CHARTER SCHOOLS SPEECH

General Debate

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Hone Harawira - MANA Leader and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau

Mr Speaker – yesterday the house debated ACT’s charter schools bill that the Maori Party voted for. They didn’t speak to it – heck no, they were too embarrassed to do that. Hell, they weren’t even in the house for it and they must have cringed when their National and ACT Party buddies sang their praises over it. But still … they voted for it.

So what’s all the fuss about? It’s because the Maori Party is backing Charter Schools over Kura Kaupapa Māori. That’s what the fuss is all about.

And they know what they’re doing too, because Pete Sharples, Associate Minister of Education with responsibility for Maori Medium Education, and Co-Leader of the Maori Party, is supposed to be the big daddy of Kura Kaupapa Maori.

The Maori Party knows that governments have starved Kura of funding and imposed rules on them that no other school has to adhere to, and yet Kura Kaupapa Maori remain one of the most successful educational initiatives for Maori by Māori, of the last 100 years.

But last night the Maori Party voted with ACT to spend massive amounts of money on Charter Schools, while Kura Kaupapa got bugger all. That’s what the fuss is all about.

Massey University Professor of Education, John O’Neill, said that early indications are that Charter Schools will get more than twice the level of funding as mainstream schools and Kura Kaupapa Maori.

It’s one thing to watch the rich white boys give their mates all the lollies while the poor little Maori kids get by on scraps … it’s bloody embarrassing though having to watch their Maori mates cheer them on, and the Maori Party should be ashamed for turning their backs on Kura Kaupapa Maori. That’s what the fuss is all about.
Maori fought long and hard to establish Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Maori because we know that making a commitment to Te Reo, to whanau, and to Kaupapa Maori, is critical to providing for successful outcomes for Maori students and Kura have proven that to be the case time and time again.

But will the Charter Schools that the Maori Party support make those same commitments? HELL NO!!!

Charter Schools will have no accountability to whanau, no commitment to Te Reo, no responsibility to Te Aho Matua, no obligation to put registered teachers in front of our kids, no transparency under the Official Information Act … and they’re going to get heaps more money than Kura Kaupapa ever got – and the Maori Party supports that? That’s what the fuss is all about.

And Charter Schools won’t have to worry about the Auditor-General’s Office either!

Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu’s submission on the bill says, “overseas experience shows that charter schools are highly susceptible to fraud, waste and abuse” and in her submission, Dr Bronwyn Hayward, political scientist and senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury, referred to the problems of crony capitalism, tax evasion, fraud, and corruption that have plagued charter schools elsewhere, and described them as a “naive and reckless governance model” and the Maori Party is voting for them. That’s what the fuss is all about.

Mainstream schools aren’t exactly pathways to high achievement for Maori students, and clearly there is much to be done to change that, but that’s what the Associate Minister of Education is supposed to be doing - identifying and promoting better models - not backing expensive, high-risk, low accountability charter school ventures that 20 years of research show achieve nothing that can’t be done without them. That’s what the fuss is all about.

The Maori Party talks about how important it is to be at the top table - well, tomorrow we find out whether that’s true or whether it is just a big fat lie to keep them on their big fat salaries and in their big fat limos while delivering a big fat zero on Maori Education.

If tomorrow, the Maori Party can give Kura Kaupapa all that they’re giving to Charter Schools, if they get an extension on the Kotahitanga program in mainstream schools that they brag about so much, and if they get Manaaki Tauira reinstated to help all Maori students get a tertiary education, then they deserve a pat on the back.

If, on the other hand, they don’t achieve these things, then they will have failed, their mantra about being at the top table will have been exposed, and their support for charter schools will be shown up for what it really is - a plea for scraps from a government whose actions prove that Maori issues rank somewhere between nowhere and obscurity.

And that, Mr Speaker, is what this fuss is really all about. Because our kids, all of our kids, deserve the very best in education, not the failed experiment that Charter Schools have proven to be.

ENDS

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