Isaac on charter schools
March 14th, 2013 at 2:00 pm by David FarrarCatherine Isaac provides some facts in the NZ Herald:
At the heart of this model of school is a binding, legally enforceable contract with the Crown that will require any organisation seeking to establish a school to meet specific, measurable performance goals including student academic achievement, student engagement indicators and financial, legal, health and safety and organisational performance.
A school unable to demonstrate very clearly how it will attract and retain disadvantaged learners and help them succeed, and how it will engage with their families, will not get through the rigorous authorisation process.
Think if we had that level of transparency and accountability for all schools?
They are a school of choice. No teacher will be forced to teach at one of these schools and no student will be forced to enrol in one. They will receive no more funding than the per-child amount received at a regular state school.
Some people think choice is bad. I think it is very good. And predict there will be a lot of demand in some of our most disadvantaged areas.
International evidence, notably the Credo research cited so often by opponents of Partnership Schools, has produced some conclusive findings. While results vary by state and by school, US charter schools have improved results for all students from low-income backgrounds, minority groups and those with English as a second language. Those with the best legislated models of charter school get consistently good results across the board.
In Sweden, after 21 years’ experience and data from 400 free (charter) schools and millions of students, the results are strong and clear: all students are doing better, achieving better grades and higher rates of participation in tertiary education.
Despite this evidence, some here don’t even want to give them a chance.
Partnership Schools are an opportunity for the teaching profession. The Swedish teacher unions did not oppose the introduction of free schools there, seeing them as providing good professional development opportunities for their members. Subsequent surveys have proven them right.
I wouldn’t hold your breath on expecting a similar view from the local unions here!
Related posts:
- Another academic attacks charter schools
- New York charter schools
- Coddington on charter schools
- Charter Schools
March 14th, 2013 at 2:42 pm
I was in New York last week and was interested to read that basically the only NYC charter school failing was one set up by the teachers union to prove that a union run charter school would work….
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 2:43 pm
“Isaac on charter schools”??
Get with the times DPF! We call them “partnership schools” now
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Tut Tut DPF You should know by now that State schools are run by the Teachers Union for the benefit of the Teachers Union with the MoE as a mere side line observer and in may cases active participant in the Teachers Union agenda.
State schools are NOT and have never been about the students and their parents. The Teachers Union and MoE see them as merely obstacles that get in way.
Thats why I paid twice for my 2 childrens education and sent them to a private school where they and we were treated with respect and dignity and consulted and informed at all stages of our childrens education.
Although being of IMHO average academic ability both went on to University and gained first class double degrees in no little way becuase of the excellent all be it expensive education they received.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 2:53 pm
Yea, but we are not negottiating the TPP with Sweden. We are negotiating the TPP with the USA and education in the USA is a modern-day version of the wild west.
From what we hear about the TPP, it is going to make it that we can’t keep the American Charter School corporates out, nor will we be able to make them live up to NZ standards on health and safety, accountability etc and all the other things John Key is going to sign away.
~
Vote:The latest Credo report didn’t match like with like when comparing Charter Schools with Public Schools. Charter School have fewer very poor students, fewer students with severe disabilities and fewer English Language Learners so it’s not surpising that public schools do worse, what’s amazing is that Charther School don’t do so much better – they get more money, they are allowed to open for longer and they cream the best students through their dodgy enrollment processes.
March 14th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Might I hazard a guess that you don’t see the problem here?
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 3:04 pm
I try to avoid using the official propaganda terms. I tend to refer to charter schools as charter schools, not partnership schools. I generally refer to same sex marriage, not marriage equality. And I refer to asset sales not Mixed Ownership Model.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 3:09 pm
The greatest lack of accountability in this whole exercise falls on the shoulders of Catherine Isaac herself. WHERE is the Isaac Report, which her working group should have produced? She claims that her model incorporates the “best of the best”. How do we know? Where is her report with its evidential base, showing what works, what doesn’t work and why?
