Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. With a
Speaker 2: price tag of one hundred and fifty three million dollars.
Speaker 2: The Coalition government's paving the way for charter schools to
Speaker 2: make it comeback.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: The government will fund fifteen new charter schools and the
Speaker 2: conversion of up to thirty five state schools. The application
Speaker 2: process is officially open, despite ongoing criticism from the opposition
Speaker 2: and teaching unions about the return of the controversial system.
Speaker 2: Today on the Front Page, Associate Minister of Education.
Speaker 1: And Character School Champion David Seymour.
Speaker 2: Is with us to discuss the pros and cons of
Speaker 2: the system. First off, David, can you tell me what
Speaker 2: difference She's a charter school to any other school.
Speaker 3: Charter school can be started by a community group. It
Speaker 3: could be an EWE, It could be a business. It
Speaker 3: could be a charity or a group of educators who
Speaker 3: have got frustrated with the public system and have an
Speaker 3: idea to engage students better. Alternatively, it can be an
Speaker 3: existing state or state integrated school that wants to convert
Speaker 3: to charter school status. So once you get past the
Speaker 3: genesis of them, there is basically one big difference between
Speaker 3: a charter in a state school and a state school.
Speaker 3: You have quite extensive stipulation around what money is received
Speaker 3: and how it is spent. For example, there's a budget
Speaker 3: for buildings, there's a budget for staff. The staff are
Speaker 3: actually paid by the government according to government contracts. There
Speaker 3: are different funds for different activities like learning support and
Speaker 3: so on. With a charter school they get the same
Speaker 3: amount of money that would go to a state school
Speaker 3: in total, but in cash, so that's the first thing.
Speaker 3: They get flexibility of funding. The second thing is that
Speaker 3: a state school doesn't actually face any hard requirements for
Speaker 3: student attendance and student achievements, so those things are certainly encouraged,
Speaker 3: but ultimately, if students don't show up, or students perform
Speaker 3: poorly academically at a school, then there's no ultimate consequence
Speaker 3: for that. With a charter school, they sign a contract
Speaker 3: that says students must attend and students must make progress
Speaker 3: towards achievement, and that's important. It's the progress that matters
Speaker 3: because obviously some students will start at different levels, but
Speaker 3: they must make measurable progress towards achievement. Otherwise they can
Speaker 3: lose their funding and be shut down or have their
Speaker 3: management taken over by someone who has better ideas for
Speaker 3: how to achieve for the students.
Speaker 2: Right, So, that big benefit there from charter schools I'm
Speaker 2: seeing is responsibility, the ability for schools to be.
Speaker 1: Held accountable for poor performance.
Speaker 2: So at the moment, if a state school, say, is
Speaker 2: having awful performance, no one's passing in CAA levels and
Speaker 2: attendance is poor, are there any consequences?
Speaker 3: Well, theoretically a number of things can happen. One is
Speaker 3: that the board can be held accountable by the parents.
Speaker 3: But what tends to happen is if you have a
Speaker 3: community that is very successful has a lot of highly
Speaker 3: educated parents, that they will do that quite well. If
Speaker 3: you have a community that has some socioeconomic challenges, often
Speaker 3: they find they don't actually have the government's capacity and
Speaker 3: catability to hold their board accountable or for the board
Speaker 3: to hold their principal and staff accountable. And so labor
Speaker 3: recognize this when they were in power, they propose effective
Speaker 3: setting up regional ministry hubs that would fill a lot
Speaker 3: more of governance of each school. They didn't go through
Speaker 3: with those reforms for a variety of reasons. That so
Speaker 3: happened back in two thousand and eighteen. But this is
Speaker 3: a long term problem with the state sector in New
Speaker 3: Zealand that we are seeking to solve by changing up
Speaker 3: the way that the schools a government and manage. And
Speaker 3: of course the other thing that can happen is that
Speaker 3: with an adverse Education Review Office report, the government can
Speaker 3: replace board of trustees with a commission manager or statutory manager.
Speaker 3: That this happens from time to time and some schools
Speaker 3: go in and out of statutory management. However, ultimately, if
Speaker 3: you don't change the flexibility they have to deliver results
Speaker 3: and actually enable them to do things differently, then it's
Speaker 3: really just a case of the beatings will continue until
Speaker 3: morale improve, and that's never been a successful form. So
Speaker 3: you know, in our view, your boy have hard accountability,
Speaker 3: but also give their educators flexibility to get involved in
Speaker 3: a different way of engaging students.
