Herald on charter schools

The Herald editorial:

The announcement yesterday of the framework for this country’s model for charter schools did nothing to quell the indignation of opponents. Indeed, they were supplied with new information to fuel their opposition, most notably the fact that charter schools – or partnership schools, as the Government wants them to be known – will be able to employ teachers without qualifications.

“You wouldn’t let an untrained doctor treat your child, or let anyone design your house,” retorted Labour’s education spokeswoman, Nanaia Mahuta. She would have been better served to save criticism for other, more questionable aspects of the framework.

Unlike public schools which children are forced to go to, because they live nearby, no child will be forced to go to a charter school, against their parents wishes. Parents will weigh up if they think the teaching quality is good enough.

A university has said it is interested in running charter schools. Technically university lecturers are not qualified teachers. Are we saying that a maths lecturer could not also teach some maths classes at school?

If an All Black was willing to do a couple of PE sessions every week, would you turn that down?

Basically you have to judge each school’s use of non “qualified” staff on an individual basis.

I like the fact that charter schools will have to accept every pupil who applies, so no cherry picking. And if more applications than places, then random ballots will be used.

I’m willing to bet that more than a few charter schools will have to use ballots, as there will be so many applications.