Letting poor schools persist

Stuff reports:

Some Kiwi children are leaving school having being failed for their entire education, a new report reveals.

School quality reports from the Education Review Office (ERO) reveal as of June last year 185 schools were in ERO’s worst performing category.

Of those schools, one-third were “persistent” poor performers and some had repeatedly failed students for at least a decade – spanning the entire schooling career of their students, says the New Zealand Initiative report.

That kind of underperformance wouldn’t be tolerated in other sectors but is “accepted in education”.

“If restaurants were repeatedly failing hygiene standards or if hospitals were constantly killing patients they’d be shut down. But we accept it with schools,” says NZ Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich.

Only in state schools. The good thing about the charter school model is a poorly performing charter school gets shut down. While there appear to be around 60 state schools that have been persistently failing – yet carry on.