Speaker 4: Not just creating new ones, but converting some state schools
Speaker 4: as well. Since Stevens Marty Boys Boarding School also known
Speaker 4: as Tippany will become a charter school, they.
Speaker 5: Will look quite different that they'll start doing and finish late.
Speaker 1: But the productivity that I think the prevalents over that
Speaker 1: time is really crucial.
Speaker 2: Well, there's already a wide range of offerings for parents, though,
Speaker 2: write everything from KUTA and public schools to private schools,
Speaker 2: public integrated special character correspondence.
Speaker 1: Why do parents need another option?
Speaker 3: Well, I acknowledge that there are a wide variety of
Speaker 3: schools in New Zealand. But if you start to think
Speaker 3: about the choices that parents have if wealthy versus a disadvances,
Speaker 3: it's certainly true that parents with money can move to
Speaker 3: a more expensive school zone. Until a lot of real
Speaker 3: estate advertising is around that parents with money can pay
Speaker 3: sometimes twenty five thirty thousand dollars a year per child
Speaker 3: after tax to send their children to an independent or
Speaker 3: private school. But if you're a parent who doesn't have
Speaker 3: those kinds of capabilities, then you may find that actually
Speaker 3: you don't have the kind of choices others do. So
Speaker 3: I think it's critical that we actually develop choices that
Speaker 3: are available regardless of how much money you have. And
Speaker 3: in many ways I'm an old fashioned lefty, but I
Speaker 3: believe that we pay taxes for education so every child
Speaker 3: has the opportunity to be developed to their full academic potential.
Speaker 3: I don't think we're doing that right now. And the
Speaker 3: actual left wing parties and the form of labor and
Speaker 3: grants that they are actually more wedded to the provide
Speaker 3: of the education, particularly not the teachers but their unions,
Speaker 3: then they are to getting the outcome for the students.
Speaker 3: You'll notice I didn't mention Tair party Maldi, who have
Speaker 3: told me they're actually very much in favor of charter schools.
Speaker 2: So with the charter school model, could there be any room,
Speaker 2: say for religious schools, ones catering to neurodiversity perhaps, or
Speaker 2: even schools I've seen in the US there's ones for
Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus youth.
Speaker 1: Is that a possibility down the track?
Speaker 3: I think probably all of those are possibilities. I mean,
Speaker 3: for one thing, we already had a large number of
Speaker 3: several hundred religious schools in the form of Catholic and
Speaker 3: other denominational state integrated schools, and they from today are
Speaker 3: eligible to apply and convert, and they could keep their
Speaker 3: religious character. If it was a new startup charter school,
Speaker 3: and theory there could be one with a faith based
Speaker 3: character that they're going to need to be ready to
Speaker 3: include and accept any students who apply, so they still
Speaker 3: have to do that in a way that it doesn't
Speaker 3: rule without or put off people for a time. Certainly,
Speaker 3: we've had expressions of interest already from potential school operators
Speaker 3: who would like to cater for students who are neurodiverse.
Speaker 3: That that's a major issue for parents and educases made
Speaker 3: across the board. I'm not familiar with the old g
Speaker 3: B t Q plus school in the United States, but
Speaker 3: we would certainly take seriously an application because you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of challenges that students face around the
Speaker 3: development of the sexuality, and it may be that there
Speaker 3: are educators who had a good idea for doing that.
Speaker 3: I also just make the point that this should be
Speaker 3: seen as a massive opportunity for educators because at the moment,
Speaker 3: if I hear one complaint from teachers and principles, it
Speaker 3: is they are sick and tired of the fans and
Speaker 3: the meddling and the education system putting all sorts of demands.
Speaker 3: Someone put it to me today, I get seven emails
Speaker 3: a day I have to answer from the Ministry of
Speaker 3: Education so they can do their job, not for the
Speaker 3: benefit of the students in my school and That was
Speaker 3: someone I met who was very interested in becoming a
Speaker 3: charter school. Because you sign that contract, it's ten year contract,
Speaker 3: you get your results, you get your money, and you're
Speaker 3: actually free, with professional autonomy to educate in ways that
Speaker 3: are successful and actually behave the way that lawyers or
Speaker 3: accountants or engineers or architects get to behave with professional
Speaker 3: autonomy rather than a highly politicized system.
Speaker 2: When charter schools were scrapped in twenty seventeen, are called
Speaker 2: an expensive, failed experiment. Now the Greens are calling the
Speaker 2: resurgence of them your kind of vanity project.
Speaker 1: How do you respond to that?
Speaker 3: Well, I start with the second. But you know, I'm
Speaker 3: a member of Parliament from EPSOM and the EPSOM Electric.