Even Treasury was sceptical about the potential benefits of introducing charter schools into New Zealand, given our vastly different system compared to the USA:
“Additionally, the findings from overseas school systems are not necessarily directly transferable to New Zealand, due to the nature of our education system; we have one of the most devolved / decentralised education systems in the world. Consequently, the difference between state schools and charter schools will not be as pronounced as in other school systems (e.g. the United States).”
My main “facts” are as follows:
Fact 1: Citing support from Pem Bird, the President of the Maori Party, counts for little. I wonder what the Maori Party gets in return? How is Whanau Ora going these days? In contrast, other Maori educators have spoken out against the Bill.
Fact 2: Ironically, Pem Bird has set up his 23 schools under Section 155 / Special Character provisions of the existing Education Act. Hardly consistent with Rodney Hide’s ranting the other week about the “Soviet style central planning system” he claims we run at present, but an ideal example of the flexibility inherent in the New Zealand system now.
Fact 3: The lack of effective oversight is something that Ms Isaac should have noted from her study of US charter schools. The Office of the Inspector General issued a scathing report last year about the poor state of monitoring and oversight of many US charter schools. Those who set up these schools are politically motivated and are not willing to act to close them down when they fail – as many of them do.
Fact 4: The claims that no-one is forced to go there or teach there will ring hollow with the parents of children in New Orleans. Charter school advocates used the disaster of Hurricane Katrina to force a system-wide change to charter schools across the whole school district.
Also, there are now many stories emerging in the UK about the forced conversions of schools into Academies, as they are known in the UK, often against the wishes of the local communities. In many cases, the conversions are to chains of schools run by Tory donors and supporters. Here is one such story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/04/education-capitalist-command-economy
Fact 5: The funding model just released makes a joke of Isaac’s comment that Partnership Schools will receive no more funding than the per-child amount at a regular state school. Rubbish! If you were setting up a 50 student secondary school, for example, the government will make a one-off sum of $451,385 to help with “set up” costs and then pay a base grant of $997,044 per annum, BEFORE the per student funding of $5,357 cuts in. A nice little earner, indeed! No wonder people like Alwyn Poole are interested. Suddenly, running small, quasi-private schools becomes very lucrative indeed.
Fact 6: Finally, the most telling fact counting against charter schools and the “market model” approach they represent, is that the USA, UK and Sweden, who all use this model, all perform much worse than New Zealand does on the international PISA assessments. But, more importantly, the performance of our bottom 10% of learners is ahead of similar students in these same countries.
Do they really lift overall system-wide performance? No way!
Why are we doing this? Political and economic ideology and nothing else. But rest assured on one point: you can absolutely guarantee that Catherine Isaac, John Banks, Rodney Hide and their mates would never send their children to these schools.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 3:43 pm
Hi Bill, school just get out huh?
Dime loves the idea of charter schools. especially for those kids who are being left behind in the current system.
Teachers can justify their political stance however they want, but deep down they know its all about their own entitlements and it has nothing to do with the kids.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 3:50 pm
As a high school teacher, I have no idea why other teachers would oppose charter schools. It’s not only more choice for the students, it’s also more choice for the teachers.
Makes no sense to me.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
Was I the only one who noticed that after the cabinet reshuffle, the new labour education person was quite emphatic that schools are failing Maori and PI students?
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 4:04 pm
Tom Jackson
I have no problem with our Universities I consider them to be first class. Its the State schools that suck
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
A shame so many anti-teacher rants appear on this site. I wonder who taught the posters to write, to construct arguments and to thing critically…
Vote:Another thought: all the hugely political teachers I knew are now in the Labour caucus or trying to get there. There were bugger all of them – the rest (by far the majority) of teachers that I taught with were passionate about seeing their pupils achieve…
March 14th, 2013 at 4:19 pm
“A shame so many anti-teacher rants appear on this site. I wonder who taught the posters to write, to construct arguments and to thing critically…”
Maybe a lot of us just went through school being able to count the good teachers on one hand. When I think back to school i just picture so many tired old bitter sob’s.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Maybe you made them that way dime!
