

Partnership Schools don’t employ registered teachers: 

Even a population of registered teachers have (sic) failed to address the decline in New Zealand reading, writing, maths standards (TIMMS, PISA, PIRLS) for the last decade. All the Partnership Schools have to meet contractual (they have a contract with the Crown) targets for registered teachers, and all seek to maximise the percentage of registered teachers … some are at 100%.

Partnership Schools are funded better than state schools:

The Ministry of Education confirm (sic) that Partnership Schools are funded on an equivalent basis to comparable State Schools … in fact the reality is that they receive a salaries grant based on averaged teacher salaries that disadvantages them, and they receive funding to lease premises rather than being provided with land / buildings which disadvantages them. Without exception these Partnership Schools have to work hard at balancing their budgets, and they all do. A comparison with the recent audit results of Satate Schools makes for an interesting comparison.

We believe mainstream education can achieve what Partnership Schools do:

Clearly not. Maori and Pasifika educational success has persistently lagged that of NZ European / Asian for decades. Mainstream education has been unable to make any headway against this deficit. Clearly it is early days, but Ministry of Education data shows that Partnership Schools are succeeding in (re)engaging children from deprived backgrounds in education, and that these students are succeeding educationally.

Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister:

Partnership Schools are elite: 

This claim has no basis. Partnership Partnership Schools were established to serve New Zealand’s priority Learners (Maori, Pasifika, Decile 1-3 pupils), deprived families. The contract they have with the Crown requires that 75% of their students meet that criteria. These are students that mainstream education has failed, and here is a Government that is now telling our deprived families that they are going to close the schools that are leading them to success, A Government that is intent on addressing social and economic deprivation, and that is now telling these students that they will be sent back to a mainstream education, to a system that failed them in the first place.  So how exactly are these schools elite?

• Are they making huge profits? No. They have to work hard at making ends meet.

• Are they helping the kids of the rich? No. They are focused on deprived students.

• Are they paying their teachers huge salaries? No. Most are paying to State Scales.

In the Government school system, failure appears more tolerable as long as all school cohorts fail in unison.  That way no-one can be held responsible.  Instead the blame can be shifted to global warming or some such nonsense. 

For our money, with the closing of Charter Schools, at least two politicians can be held accountable in perpetuity for the harm they did:  Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters.  To this short ignominious list, we would add one Christopher Hipkins, Minister of Education, stooge of the state funded teacher unions.

These three represent an unholy trinity who will end up consigning the Government School System to  levels of even greater incompetence and failure than it has achieved to date.