PRESS RELEASE
for immediate release
Libertarianz Party
Education

Dunne a 'Quisling' on Charter Schools

Libertarianz Party leader Richard McGrath came out all guns blazing at United Future leader Peter Dunne's dramatic about-face on charter schools, labelling him "the Teachers Council's tame poodle".

"When the issue of charter schools arose, our party was immediately supportive of allowing competition in education and challenging the stranglehold by teachers' unions over what choices are available to parents and their children."

"Our party remains firmly in favour of giving parents and children the right to decide how they are educated. Peter Dunne's backsliding, gutless treachery and total surrender to the teachers' unions is typical of his party's unprincipled populist stand on important issues."

"He is clearly more interested in keeping in with the NZEI and other voting blocs than in letting New Zealanders choose a style of teaching for their children that is remotely at variance with the one-size-fits-all teacher-centric state education system."

"Peter Dunne, you are now owned by the teachers union - I hope you are proud of your abandonment of those children doomed to failure in the current politically correct, inflexible and increasingly useless network of detention centres for the young."

"There are some wonderful teachers out there who could do achieve so much good working in schools specialised to the needs of their pupils. Unfortunately, such teachers are constrained by the rules of their protectionist trade unions and training bodies who are terrified of losing their tightly-held monopoly on teacher qualifications and jobs along with the billions of dollars of taxpayer funding thrown at public education."

"Teacher qualifications are a smokescreen being utilised by universities, NZEI and PPTA to disguise an undignified grab for money and power that Dunne is now aiding and abetting."

"If charter schools are so bad, why not give them a limited trial for a year or two in order to to demonstrate just how terrible they are? The education establishment is fearful of any competition and clearly view the prospect of charter schools with considerable alarm, as their own deficiencies are likely to be exposed to public scrutiny."

"Peter Dunne appears to forget that in a free education market, bad and incompetent teachers and school are more likely to be ruthlessly and rapidly weeded out, as pupils and parents can more easily vote with their feet and take their education funding elsewhere if they are unhappy with a particular school."

"The bottom line is not what letters a teacher has after his or her name, but whether he or she can engage with pupils and keep them keen to learn and hungry for knowledge. Such skills aren't learnt at teacher training colleges and universities. And having a politically driven national curriculum which propagates, for instance, the nonsense of anthropogenic global warming - the fallacy that humans play a significant role in climate change and that economic sanctions should be enforced to address human production of greenhouse gases - is so wrong as to be bordering on criminal."

"It is imperative that the education market be opened up in every way; that children cease to be political pawns; and that power and funding be wrested away from teacher unions and training colleges and placed back where it belongs, in the hands of education consumers."

ENDS

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