Petrol Poured on Fire with Charter School Terms of Reference

Associate Professor Peter O'Connor
Director, Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre
University of Auckland

Petrol Poured on Fire with Charter School Terms of Reference Release

The Ministry of Education probably has enough on its plates at the moment without the extra turmoil that will be created by the announcement today of the terms of reference for the government’s charter schools working group.

The newly released terms of reference make it clear that legislation will be required to enforce the experiment on the poorest communities across New Zealand. Charter schools will not have to teach our nationally developed and internationally acclaimed curriculum, not will teachers have to be fully qualified to teach in the schools. National standards might not apply to these new schools. However, to guarantee student achievement I imagine following recent announcements from the Ministry that classroom sizes will be very high.

To achieve all this however, the terms of reference make it clear that legislative change is required. This means that if parents and the community are hoping things are going to quiet down in the education sector they are badly mistaken.

ENDS

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