Speaker 3: We don't just have some of their schools in museum.
Speaker 3: We're not their schools in the world. So I don't
Speaker 3: need to spend or why political capital on running a
Speaker 3: type of school that will mainly benefit students from disadvantaged background.
Speaker 3: I could just be a member of Parliament from a
Speaker 3: very very advantage part of the country with great schools
Speaker 3: and never think about this. So it's a strange vanity
Speaker 3: project when actually I'm responding to a deep needs in
Speaker 3: New Zealand to get better education so that each student
Speaker 3: can flourish in their own way, something I believe in
Speaker 3: deeply and I think it's for the good of the
Speaker 3: whole country. The second thing is I do actually accept
Speaker 3: some of the criticisms around the way that charter schools
Speaker 3: were funded in the first round from twenty twelve to
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. I think in some cases they actually were
Speaker 3: given more money than they should. However, I can absolutely
Speaker 3: say that we have reduced the amount of funding that
Speaker 3: is available to the exact same amount pursudent that a
Speaker 3: state school would receive, something that I have to say
Speaker 3: I actually worked hard towards when I took over as
Speaker 3: the Undersecretary responsible for charter schools back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: Although I acknowledge the funding formulas they are initially set
Speaker 3: up in twenty twelve and thirteen, we're not quite right. However,
Speaker 3: I think you only got to ask yourself. Why are
Speaker 3: the likes of the Green Party sayings? Why are they
Speaker 3: opposed to giving professional autonomy to teachers, Why are they
Speaker 3: opposed to create a new options, Why are they're posts
Speaker 3: to local governments. Why are they versus something that to
Speaker 3: party MARII is actually something because they know what a
Speaker 3: state centralized education system is done to Mary and other
Speaker 3: minorities for that matter. And the answer is it's got
Speaker 3: everything to do with lobbying from not the teachers, but
Speaker 3: the unions, because those unions take one percent of a
Speaker 3: teacher's salary to negotiate collective employee agreements. They know that
Speaker 3: charter skills are exempt from collective employment agreements. The individual contracts,
Speaker 3: just like any other employer in the museum economy, means
Speaker 3: you can get rid of bad teachers. It means you
Speaker 3: can pay more to good teachers. And that for the
Speaker 3: unions is an existential threat. And it's shameful that labor
Speaker 3: of the Greens would rather line up besides middle class
Speaker 3: people with comfortable jobs and union officers rather than the
Speaker 3: education profession in general and the disadvanced students of this country.
Speaker 2: In terms of why perhaps unions are opposed to these schools,
Speaker 2: are you saying that they're worried they won't be getting
Speaker 2: their cut.
Speaker 3: The charter schools are an existential threat to the union
Speaker 3: because charter schools are not required to use the contracts
Speaker 3: that gans negotiate with teachers. Charter schools if they proceed,
Speaker 3: will mean that the account of fees paid to union
Speaker 3: offices and well is dramatically reduced. And that is the beginning, middle,
Speaker 3: and end of their opposition.
Speaker 1: Chris Abercrombie is the president of the PPTA. Why are
Speaker 1: you not loving this?
Speaker 5: Well, it's just the privatization of a public good, you know,
Speaker 5: taking public money and putting into private profit. And they
Speaker 5: don't benefit anyone apart from those people who again in
Speaker 5: the profit.
Speaker 3: Doesn't it benefit some of the kids?
Speaker 5: Well, I think the moons benefit to our students would
Speaker 5: be strengthening the state system. They're not cycling money out
Speaker 5: of it, so I think there would be the biggest
Speaker 5: benefit to the vast majority of students in this country.
Speaker 2: How do we justify paying one hundred and fifty three
Speaker 2: million dollars on bringing back charter schools when the public
Speaker 2: sector is I guess looking under every cushion and backgroom
Speaker 2: cupboard for savings at the.
Speaker 3: Moment, because we're funding education for students and this is
Speaker 3: part of the public sector. The idea that somehow students
Speaker 3: choose to go to a charter school are somehow unworthy
Speaker 3: of having their education paid for them, I think as
Speaker 3: a criticism from some in the Union movement and some
Speaker 3: from the left that really betrays their real motivations. They
Speaker 3: don't care enough for children to think that that money
Speaker 3: is actually being spent on behalf of children. They only
Speaker 3: care about the system, and so they construct this falsehood
Speaker 3: that somehow money spent at charter schools, it's not spent
Speaker 3: on the children in them.
