Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. This bill is about ensuring that every one of our children has access to a full, broad, and balanced curriculum. It is the requirement at the moment of every publicly funded school—every State and integrated school—that those schools follow The New Zealand Curriculum. But this Government, for ideological reasons, has made one exception to that, and that exception is for charter schools that receive 100 percent of their funding from the public sector. In fact, on a per student basis, charter schools are getting up to five times as much funding per student as the other publicly funded schools.

This ideology of not requiring charter schools to follow the curriculum has been a proven failure. It was a proven failure in a country that introduced charter schools many years ago—the United Kingdom—because in 2007 it changed its policy to now require charter schools in the United Kingdom to follow the same broad curriculum as every other school in that education system.

What this country does not need is some children in our schooling system to be subject to a narrow curriculum. For example, it could be imposed by a business, for-profit, commercial enterprise to train children to a particular ideology or, even more likely, a narrow sectoral group in our community decides that their kids are going to learn something different from every other kid. It might be: “Evolution is wrong and we believe in creationism.” That is the sort of thing that the current legislation allows to have happen, and it is what this bill will prohibit.

Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard, The New Zealand Curriculum, as you know well, is not a controversial document. It has received universal support across New Zealand. It is about ensuring that every child gets the learning competencies they need to achieve their full potential. In fact, our society—the very integrity and the unity of our society—relies on all of our kids having access to the common values that The New Zealand Curriculum promotes.

I would like to ask Mr Seymour why it is that values in The New Zealand Curriculum such as excellence, innovation, inquiry and curiosity, diversity, equity, community participation, ecological sustainability, integrity, and respect ought not to have a place in charter schools, as they have a place in every other publicly funded school in New Zealand.

The bill now before the House ensures that charter schools will meet the national education guidelines set out in section 60A of the Education Act 1989. These guidelines were considered essential—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I just want to briefly interrupt the member and ask Mr Seymour to stop addressing the Chair in those terms. I am not embarrassing myself and he should not say that I am.

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I hope you are not going to refer to the ruling I have just made.

💬 David Seymour: Ah, no, I guess not.

There is a man with the courage of his convictions. What the national education guidelines—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh, Mr Goff will now withdraw that comment.

Yes, I withdraw. What the national education guidelines set out is what schools should achieve, the teaching, learning, and assessment policies that are followed in schools, the areas of knowledge and understanding and skills that students need, and codes of conduct and principles governing the administration of those schools. Almost every New Zealander would regard those sorts of guidelines as being essential for a properly functioning education system.

I want to address in this bill a key deficiency that the charter schools legislation currently allows, but I have to say that this bill addresses only one of the serious problems involved in charter schools. Even Treasury said that it was a nonsense that charter schools be allowed to employ teaching staff who were not qualified. It said that the registration of teachers is absolutely essential to the quality of learning, and it opposed the ideological, ACT-driven policy of not having either a curriculum or properly qualified and registered teachers.

I was Minister of Education when Tomorrow’s Schools came in, and one of the fundamental principles of that, which came through from a very progressive businessman, Brian Picot, was that schools should be run encouraging the participation of the students, the teachers, the parents, and the community. Yet charter schools are allowed to operate without participation or accountability to any of those groups. This is turning the clock back to Victorian-style education. Charter schools—

💬 David Seymour: This is very embarrassing.

There is the ACT Party, which believes in openness and transparency. Why is it, then, that charter schools are not held accountable under the provisions of the Official Information Act? Is it because they are so appallingly run, and the money is being diverted to purposes other than quality teaching, that the Government wants to cover up what is happening in those schools?

💬 David Seymour: Sit down and I’ll tell you.

There are clear examples of the failures of many of the charter schools. There is the Whangaruru school, Te Pūmanawa o te Wairua. Maybe Mr Seymour could tell us whether it is satisfactory that only one out of 49 students gained a formal qualification last year at that school—one out of 49. I want to know whether Mr Seymour and the National Party regard the widespread truancy, the bullying, the drug use, and the breakdown of staff and management relationships as being satisfactory at that school. The Ministry of Education has stated officially that the school is not capable of remedy and it should be closed. It is not teaching to the curriculum. It is not teaching in any way in a quality sense that is good for those children.

When charter schools were introduced we were promised that when they failed they would be closed. What was the reaction of the Minister of Education to Whangaruru? Did she close it? No. She poured buckets more money into that school. I would like to know from Mr Seymour whether, when that school is finally closed, as it must be, the assets funded out of public money will come back to the taxpayer, or whether they will be taken over and expropriated by the proprietors of that failed school. He knows the answer. The answer is the latter. This is State welfare to failed educational institutions. [Bell rung]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry. The member’s time has not expired, but I would like him, please, to focus on his bill for the last 2 minutes.

As I said before, this bill addresses one fundamental flaw in the charter school system, which is the lack of requirement that charter schools follow the New Zealand curriculum. The New Zealand Curriculum sets out the guidelines of how these schools should be governed. Because charter schools have no such guidelines, schools like the Whangaruru school have failed—have failed—and have been found by the Ministry of Education to have failed. Likewise, Middle School West Auckland. The parents there have complained about a lack of effective teaching practice. That is because there is no national curriculum and no guidelines about what effective teaching practice should be.

The Ministry of Education has warned the Minister three times about the failings of that school. The Education Review Office has warned the Minister about the failings of that school—and what does the Minister do? The Minister does nothing. There is no accountability. There are no standards that it has to work to. This is an abuse of taxpayers’ money, but worse than that, this lets down the children of our country.

The member’s time has now expired. The question is that the motion be agreed to, but this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House is—[Interruption] It is lucky the member is not suspended. The House is suspended, and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for an extended sitting.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)