The imminent return of charter schools
Without political consensus across the parliament, are we at risk of playing 'ping pong' with education?
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, December 6.
In today’s edition: Efforts to save Wellington’s City to Sea bridge have failed, Police reveal they are not on track to reach the government’s deadline for 500 extra officers, and The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire sits down with National MP James Meager. But first, six charter schools have now been confirmed to open in 2025.
Charter schools are on the way (again)
The return of charter schools is just around the corner, with associate education minister David Seymour confirming yesterday that five new schools will open in the new year (on top of the one already announced). As The Press reported, it includes a second for Canterbury – Christchurch North College, to cater for children disengaged from the mainstream education system – while three will open in Auckland. It includes a French school, Ecole Francaise Internationale, and the Busy school, part of an Australian chain.
Seymour has been a long time proponent for charter schools, having shepherded them into existence a first time as part of the John Key government. They were ultimately scrapped by Labour, with the 12 existing charter schools transitioned into state integrated schools. Seymour led a protest against the closures through Auckland Central at the time. But it was only a matter of time before they returned and ultimately it was a key tenet of Act’s election campaign and inked into the coalition agreement with National.
Back up a bit, what’s all this?
If you’ve heard the words “charter school” but don’t really know what means, don’t worry. The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias prepared this helpful explainer earlier in the year. In short, charter schools, like standard state schools, are funded by the government and free for New Zealand citizens and permanent residents to attend. However, explained Mathias, while state schools must follow a standard New Zealand curriculum, employ qualified teachers, be governed by a school board and be held accountable to the Crown with their role determined by legislation, charter schools have more flexibility. That includes total discretion with how to use provided funding and the ability to set their own curriculum (so long as they still achieve set learning objectives). Yes, that means they’re exempt from the government’s own phone in schools ban.
There are valid arguments on both sides of the debate. Advocates endorse the less fixed options that come from being a charter school, while those opposed say it would be better to raise funding across the board – more on that below.
Politics at play
The road to charter schools return has been paved with some potholes. Labour has already promised to ditch the scheme yet again should it be elected in 2026, potentially meaning these new schools could last just a couple of years before being shuttered. "Labour has got rid of these before, and we will get rid of them again, because they are bad for young people and bad for their learning," former education minister Jan Tinetti told Q+A. "We will be looking at legal advice around that, but we will get rid of charter schools.” In much the same way both sides of the aisle criticise one another for undoing each other’s infrastructure projects, you’d have to wonder whether re-undoing an education programme is the most worthwhile political move.
In comments to Newsroom back in 2017, at the same time the last Labour government was looking to ditch charter schools, advocate Alwyn Poole criticised those in power for playing “political ping pong” when it came to education. “Someone stands up in parliament and says ‘we will shut them’ – but there are now 420 children that are in our schools. If you talked about shutting down 420 children in state schools, you’d have people on the street with pickets”.
This time around, Poole has had his four applications for new charter schools rejected, reported Stuff’s Steve Kilgallon. He has argued the process for selection was unfair and is considering launching a judicial review.
Privatisation by stealth?
In an interesting piece for The Conversation, a pair of university education professors considered whether the current coalition government was rapidly moving to allow private business interests in public education. That included, they said, the move to reintroduce charter schools. “International experiences with charter schools… demonstrate how they survive or fail at the whims of private funders who can withdraw at any time,” the experts said. They also argued that updates to the New Zealand curriculum, including structure approaches to literacy and maths, will mean schools having to dip into their own budgets to access private resources or train up staff. “Instead, New Zealand needs to be investing in public education for everyone, leaving private education and resources to those who want to pay for it themselves,” the professors argued.
Earlier this year, teachers unions criticised the government for a lack of investment in staff while $153m was being funnelled into charter schools. That money could pay a further 700 full time teacher aides to make “a huge difference in the classroom for ākonga and their teachers,” said Liam Rutherford, a teacher and executive member of NZEI Te Riu Roa. The Post Primary Teachers’ Association has cheekily launched its own online campaign with the domain name “charterschools.co.nz” arguing against the government’s reintroduction of charter schools and also arguing it is designed to “privatise the public education system”.
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Iconic Wellington bridge to be demolished
Efforts to save Wellington’s City to Sea bridge have failed after council agreed 11 votes to six for it to be demolished, reported Stuff’s Olivia Wannan. Mayor Tory Whanau said that while she loved the bridge, she loved “the future of our city more”. With the bridge at risk of earthquake damage, council had to weigh up costly repairs, the price of demolition, or the risk of doing nothing and a disaster unfolding. As The Post’s Tom Hunt explained, to save the bridge and make it structurally sound was said to cost at least $85m, whereas demolishing it and installing a pedestrian crossing would be less than $37m. The council was in this unenviable position for obvious reasons, argued Hunt.
