Weasel words used to justify scholarships
"Choice" is one of the weasel words politicians of the right have repeatedly used to promote a welter of ideologically driven policies which undermine public provision of essential services.
Act Party MP and Associate Education Minister Heather Roy used the word last week in claiming she is providing more choice to New Zealand families with the decision to use taxpayer funding to provide 250 places at private schools. Under the policy the Government will pay up to $15,000 per year in fees and $1500 in course costs per student. There will be 150 places available next year rising to 250 per year by 2012.
But it is the schools which will choose the students they want from the pool of applicants. And they will choose the most academically able and those good at sport. In other words they will choose students to enhance the reputation of the private school. They won't pick kids with average or less than average academic ability (unless they are fantastic at sport, of course) or anyone with behaviour problems. Private schools simply don't believe every kid deserves the same opportunity.
Surveys of New Zealand parents always show very high levels of support for their local schools and this is the highest priority for Kiwi parents - they want a high-quality education at a high-quality school in their neighborhood. Achieving this goal of the best choice for every parent should be the minister's highest priority in education and this is where the $2.6 million should be spent.
It goes without saying there is never any excuse for the provision of substandard education at any public school. The government should be more aggressive and interventionist when schools get into trouble rather than leave the responsibility solely with parents through a board of trustees.
Too often the school failures we have seen stem from lack of management skills of well-meaning parents. This is perhaps the most serious single failure of the Tomorrow's Schools model. Instead of focusing on private schools there is plenty of work to do ensuring every public school is the best school in the country.
Such suggestions are anathema to Act. If every school is high quality there can be no market except for the small minority who bypass public education. If parents choose to do so that's fine but it's not a choice which the government should fund. Taxpayers already pay to maintain our public education system and should not have to subsidise the private choices of those who opt out.
The most interesting thing about this Government move is that there is no public clamour for it. New Zealand parents are not campaigning to send their kids to socially or religiously cleansed environments. Roy is trying to whip up parent support for a policy which is ideologically driven rather than publicly driven.
More insidiously, Roy says the scholarships will provide "an enhanced educational opportunity" at private schools. Her unsaid message is that public education is inferior while the reverse is true. Despite their carefully selected students, private schools do no better. Our kids educated in public schools compete at any level with their private school equivalents and in the process learn a great deal more socially from the wider range of kids they mix with.
Roy says the scholarships will "help students from low-income families attend private secondary schools". However, the low-income families she's talking about can earn up to $65,000 (close to 50% above the average wage) and have up to $150,000 in assets.
Don't expect to see many barefoot, brown kids from Otara and Porirua taking up these scholarships.
Roy's policy is similar to the TIE (Targeted Individual Entitlement) scheme the National Party introduced in the 1990s whereby private schools were able to pick and choose students they wanted with the government paying. It's the same old story of taxpayer funding being used to undermine public education.
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Good point, why the hell are my taxes subsidising this? I had a fantastic public school education and I would like to see some accountability from this proposal.
Lets see in two years the breakdown of the socio-economic backgrounds of all the kids accepted in this scheme.
It's a shame that in this country only the rich have a choice of education.
Wouldn't it be great if everyone had the same choice that the rich do, to choose a school for their kids?
If ACT's scholarship policy was implemented for all children in NZ it would cost no more than the current education budget, and would give that choice to all parents.
Of course where ACT differs from John is that we DO trust parents to do the right thing by their kids. We DO believe that parents and schools working together will achieve better outcomes than the even greater legions of bureaucrats operating out of ivory towers that he calls for.
If John's idea of the world was going to work you'd think that after 70 years of it, and billions of dollars poured down the drain, it would have worked by now, wouldn't you?
It's time that we tried out new ideas. It's time that we act now to implement them.
The aspire scholarships are not the same as choice for every parent, but they are a start.
Just one last point. John is wrong when he says that the taxpayer underwrites private schools. It's the other way around. If we outlawed private schools tomorrow there would be an extra 230 Million dollar charge on the taxpayer. That's how much parents who pay twice (once in taxes and once in tuition) are currently underwriting the public education system and the 4600 bureaucrats feeding at the trough in it.
Angus, John is probably aware of the facts but does not want them to get into the way of a good moan.
Ben #2 - taxpayers already pay this much for education so don't think this is money the Govt is spending on top of the education budget.
This system works very well in Sweden and it works along the principle that *everybody* is entitled to have the best possible education - not just the rich. If you're against this then you obviously think that the teachers/schools are all doing a good job. Why is it that teachers don't want YOU to know their school results? This system will make it transparent so that our children will get a better standard of education where parents not bureaucrats and teachers unions will have a greater say.
John Minto knows this, but he is a communist and a hardline unionist. He hates the idea of choice, freedom or anything that takes power off unions.
Okay, so here's a dilemma for me as a parent (hypothetical, thank Goodness as my children are not old enough). We live in an average area. Our schools are middle decile, certainly not upper decile but also not lower decile. They are okay and provide an adequate education. Nothing startling, but average.
Let' say that our son shows a remarkable ability for rubgy and our girl a remarkable ability for science. We want our children to have the best possible schooling to nurture their potential. That will not be possible with our choices of public schools. At best, they will be dumbed down to average and not achieve their potential (tall poppy anyone?).
So we would then have to decide whether to fund (the mortgage will be further stretched) a private education, or to move to a more affluent area with better public schools because like all parents, we want our children to have the best possible opportunities.
I think that this scheme would be a good one for the poor in Otara, where the children have REAL potential, but their social circumstances will not allow this to happen. In fact, given time, they may wind up with the wrong crowd and totally waste their God-given talent.
So why is this bad? I guess that in the Communist/Socialist space there is no room for talented children, we all have to be equal and all have to conform to some lower common denominator.
God help New Zealand become competitive in the world (or indeed, stay afloat) with a population of average people....
Barefoot, brown kids from Otara or Porirua will never go to the top private schools, not because the schools wont select them, but because their parents wont encourage them.
If it is as bad as John suggests, then how come we have as top students through out the years, refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, etc? Students who have survived wars, refugee camps, etc.
It all comes back to choice, and the barefoot kids that John refers to, have parents who make the choice of not encouraging their kids. They would prefer to wrap their kids in bandanas and initiate them into gangs to be cool. They would prefer to waste their money on drugs and alcohol, than to spend a dollar to educate their kids.
Everyone has a choice John. Some people are too afraid to make it.
John FYI at $65000 income that's still well within the income levels at which WFF can be paid...., and you think that $150k in assets is rich?
What world are you living in??
@ Mike (#8). Agreed. Anyone who has owned a home for a decent period of time will have $150k of equity built up. That is considered an asset.
@ Kelvin2 (#7). Totally agree. How can we see potential stars emerge from a society where the biggest influencers of children (their parents) sit on their arses all day long, drinking, smoking and mocking education....
Accountability begins at home, it is not up to the state to bail these kids out. It is up to their parents. Maybe the state should do more to drive accountability back to parents so that they are encouraged to raise their children properly....
Angus #1: "private schools don't decide the recipients"
Well, according to the ministry: "A student will need to be offered a place at a private secondary school in order to receive one of the scholarships." Sounds an awful lot like the school is the one who decides. Or do private schools have to take anyone if the govt says they do?
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"Don't expect to see many barefoot, brown kids from Otara and Porirua taking up these scholarships.
Roy's policy is similar to the TIE (Targeted Individual Entitlement) scheme the National Party introduced in the 1990s whereby private schools were able to pick and choose students they wanted with the government paying."
Have you actually read about the scheme John? Private schools don't decide the recipients - the Government has set the criteria for children from low-income families.