Q+A: Corin Dann interviews Catherine Isaac and Ian Leckie
Q+A: Corin Dann interviews Catherine Isaac and Ian
Leckie.
Teacher unions will
“discourage” members from teaching in charter schools,
but “too soon” to say if they’d blacklist members.
Leckie: Use of unregistered teachers mean
government can’t guarantee child safety or teacher
quality.
Isaac: For-profit schools have “better
ideas” and are “more innovative” when it comes to
teaching struggling children: “That is where you find most
innovations. It’s less common in the state sector.”
Isaac: Most charter schools will be run by
non-profit groups, however: “I’d be surprised if too
many profit-making schools are seeking to do this.”
Unions fear charter schools will appeal to “fringe
groups” keen to avoid the curriculum and do as they like.
But Isaacs says “I think it will be most surprising if
anything that looks vaguely… wacky is not going to get
over the line”.
Leckie: “Unqualified teachers
certainly have no place in education.”
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Q + A – August 5, 2012
CATHERINE ISAAC and IAN LECKIE
Interviewed by CORIN DANN
CORIN
If I could start with you first, Catherine. What is
different about these charter schools than I guess the
private schools, the alternative schools that we already
have in the system that already cater for different
students? And I’m thinking Montessoris or whatever.
CATHERINE ISAAC – Charter Schools Working Group Chair
Well, these schools are primarily about doing something
about New Zealand’s terrible rate of educational failure.
That’s the crux of it. And so these schools are a way for
the state to partner with community organisations or other
non-governmental private-sector organisations who are able
to work with disadvantaged children to help get them over
the line. That’s those children who are among the 31% of
New Zealand kids who do not get the basic qualification that
you need to enter the workforce or to go on to further
training.
CORIN
But how is it different, say, from Destiny, which has
expressed an interest in charter schools. It’s already got
a school working, presumably, targeting kids that it feels
needs some help, so how would it be different?
MS
ISAAC Well, what is
different is that these schools are going to get greater
freedom to innovate, to find different ways of engaging with
children who are struggling to learn, and you need more
opportunities, more freedom, more innovation in that area,
and at the other end, much stronger accountability. So if
they don’t achieve the results that they set out to
achieve, they will be closed.
CORIN
Let’s get to unregistered teachers. Ian Leckie, can they
achieve those results? Can they meet national standards with
a high percentage of unregistered teachers?
IAN
LECKIE – NZEI President
Absolutely not, and I think, you know, quite clearly the
gloves are off, really, when we say these schools can
operate and anyone can be a teacher; anyone in a primary
school can teach every subject and do it well. Unqualified
teachers certainly have no place in education, and quite
clearly I think every parent’s expectation that they
should be able to send their child to school knowing
they’re going to be interacting directly with
professionals in the teaching role is an absolute must in
New Zealand’s education system, and part of why New
Zealand is doing so well in the world scene.
CORIN
Will your union allow teachers from your union to go and
work in schools with unregistered teachers? Will it allow
them to go and work in charter schools?
MR
LECKIE Where and how people
are employed, where and how our members are employed in
charter schools, certainly they are our members, and we’ll
continue to support our members in that environment.
CORIN
But if you’re so opposed to charter schools and believe
this is such a dangerous move, surely you couldn’t
tolerate union members being in those schools.
MR
LECKIE We would discourage
it, and absolutely—
CORIN
Would you blacklist them?
MR
LECKIE That’s a question I
probably can’t answer at this time, but I think quite
clearly what it does put on members of ours and qualified
teachers is the huge amount of support they’re going to
have to give their unqualified partners in these schools.
CORIN
But is it such a big issue that you would consider
blacklisting it? Is it that divisive in your mind?
MR LECKIE It’s
certainly divisive. Whether we would blacklist, you know, I
think you have to think carefully, because the bottom line
of anything that happens in education is children. Where we
are totally opposed is putting unregistered teachers in
front of children and expecting that to happen.
CORIN
OK, Catherine, let’s talk about unregistered teachers in
some detail. How many unregistered teachers would there be
in a school?
MS
ISAAC Well, look,
first of all I think I can put Ian’s mind at rest on this.
I think this is being quite misunderstood and
misinterpreted. You’re not going to have a sponsor come
along, get a charter and then go off and do whatever they
like. They will have to come up with a plan that indicates
how they are going to get these children over the line, what
their specialisation might be and, for example, it is
something like outdoor pursuits or a trades academy or an
area like that where there are people who may not be
qualified teachers, but who would be excellent in that
field—
CORIN
Right, so for the core roles, they’ll be registered?