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Umm no DPF…they are not facts until proven to be true.
Just seems like hype and spin to me.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 5:14 pm
Lloyd: “I wonder who taught the posters to write, to construct arguments and to thing critically”
Oh yeah, I’m a critical thinger and it’s all because of one hot art teacher!
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 8:18 pm
Many miss the point that many parents distrust the current set up. The whole ‘trust us – we are great’ meme from the teachers is undermined by the facts that average teacher’s spelling is borderline dyslexic and that many parents are disappointed with the levels of education that their children receive. When your kids are less educated than the parents then a correct and terrifying picture emerges.
Charter Schools provide parents more influence over their ability to give their children a decent education- something tremendously important to caring parents.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 8:32 pm
I seriously hope that the opinions expressed by the readers on the herald website are not reflective of NZ. So many people commenting there are complete fucktards and if they are an accurate representation of NZ then we are screwed.
How can someone in their right mind be against choice in education yet say they believe in freedom and liberty?
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 10:09 pm
Because most people want to protect privilege, particularly their own. Do you see home owners in Auckland Grammar zone arguing for the abolishing of zoning to allow under-privileged kids the chance to attend Grammar? Not a chance.
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 10:25 pm
I had an argument with a useless protester who was standing in front of parliament a few weeks ago with a placard against charger schools that had the slogan “Education is not for sale”! Of course we can’t have anyone being paid to provide education can we? Now who is always complaining about their pay?
Anyway, when I dared to question what he was protesting about all he could say was I bet you are an Act supporter! Can left wing people actually provide a logical argument or just emotive slogans?
Vote:March 14th, 2013 at 11:36 pm
Wow, Anthony – arguing with a protestor and then bragging about it on kiwiblog.
Right on! That showed him!
Make sure next time you are at a party, you join a conversation and start an argument, just so you can tell us all about it. It will be sooooo cool.
Vote:March 15th, 2013 at 12:52 am
bc:
“Fact 4: The claims that no-one is forced to go there or teach there will ring hollow with the parents of children in New Orleans. Charter school advocates used the disaster of Hurricane Katrina to force a system-wide change to charter schools across the whole school district.”
So how many advocates did it take? Was it a referendum type of situation where lots of parents voted, or was it just a handful of advocates, perhaps with weapons? And how did it turn out for the kids? Are they doing better or worse now than before the take-over?
Do we need to have a “Fact 4b: New Orleans parents voted in sufficient numbers to force a system-wide change that has resulted in staggering improvement for the children”?
Vote:March 15th, 2013 at 1:15 am
Yes….why DO Teachers insist on being paid for teaching if education is a “right”….? Greedy rightwing so and so’s…
Vote:March 15th, 2013 at 1:15 am
Yeah, but did they really vote for this sort of lunacy?.
Vote:March 15th, 2013 at 2:25 am
But rest assured on one point: you can absolutely guarantee that Catherine Isaac, John Banks, Rodney Hide and their mates would never send their children to these schools.
Well that’s an interesting insight into the warped and twisted mind of the Left. Do you really think we want to set something up that we wouldn’t send our own children to?!! Ask how many Labour MPs send their kids to private schools or schools in high decile zones, and you would get some interesting answers.
One side is playing the game of “schools for thee but not for me”, but it ain’t us.
Vote:March 15th, 2013 at 9:49 am
cha, being ‘the South’ it’s possible quite few did vote for that sort of lunacy, however the blog you link to doesn’t seem very impartial in the matter so at the very least I’d say there’s more to the story than what they’re presenting it as.
It would be great if all teaching was historically accurate rather than framed from a ‘progressive’ viewpoint.
Vote: