The Government is moving to bring back charter schools, a controversial education model scrapped by the Labour-led coalition in 2017. 1News unpacks the ABCs of these partnership schools.
New Zealand’s education system has been a big focus for the coalition Government, from cellphone bans in classrooms to attendance action plans and “bringing balance” to the history curriculum.
Now, partnership schools, also known as charter schools, are on the agenda.
The Government is pushing ahead with plans to have charter schools back next year, after they were ditched under Labour. (Source: 1News)
Reintroducing these types of schools — and allowing state schools to become charter schools — was one of the conditions in National’s coalition deal with ACT.
Last week, Associate Education Minister David Seymour appointed an establishment board to help bring charter schools back for 2025.
Here is what you need to know about those schools.
First, the obvious: What is a charter school?
Charter schools are funded by the government; however they are not run by the government and do not need to teach the state-set curriculum.
Instead, these independent schools are run by businesses or not-for-profit organisations. The schools might have a particular philosophy or focus — such as a military school or religious education, for example.
As well as setting their own curriculum, charter schools can also set their own hours, holidays, and staff pay rates.
New Zealand introduced charter schools during the John Key years, as part of his National government’s confidence and supply agreement with ACT.
Fewer than 20 charter schools were opened between 2011 and 2017.
What happened to charter schools?
Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First all promised to disestablish charter schools during election campaigning in 2017 and did so once they formed a government.
Teacher unions supported the move. One of those unions, the New Zealand Education Institute, said charter schools had been an expensive, failed experiment.
By 2019, all remaining charter schools became state-integrated or special character schools. (Special character schools teach the New Zealand curriculum but also have their own set of objectives or purposes to reflect their values.)
Seymour described the charter schools’ disestablishment as “a massacre of opportunity for kids who weren’t doing well in the state system”.
Why are charter schools coming back now?
Seymour is still a big fan of the charter school model.
He said it gave schools "greater flexibility" over how they operated. He said this flexibility came with high levels of monitoring that state schools didn’t have and that charter schools were shut down if they didn’t achieve the outcomes they were funded for.
Seymour said charter schools were an innovative model that could help engage children who might be struggling in mainstream education.
The ACT Party had also previously pointed to independent reports from 2017 and 2018 that found student engagement had improved in partnership schools.
Why are some people against charter schools?
Previous criticisms of charter schools were around untrained educators potentially teaching children and a lack of accountability through the Official Information Act (OIA) – charter schools were not subject to the OIA.
The New Zealand Education Institute is still against charter schools, with its president Mark Potter telling the NZ Herald last year that reviving them was a "destructive, weird, radical" move.
“What we don’t want to see is more attempts to privatise education. We want to see public education across the board funded and supported properly. To have partnership schools undermines that very idea,” he said.
Potter said the existing education system allowed for difference in the way schools operated.
What will happen now?
Seymour has already appointed a board, led by former St Cuthbert's College principal Justine Mahon, to help reintroduce charter schools.
Introducing legislation to revive the schools is also included in the Government’s latest quarterly plan, so that should be underway by June 30.
The Government is working towards charter schools opening in 2025.
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