MS ISAAC
For the core roles, for sure they will be top-quality
teachers.
CORIN
But this is the issue, isn’t it? Because if they’re
profit organisations potentially running a charter school,
how do they make their money if it’s not by having a
percentage of unregistered teachers they can pay less?
MS ISAAC
Well, it’s not our business to know how they’re making a
profit, and in fact I’d be surprised if too many
profit-making schools are seeking to do this. Most of the
groups who are interested – and there are many – are
community organisations, iwi, Pasifika groups and churches,
and they want to see their kids do better.
CORIN
Sure, but to do you envisage a situation where the school
can pay a small number of top-quality registered teachers
higher wages than they’re getting in the current state
system and then have a high number of unregistered teachers
they can pay less?
MS
ISAAC I think it’s
most unlikely that they’d have a high number of
unregistered teachers. I think you will find a lot of
teachers are interested in this. I mean, I keep running into
teachers – last week, for instance, a teacher in a school
approached me privately and said she’s a staunch union
member, but she doesn’t agree with the union on this
position. She thinks they’re a great idea. She thinks
they’re a chance for kids to do better than they’re
doing now and she would like to teach in one. So I think
there's a lot of interest there.
CORIN
Ian, your members – are you hearing that as well?
MR LECKIE I’m sure
you’ll find one teacher somewhere that thinks it’s a
good idea—
MS
ISAAC No, it’s more
than one.
MR
LECKIE ...but I think
we’ve also got to quite clearly see that the UMR poll that
said 86% of parents do not what their children put in front
of untrained teachers quite clearly—
MS
ISAAC But they are
now, aren’t they?
MR
LECKIE No, absolutely not.
There are occasionally temporary untrained teachers who are
in schools for a very limited period of time, so let’s be
quite clear. There aren’t lots of untrained teachers in
primary schools. They are there for a temporary period of
time before they then must train, and they must be
registered all the way through. Here, these teachers don’t
even have to be registered, so the controls over quality,
the controls over safety, the controls over access of these
people into schools cannot be guaranteed, and, you know, if
you add the other freedoms – that we don’t have to stick
to the New Zealand curriculum, we can bring in our own
curriculum, we can bring in our own staff – quite clearly
the freedoms, say, the fringe groups will absolutely appeal
to, because you can go in and do what you like.
CORIN
But we know, and as Catherine— They’re going to be
closely monitored. So what's the problem? Because they’re
going to be stringently monitored to make sure that
they’re meeting those standards, and we’ve heard from
the Prime Minister they’ll be shut down. Catherine, you
obviously feel that those measures are going to be tough.
MS ISAAC
They are. They’ll be very tough, yeah.
CORIN
So can I come back to the issue of profit? Because are you
ruling out that there’ll be any profit-seeking
organisations?
MS
ISAAC No, I’m not.
I’m not.
CORIN
I’m sure this is an issue which many New Zealanders will
feel uncomfortable – the idea that taxpayer money is being
given to a school like this and they can somehow make money
from that. Can you explain to me how they would make money?
MS ISAAC
Well, in some cases, and this has been demonstrated in
overseas examples, for-profit organisations do do well with
some of these children. They are more innovative. They tend
to have, you know, just better ideas and ways of doing
things. That is where you find most innovations. It’s less
common in the state sector. So we’re wanting to access
that and give those organisations an opportunity to do
better for these kids. That’s the main idea. But can I
just come back to the registered teachers? Because if, for
example, a Willie Apiata or a Tana Umaga or someone like
that was to come forward and say, “Yes, I will run your
outdoor pursuits academy,” are you going to turn them
down?
MR LECKIE
They’re very good role models, but they also have to teach
literacy and numeracy—
MS
ISAAC Well, they’re
not going to be teaching that.
MR
LECKIE ...and science and so
on. In primary schools, we don’t have outdoor pursuits
teachers or outdoor pursuits people. Can he come into a
school? He can do that now, and we would encourage good role
models to be in front of our children, but, Corin, you’ve
got to remember this is a failed model of overseas, and the
announcements around the parameters of these charter schools
are exactly the same as the States.
CORIN
Well, that’s debatable as to whether it’s failed. There
is some evidence that shows some have failed, but some that
show that they’re working.
MR
LECKIE 17% of the charter
schools in the States are better than their counterparts.
36% are worse or considerably worse. The model is the same
that’s been imported. The rules of these schools are the
same as the American ones.
CORIN
Do you agree with that, Catherine?
