Then there was the inevitable announcement, the return of Charter Schools, at a cost of $153 million over four years. Charter schools will be the only schools that contract that and say ‘if you don’t do it, your funding is at risk and you may ultimately be closed down’.”The proposal is straight out of the Atlas Network playbook as exeplified by this editorial description of what educational choice involves. Strangely Charter schools will not have to abide by the cellphone ban or the requirement to teach an hour’s reading and writing and maths. The Ministry of Education concluded that the monitoring was inadequate and apart from two schools there was no independent evidence they were doing a better job than comparable state schools. This has not stopped Seynour from claiming that charter schools are the best thing since sliced bread.

Source: New Zealand Herald May 16, 2024 03:57 UTC