Charter school ‘pilot’ fooling no one - PPTA
Assurances that ACT’s charter school experiment was just a pilot have been proven false with this afternoon’s
announcement of seven new charter schools.
PPTA president Angela Roberts was surprised a new round of charter schools were being opened when New Zealand tax payers
had been promised the concept would be a trial.
With a poorly conducted evaluation of the existing schools lukewarm about their efficacy opening more did not make
sense, she said.
“There are still a lot of questions to be answered.”
“We have been constantly reassured there would be just a handful of schools which would be robustly evaluated – both of
those claims have been proved false,” she said.
“This is not a pilot, it is just a sop to the ACT party’s ideological commitment to favouring the private over the
public sector.”
This was out of step with reality as illustrated by the disastrous Serco prison contracts and the closure of one of the
first five charter schools, she said.
Current research shows our poorest schools are facing the deepest challenges in meeting their students’ needs.
“Public money should be going towards what evidence shows helps the most vulnerable, and that is professional support
for their health and welfare needs and economic and social wellbeing,” she said.
Enabling schools to be hubs where students can connect with nurses, mental health and welfare support would have a much
bigger impact than wasting money on an unproven experiment.
“The funds should be reprioritised to the state sector where they will have the greatest impact on the greatest number
of students,” she said.
ENDS