MS
ISAAC No, that’s not
correct, actually. For example, there are 42 different
models of charter schools in the States. There are different
models again in the UK and in Sweden and in other countries.
What we have taken here is the best of the best. We’ve
looked at the most successful models. We’ve looked at what
works. We’ve also looked at what really works here, and
there are many success stories here. We’ve put that
together and come up with a model that we think is excellent
and will work here.
CORIN
There just seems to be a disconnect here, because the
government around that issue around teacher class sizes was
saying teacher quality is the most fundamental way to lift
standards in education in this country. And yet we’re
bringing in a system which allows unprofessional teachers.
MS ISAAC
Well, you’ve got to look at it like this – in the
community already, there are some very talented, gifted
people working with these disadvantaged children outside the
education sector. This is a way of tapping into some of that
resource. For example, a colleague of mine who’s an
accomplished artist teaches drawing in a school. She was
invited to go and do that in her kids’ school. And they
love it. The children are really engaged in that. She does
it as a volunteer. She’s not a trained teacher, but she's
very good at it. And why not access those people who are
willing to pitch in and do something to help these kids
engage, to ignite their interest in learning?
CORIN
Do you have any criteria when it comes to faith-based
schools? You know, transcendental meditation has been one
that’s been talked about that’s keen on a charter
school. Does it matter if they have a particular ideology or
faith?
MS
ISAAC I think the
important thing is can they deliver a high-quality
education? Can they deliver science, technology, English,
maths? Will the children who come out of those schools be
able to read and write and—?
CORIN
Well, you mentioned science. Are they going to have a
quality education if they come out having also learned about
intelligent design? Are you comfortable with that alongside
the normal science methods?
MS
ISAAC I think that
what you’ll see is that sponsors will come forward with
proposals for how they want to do that – and they’re
already lining up and we haven’t even put out a request
for proposals – and the government is going to look very,
very carefully at those, so I think it will be most
surprising if anything that looks vaguely...
CORIN
Too wacky. Yep.
MS
ISAAC ...wacky is not
going to get over the line.
CORIN
Ian, just a quick final word from you on that. Are you
worried about faith-based organisations? We’ve got them
already.
MR
LECKIE We have them already
and schools of special character already exist, and the
question why we need charter schools for anybody who has got
a particular view or ideology that drives education – I
mean, in the end, what we’ve got is every teacher in New
Zealand in our high-quality system goes in to their
classroom every day, not with the express view to fail
children, but with the express view that every child in
their classroom succeeds. What you’re adding to the mix
now are a whole lot of freedoms around what's taught, a
whole lot of freedoms around who we put in front of
children. There are huge amounts of risks for that. I
don’t think anybody wants untrained, unqualified people in
front of our classes.
CORIN
OK, Ian Leckie, thank you. Now, Catherine, just finally, is
it disappointing—? Are you disappointed that John Banks
couldn’t come on this morning and front this issue? I
mean, he’s your minister, your person in Parliament. We
were pretty disappointed that he couldn’t come on.
MS ISAAC I
couldn’t comment on that. I’m not sure why he couldn’t
come on. I haven’t discussed that with him.
CORIN
Well, it seems to be... Our feeling is that he’s
reluctant, because he may be asked questions about the saga,
of course, that’s been running over donations. And why
I’m asking you this question is because does that make him
an ineffectual minister to be fronting this flagship policy
of your party’s?
MS
ISAAC I’m sure
you’ll find he’ll be fronting it.
CORIN
So he won’t—? Does that mean he’d be—?
MS
ISAAC Well, I can’t
speak for him, of course, but he’s very positive about
this policy. He’s extremely excited about it, and I’m
sure you’ll see him appearing as often as he can.
CORIN
But as a high-ranking party member, can you speak for the
party? It must be disappointing.
MS
ISAAC I can’t speak
for the party I’m not an official of the party, so I
can’t speak for the party. But I think that you will find
that John Banks will be a powerful advocate for this policy.
CORIN
Do you think he’s been unfairly treated by the media and
others?
MS
ISAAC I don’t have a
view on that
CORIN
You don’t have a view at all?
MS
ISAAC I don’t.
MR LECKIE
Absolutely no mandate for it, either, Corin. 1% of the
population voted for ACT and here is a total change to the
national education system being introduced on the basis of
no mandate. I think we’re all concerned.
CORIN
Alright, Ian Leckie, thank you very much, from the NZEI.
Thanks, much appreciated. And Catherine Isaac, thank you
very much.
ENDS