Friday, August 3, 2012

Charter Schools. Or More Privatisation of the Commons.

Kia-ora

New Zealand's National Government has legislated yesterday to follow the USA with the failed Charter School experiment.

Charter schools are simply a means to break the last vestige of trade union rights and to give the private sector  access to  tax dollars spent on education.

The private sector that is so good at education that most private schools had to be bailed out by tax payers.

Note; that despite all the tax payer dollars and effort  poured into charter schools in the USA,  83% do not do any better than State schools. The majority do worse. Given the poor performance of State schooling in the USA generally that is not a recommendation. (Stanford University Study)

Why follow the disaster that is schooling and health in the USA.

We will see a few initial Potemkin charter schools do well, then the poor results of others will be buried.

They will not have any better results than resourcing State schools properly, to use already proven programs to reduce the tail. Successful programs such as remedial reading and Teacher aids in every classroom are being starved of funds so the Government can fund ideological nightmares such as charter schools.

If NACT was serious about bringing up educational achievement they would be working on reducing child poverty and funding extra help at early primary level for those falling behind, instead of gifting the private sector  money out of  education funding.

If the private sector are so good at education why don't they start their own schools. Wait! they did. We are paying to bail them out right now!

 

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