If ‘Better Starts Now’, why can’t Labour let schools innovate? – Jonathan Ayling
This week, Pakaraka School in Northland became the first state school to convert to a charter school. Having introduced a Steiner classroom two years ago, the community wanted greater freedom to build on what was working. In a survey conducted by its new governing trust, more than 95% of respondents supported the change; not one response favoured remaining a state school.
This sounds precisely like the sort of local initiative politicians routinely praise, yet Labour has promised to abolish the charter school model. Again.
This seemingly small dispute illustrates a central difference in how political parties view the role of government. Ensuring every child receives a good education is one thing. Insisting that publicly funded schools operate within a particular institutional model is quite another. Does responsibility for ensuring something is provided mean government must also determine how it is delivered?
Charter schools are not a retreat from public education. They remain publicly funded, are accountable for student achievement and attendance (arguably even more than state schools), and face consequences if they fail to meet their obligations. What distinguishes them is the freedom for parents and schools to determine how they educate students, rather than having to operate within the conventional state-school model.
These differences are practical, not merely philosophical. Charter schools can choose their own curriculum, organise the school day differently, and make staffing and employment arrangements suited to their particular approach. These may sound like administrative differences, but they shape what happens between teachers and students every day. They also explain why telling an alternative school simply to fit within the conventional system isn’t necessarily an answer to what makes it different.
At Pakaraka, the children will keep the same teachers, school leaders and classrooms. What has changed is their community’s freedom to shape the teaching they receive.
Already, this freedom is allowing schools to pursue quite different approaches: Māori language and culture, sport, online learning, or classical education, as we do at Altum Classical Academy – I should declare an interest here: I helped establish a charter school in Wellington, and chair the charitable trust sponsoring it.
We favour a classical approach to education, while other schools have different priorities. That’s the point. Different families also have different priorities. Different children have different needs. It seems obvious that different models should be part of the solution, then.
Labour’s opposition to charter schools has frequently been presented as a question of cost and accountability. Yet figures from the Charter School Agency show that, for an equivalent-sized primary school, the model provides $8278 a pupil, compared with a 2024 state-school average of $8762. Property and centrally provided services are excluded, so these are not comprehensive cost comparisons, but these figures (which show charter schools nearly $500 cheaper per student) certainly challenge the assumption that greater educational freedom must come at greater expense.
There is no reason to expect every charter school to succeed, any more than every state school does. What matters is whether students are learning and schools are held accountable for their results. That is the whole point of this model. But Labour’s proposal to abolish the charter school model regardless of how individual schools perform suggests its objection is not principally about educational outcomes, which should be our priority, but about ideology.
Disagreement within Labour’s own ranks makes its position all the more curious.
Willie Jackson helped establish a charter school through the Manukau Urban Māori Authority and has acknowledged that the earlier model helped Māori children. Rakesh Naidoo, a prominent Labour candidate and former police superintendent, is a board member of New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa, also a charter school. Even Chris Hipkins himself, last week, conceded to Mike Hosking that some charter schools are doing “interesting things”, and that some are “good”. He argued they could do those things inside the conventional public system.
But that is surely the question. If greater independence is part of exactly what has made this approach possible, why remove it?
That answer exposes the wider political difference. Labour’s instinct is to keep innovation within the institutions government controls. But many Kiwis know that government can accept responsibility for a public good without taking ownership of every institution that delivers it. All public funding should come with demanding standards and accountability, but it doesn’t need to require uniformity. On the contrary, let’s innovate, try something new (alongside parents and educators who trust it’ll work) and give families choice.
We see the same question in the economy. Ministers can announce programmes to help with today’s bills, but they cannot decree the investment, enterprise and productivity tomorrow’s prosperity depends on. These only emerge from decisions individuals make in businesses and communities every day. The same is true of much that makes a society compassionate. Families, churches and charities do work Wellington cannot simply replace. Government has a role, but its success should be measured by what it helps society achieve, not simply by what it delivers itself.
Labour promises that “Better Starts Now”. Maybe, but it won’t always start in Wellington.
Across charter schools, we had already started. Parents and teachers have chosen different directions for their schools. Not every school will deliver everything they hope, but surely we should judge the schools by the outcomes they achieve for their children.
Disclosure: Jonathan Ayling is the executive chair of the Altum Academic Charitable Trust, a not-for-profit that owns Altum Classical Academy, a charter school in Wilton, Wellington. He also sits on the Board of Governors for the school. He is involved in advocating for school choice and innovation in education.
Jonathan Ayling is a strategy consultant and professional director. He is the former chief executive of the Free Speech Union (NZ), an Act Party supporter and donor, and has worked as a ministerial staffer and senior Parliamentary adviser in both Government and Opposition.
Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter – a weekly round-up of our best commentary.