Speaker 2: And in terms of spending money on kids, I've seen
Speaker 2: a couple of comments of from critics saying that it's
Speaker 2: a slap in the face of kids, for example, with
Speaker 2: complex learning needs finding it quite difficult to access learning
Speaker 2: support at the moment.
Speaker 1: What would you say to.
Speaker 3: That, Well, it's certainly true we have a system that
Speaker 3: is neglecting the needs of many students. The answer to
Speaker 3: that is to accept what we're doing isn't working for
Speaker 3: them and create new options for educators to run schools
Speaker 3: differently in their way, with accountability throughout. The alternative is
Speaker 3: to have endless cry that if only more money was
Speaker 3: put into a broken system it would work again. Well,
Speaker 3: the truth is that if you look around the world,
Speaker 3: their education systems has a vast amounts of money and
Speaker 3: got terrible results, and education systems I spent far less
Speaker 3: money and got good results. You know, the idea that's
Speaker 3: putting more money into the same way of doing things
Speaker 3: that isn't working particularly advanced students, is the answer is
Speaker 3: not only disproven by the evidence around the world, but
Speaker 3: also completely implausible given the government's characters the situation.
Speaker 2: So, in terms of making decisions around these charter schools,
Speaker 2: I know it's independent rights and they go through a
Speaker 2: couple of stages and decisions will be made by the
Speaker 2: end of the year. Would you like to see a
Speaker 2: real dove list of those schools that are then decided
Speaker 2: to go on to be charter schools.
Speaker 3: I think we will see a very diverse list, because
Speaker 3: we have stipulated in government policy that we want to
Speaker 3: see a range of schools with different EQI or Equity
Speaker 3: Index scores. So you will see schools I hope that
Speaker 3: are very highly advantage that want to be part of this,
Speaker 3: schools that are not if I'm particularly advantage communities. You'll
Speaker 3: see schools that have a religious character or state integrated schools.
Speaker 3: You'll see city, and you'll see country, and certainly today
Speaker 3: I've seen expressions of interest from every type of school
Speaker 3: and when I've sat down with educators who are a
Speaker 3: bit skeptical and said, look, it's on a ten year contract.
Speaker 3: You get your results of your students showing up and achieving,
Speaker 3: which is what you intrinsically want to do anyway as
Speaker 3: an educator, and you'll get your money and you won't
Speaker 3: have to be harassed or harangued by different fads driven
Speaker 3: onto you by you know, Willinson. You don't have to
Speaker 3: play endless bureaucracy trying to get the Ministry of Education
Speaker 3: to fix your buildings. You just get on with being educated.
Speaker 3: But is this real? It's absolutely real. You can apply
Speaker 3: as of midday Thursday this week.
Speaker 2: And lastly, Minister, it's been a few months since we
Speaker 2: last spoke and the coalition government has passed the six
Speaker 2: month mark.
Speaker 1: How are things going? Are you working well together?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Look, I think from the point of view of our
Speaker 3: opponents have been scarily united and effective. I think we've
Speaker 3: done a tremendous job of tackling first of all, the
Speaker 3: various hospital passes of inflation, government waste and just really
Speaker 3: some absurd spending and projects. So you know, we've certainly
Speaker 3: done the firefighting and you're now starting to see things
Speaker 3: like resource management, you know, transport policy getting rid of
Speaker 3: its speed limits. You know, we're forming crazy fire laws.
Speaker 3: There's a whole lot of things where we're actually we've
Speaker 3: gone through the sort of slash and burn all the
Speaker 3: craziness and actually start building some sensible policies of our
Speaker 3: own and the clearing and I think those will help
Speaker 3: lead an economic recovery that will deal to the real
Speaker 3: pressure that New Zealanders are experiencing in the hangover and
Speaker 3: negative momentum of Labour's economic management.
Speaker 1: So you're getting along, well, then no sleepless nights.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Look, I think we've got three people or three partners
Speaker 3: and government three parties sorry, who are completely united by
Speaker 3: the hostile circumstances that are facing New Zealanders and a
Speaker 3: will to put things right and fix them. And I
Speaker 3: think if you look at the announcements coming out day
Speaker 3: by day, I think we can say we're doing it.
Speaker 1: Or is it because that Winston Peter's in the PM
Speaker 1: is so often out of the country.
Speaker 3: Well you know they say that as of the country.
Speaker 3: They make me the aesting Prime Minister and it's one
Speaker 3: ex part I don't mind so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Minister, that's it for this episode
Speaker 2: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at enziherld dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and sound
Speaker 2: engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another
Speaker 2: look behind the headlines.