Education Far Too Important For the State to be Involved

State Incompetence Is Endemic

Charter schools are going to close in New Zealand because of an antediluvian ideology gripping the hearts and minds of the Government.  That ideology can be summarized by the following maxim: "the Government does it best."

New Zealand has been pretty much a socialist country ever since European settlement.  Historian Michael Bassett characterised our dominant national ideology as "Socialism Without Doctrines".  He meant by this that New Zealand has always been a pragmatic nation.  "If it works, it's good" has been the idea.  A corollary sits right alongside this naive pragmatism--"when the Government does 'it' it's the best", whatever "it" may be.  It is held generally true by many that the Government is without interests.  It works for the good of all.  It does not seek its own interests.  Its contribution is objectively for the best.  It is not driven by selfish motives of profit.  It puts the nation and the community first--and so forth, and so on.

Of course, this is all silly nonsense.
  It turns out the Government is one of the most self-interested entities around.  Let any politician contemplate facing the voting public and self-interest will put pragmatics and populist crowd pleasing above principle in a nano-second.  Moreover, the State is the biggest employer in the land.  The State sector is also the most unionised.  The state bureaucracy and its employees is orientated to serving the interests of the State sector unions above all else.

The education sector is one of the most socialist of all.  We are told repeatedly that young peoples' education is far too important to entrust it to parents or to the community in general.  In fact this is a half truth.  Yes, children's education is vitally important.  It is far too important to entrust it to the State. The State ultimately serves itself and its employee unions, not the interests of parents.

Here is a classic example:

Millie Tapusoa's son punched a girl in the face soon after he started at the South Auckland Middle School. But he wasn't punished.  The charter school recognised that the boy, Jaydon Solouota, had Asperger's Syndrome. Before he started in Year 7 in 2015, the school worked with his case manager at Idea Services to train staff "to get to know Jaydon from Jaydon's world view".

It gave Jaydon coloured cards so that if he got angry or anxious he could give his teacher the appropriate card and leave, no questions asked.  That didn't stop incidents at first.  "Jaydon punched a girl in the face because she had come into his space and he had said to her 'Go away' three times," Tapusoa said.

"I picked him up from school, and over the next two days the school did a session with his class on what sorts of things made Jaydon happy and what made Jaydon sad. The school didn't punish him, but what they did was they educated his class."  The school's approach was unlike anything Tapusoa had experienced before. A former nurse, she pulled Jaydon and his older brother Tama, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, out of a Porirua school where she felt their needs were not being met.

"In the state system the word 'inclusive' is just lip service," she said.  "For example, at one school, my children wanted to play indoor soccer, but they didn't get into the team. I rang the school and they said, 'We've got two teams and there were a lot of kids who didn't get in.'  So I got all the kids that didn't get into the team, the parents came along and helped, and they had an extra team for children like ours. We just want them to participate and have a normal experience."

Tapusoa believes that what made the difference at South Auckland Middle School was its policy of only 15 students in a class.  "Because of that, there is a lot more personal contact with the parents," she said.  "In partnership schools it is a partnership. It's me, the teachers, the kids and the community. The children at partnership schools get to enjoy everything. You are not excluded if you are not good enough."

The partnership schools are bulk-funded, enabling Poole and his wife Karen, the Villa Education Trust's chief executive, to hire more teachers by spending less on property and administration.  Karen Poole administers both charter schools with only one office manager in each school.  Alwyn Poole said the trust paid teachers "at least 5 per cent above state rates", but also required them to work "up to the last day of every term" and to write detailed reports to parents on each student in their mid-year and Christmas holidays. The school principals also teach classes for 12 hours each week. 
 [NZ Herald]

The Education Minister, Chris Hipkins is a stoolie for the teacher unions.  When the unions say, "Jump!" Hipkins asks, "How high?" as he sails into the air.

Educating our children is far too important to entrust it to a teacher union stoolie.