If it hadn’t spent years ignoring pipes, if it had just decided to leave the Golden Mile as it is, if it hadn’t agreed to add hundreds of millions to public housing improvements, if it had found some savings as it made plans to hikes rates for the past four years and next nine, then $48.5m to save a popular and successful bridge wouldn’t have been such a bitter pill.
Meanwhile, another Wellington icon could also face destruction if it doesn’t get its seismic safety up to scratch. The council has raised the possibility that the Michael Fowler Centre could be demolished and replaced with a commercial building as one of three scenarios presented in a public consultation document. We looked at the government’s plans to address earthquake-prone buildings in an earlier Bulletin.
More reading:
On the City to Sea Bridge and the power of letting go (Joel MacManus)
Why the City to Sea Bridge is not just another relic to save (Caro Robertson)
The future of The Spinoff depends on its audience
As many of you will have seen, we published an open letter last week outlining the financial situation we find ourselves in. Only 2% of our audience financially supports us. Doubling that number is our last, best shot at retaining the ability to carry on doing what we do. To those who have already supported, we thank you. If you can and haven't yet, please become a member or donate today.
Listen: Home on the marae
Motueka might appear sleepy and remote to visitors, but like much of Aotearoa, it faces a severe shortage of rental housing—often far pricier than expected. Bernard Hickey sits down with Miriama Stephens to discuss how her iwi is tackling this crisis by building dozens of affordable homes, with the marae at the heart of community life.
The Year in Review at Q Theatre in Auckland
After a sold-out night in Wellington, senior writer Anna Rawhiti-Connell will again take a running jump backward into the year’s biggest headlines, political dramas and Spinoff yarns at Q Theatre on December 11. Award-winning writer and podcaster Dr Emma Wehipeihana and Spinoff alum Hayden Donnell will join her live on stage.
Come along for a night of easy laughs to wrap up this crazy year.
Click and Collect
Police reveal they are not on track to reach the government’s deadline for 500 extra officers.
One of the 10 teenagers in the government’s military-style bootcamp trial has died in an accident while another is currently on the run after attending his funeral.
Off the back of yesterday’s Bulletin, some readers took issue with describing Health NZ’s financial situation as a “deficit”. This piece by Rachel Thomas from The Post in July looks at whether the health agency is overspending or underfunded.
The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias explains the changes to research funding in Aotearoa announced on Wednesday, while former Marsden Fund chair Juliet Gerrard argues that funding the whole pie is necessary for research to thrive.
For a long read to finish off the week, a colleague suggested I share Kate Newton’s excellent and interactive in-depth feature for RNZ: Room for the river. It’s worth checking out.
Anna Rawhiti-Connell ranks Hamilton's 4.8 malls. Claire Mabey and Gabi Lardies review Damien Wilkins' new novel Delirious. Joel MacManus conducts a ball-by-ball analysis of backyard cricket at the prime minister's house. Hera Lindsay Bird advises a reader who recently watched Past Lives and now can't stop thinking about an old friend.
That’s it for another week. Thanks for reading and see you back here on Monday.
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Act introduced charter schools in the 2011 Key government. Labour said then that they were a distraction. As well as a range of public schools, often quite varied, we already had partially state integrated schools, and various other educational options like Kura Kaupapa and state supported private schools. Choices abound.
The problem is that charter schools both under the 2012 legislation and the 2024 appear to have been set up as troughs for private companies and organisations to suck up taxpayer funds without having sufficient oversight of the proper and frugal use of those funds. Certainly there appear to have been considerable auditing questions about some of these schools, as well as questions about educational outcomes.
It was opposed by Labour and the Greens in the 2014 and 2017 elections and the extant schools integrated into the state systems after the 2017 election as special character schools along with the required oversight of public funds.
So the question is why Act is pushing for them again without any political consensus to allow them to continue? Labour and the Greens opposed them, will probably campaign on closing them.
My guess is that I guess the short to medium term benefits to Act donors outweigh the probable closures. Because I have only seen assertions about benefits, and legislation that makes it harder to make public complaints about charter school operations. Obviously Act didn't care for the public scrutiny that the charter schools got last time. Makes you wonder what they are hiding....
I haven’t been following the charter school debate closely alas but am puzzled by Labour’s close mindedness on the concept.
In 1974 I was on the staff of Four Avenues an experimental state-funded secondary school in Chch which was set up by the Labour government in order to give parents and students more choice in their education.. We had 5 staff ( called coordinators ) and 76 kids from 13 to 17 who were in groups under a staff member. We had total discretion to arrange the kids’ programmes as they and we wished. It was acknowledged to be an experiment and as such it had successes and failures before it folded some years later.
More choices in education was the point of it and that point remains valid today. The devil is then in the details. Labour argue the detail on a risk basis instead of pigheadedly and predictably doing the reversal dance that plagues NZ politics.