It amazes me the arrogance and ignorance of some people.
Just read the comments to see the myriad of people all wondering what Labour’s problem with charter schools are.
If they’re making a difference, and they’re meeting the needs of some kids, then surely that’s a good thing, regardless of how they get there? Right?
Sure.
Except, how do they get there.
Entire schools, using tax payer money to be set up and run, with ‘special character’, which in this case includes class sizes of no more than 15.
Okay. Let’s break it down.
Let’s say that the Ministry of Education has $10,000 dollars to give to all schools to run for the year. Realistically it’s much more than this, but my ‘0’ key is starting to wear out…
From this pool of money, $7,000 is given to the state sector to teach and to raise achievement and pay the teachers and try to make educational outcomes in the positive. $3,000 is given to charter schools to do what they want with it.
However. There are 14 state schools using the $7,000, and only 2 charter schools using the $3,000. Let’s break this down. Each state school gets $500, and each charter school gets 3 times that.
Now… Because the state schools are given a class size of 28 students, this works out to be $17 per student.
Because the charter schools can state that their class sizes be no bigger than 15, this works out to be $100 per student.
Now… This isn’t the issue that those of us in the state sector have an issue with. The issue is that there is an unfair playing field being created between the public sector and charter schools which are a mish-mash of private/public. The trouble being that not every student can go to a charter school and access that amazing resource.
And in the meantime, that $3000 could have been going into the state system to provide similar benefits of smaller class sizes to every school, to every student, not just the few that manage to live near or get accepted into charter schools.
I guess it comes down to one thing…
Don’t read the comments!
Source: Two Auckland charter schools still have no idea if they will be open next year | Stuff.co.nz