More money down the charter school black hole

14 August 2015

Following a Budget in which public schools effectively got a cut in their operational funding and no allowance was made for long overdue teacher pay increases, more money is still being poured into a new round of charter schools.

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Louise Green said it was outrageous to push on with this highly controversial and increasingly failing experiment when the money would be far better spent supporting students in their current schools.

"Charter schools are an appalling waste of resources, especially as so much money has been salted away by the operating trusts, misused or spent on high salaries for executives," she said.

"Our most vulnerable children are the guinea pigs in this ideological experiment, which has been a disaster so far. They deserve so much better. If this extra money was spent in existing schools, teachers would have the resources to help many more children.

"The tweaks to the model simply acknowledge that charter schools have been unfairly advantaged through greater funding, but the changes still don't address the fundamental failure of this approach, including the political failure to close a failing school."

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