Machiavelli’s words could describe David Seymour’s predicament as he sets out on his bold quest to reestablish Charter Schools. Without a doubt, he will face a host of institutionalised foes.
This reality is made worse by the imbalance in education between a highly unionised teacher workforce and parents, who struggle to act collectively. By empowering Boards, the Tomorrow’s Schools policy was designed, in part, to address this imbalance. However, its potential has been held back from the start by dogged blocking of all attempts at transparency and accountability. As long as schooling stays a closed book, with Trustees and parents in the dark, Tomorrow’s Schools will continue to flounder.
Well-run Charter Schools, however, could change everything.
In England, over 650 Free (or Charter) Schools have opened since the launch of the enabling policy in 2010. A small number have also shut. At first, Free Schools were controversial. But with careful rollout and tight accountability, they are now well-established.
Secondary school performance in England is judged using measures of achievement and progress at ages 11, 16, and 18. The measures change every few years, which limits gaming. Currently the main metric is ‘Progress-8’, which measures pupils’ progress from the end of primary school to age 16.
Remarkably, in 2023, six of the top ten state secondary schools were Free Schools. Another standout is a formerly private Steiner school.
The top performer is the Michaela Community School, which has led the rankings for two years running. Under the leadership of Kiwi-born Katharine Birbalsingh, who visited Auckland in 2018, the Michaela School transforms the life chances of children from a deprived, inner-city community.
By inviting its backers and opponents alike to observe the success of teacher-led learning firsthand, the Michaela Free School has opened hundreds of minds to forgotten truths.
The New Zealand Initiative will keep a close eye as the Charter School policy develops. As with many groundbreaking policy ideas, the devil will lie in the legislative detail. But like a good teacher, the Initiative will be on hand to provide robust criticism, to insist on high standards and to back this visionary idea.
Briar Lipson specialises in education. Before joining the Initiative she was a Maths teacher and Assistant Principal in London. She holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Edinburgh. This article was first published HERE
Well-run Charter Schools, however, could change everything.
In England, over 650 Free (or Charter) Schools have opened since the launch of the enabling policy in 2010. A small number have also shut. At first, Free Schools were controversial. But with careful rollout and tight accountability, they are now well-established.
Secondary school performance in England is judged using measures of achievement and progress at ages 11, 16, and 18. The measures change every few years, which limits gaming. Currently the main metric is ‘Progress-8’, which measures pupils’ progress from the end of primary school to age 16.
Remarkably, in 2023, six of the top ten state secondary schools were Free Schools. Another standout is a formerly private Steiner school.
The top performer is the Michaela Community School, which has led the rankings for two years running. Under the leadership of Kiwi-born Katharine Birbalsingh, who visited Auckland in 2018, the Michaela School transforms the life chances of children from a deprived, inner-city community.
By inviting its backers and opponents alike to observe the success of teacher-led learning firsthand, the Michaela Free School has opened hundreds of minds to forgotten truths.
The New Zealand Initiative will keep a close eye as the Charter School policy develops. As with many groundbreaking policy ideas, the devil will lie in the legislative detail. But like a good teacher, the Initiative will be on hand to provide robust criticism, to insist on high standards and to back this visionary idea.
Briar Lipson specialises in education. Before joining the Initiative she was a Maths teacher and Assistant Principal in London. She holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Edinburgh. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
From experience at the peak of the reading wars last century there was tremendous antagonism to phonics. Not only was my mother Doris Ferry, who privately taught phonic reading to a couple of thousand reading failure children, ridiculed, slandered and cancelled but also damned with faint praise. A prominent lecturer from Victoria Uni visited and wrote of her tremendous success with glowing praise but attributed her success to not much more than a placebo effect and individual tuition. This gave impetus to Dame Clay's Whole Language Reading Recovery which was also individualised but now 40 years later thoroughly proven to be a disastrous failure.
The takeaway from this for Charter Schools will be the teacher unions and their pals will probably attribute any success the schools have to irrelevancies like free school uniforms, laptops ,lunches and small class sizes. They will bleat to politicians to get these for all pupils in state schools.
At the height of NZ's education when it was world class in about 1950 we superannuatants can remember classes of 50 students but also being taught explicitly by the teacher as was true to Traditional Education's methods along with discipline, rote learning of tables ,spelling grammar etc.
You are dead right Briar, and I assume you would have seen Chris Abercrombie's (the PPTA President's) scorn of Charter School's in his "Letter to the Editor" in Saturday's (15 June) "The Post". All I'll say is the bar has been set very low by our current state education sector, with the performance of students, like the new members Abercrombie represents, continuing to fall each.
As Gaynor has correctly said, we used to have a world class education system, but that has fallen by the wayside and most certainly with the likes of Iona Holsted and her cabal of 'regressive progressives' and the PPTA who have presided without positive action over that decline.
The Charter Schools have a tough mission ahead and I'm sure there will be some hiccups along the way, but anything really is better than the status quo of increasing uselessness and patent ineptitude.
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