The Press reports that Anne Tolley is seeing one of the key actors in the failed US voucher system implementation.
Vouchers privatise the education system – leaving state schools and poorer /middle income families struggling in a second class system.
Our strong state led system is one of the reasons our results are so much better than Australia, UK and US who all are way behind us on most international measures.
If this is Tolley’s next move then bring on the debate.
Vouchers privatise the education system – leaving state schools and poorer /middle income families struggling in a second class system.
You think?
Do you really believe a boys educated at Christ’s College, say, don’t do markedly better as a rule, in worldly terms anyway, than boys educated at a lower decile state school (naming no names to protect the guilty)?
I don’t like that this is so any more than you do but the real question is how do we maximize the opportunities for every child?
And I suggest that “vouchers” may be the way that Kids may be provided access to “elite” schools where the doors would be otherwise closed due to lack of parental resource.
Might I also suggest that a bit of healthy competition amongst “education providers” might actually lift the game of some of the poorer providers and sharpen their focus on teaching what is important to the future success of their alumni.
Andrei – you might suggest all that but it doesn’t make it true or indeed even an improvement to what we currently have.
Tolley’s thinking and actions are all consistent commercialisation and elitisation (if it’s not a word then it should be) of our education system – not just children but across the board. Neither of these things, in the unchecked and unbalanced world of NACT, are good for New Zealand.
Adrei :- “I don’t like that this is so any more than you do but the real question is how do we maximize the opportunities for every child?”
We agree on the objective which is the same as that articulated by Beeby/Fraser.
What I don’t understand is how selling schools and sending kids all over town depending on parental abilty to supplement the voucher, and which school is fashionable this year, actually does that. Transaction costs enormous, wasted physical resources worse than currently the case and system instability debilitating.
As for your Christ’s College example – you need to tell us whether you are talking about value add or final scores. Christ’s results are ok but given the academic levels of the kids they start with and the relatively low proportion of kids with the issues many low and middle income families face what is there in those results that surprises you.
Be prepared to hear a LOT from Tolley about how ‘even Sweden uses vouchers’!
Danyl, you beat me to it.
Trevor, who is talking about selling shcools?
Danyl, you beat me to it.
The big difference is that the Swedish system prevents private schools from charging top up fees. They get paid the same per student as a public school.
Trevor:”Christ’s results are ok but given the academic levels of the kids they start with and the relatively low proportion of kids with the issues many low and middle income families face what is there in those results that surprises you.”
Decades ago Lockwood was the Min of Ed and making public statements re State/Private school standards. I suggested to him then that given the entry level advantages of those entering Private Schools, it is quite possible that they were under-performing. It did give him pause but not for long.
I think that Hattie says that the school you go to is not a major factor. Self-motivation, and parental attitude much more important.
Vouchers have been incredibly succesful in the poorer parts of the States where the state system was failing kids badly. They are really popular with parents and hated by the teachers union.
I have two boys, one is incredibly bright and will be off to uni to do chemistry, the other struggled and wants to be a builder.We as parents had no choice but to send them both to the same school which was hopeless, why couldnt I have a voucher and send them to seperate schools that could have catered to their different needs ? Answer the unions wouldnt like it.
We have a system that fails a large percentage of our kids so why not.
@ Gooner 1.44pm – unless someone is going to build a whole pile of new schools then moving some to the private sector is the only way to get a voucher system going
@Ianmac Your observation to Lockwood was of course accurate. I think what Hattie inter alia has shown is that difference in progress within schools is greater than difference between schools. The most important change we can make is in supporting and developing our teachers.
@ David As above – but also important were the management systems. The vouchered schools became much more like our self managing state schools and the principals were liberated to get on with a focus on improving teaching and learning rather than everything being dictated by a massive organisation responsible for hundreds of schools.
@ Trevor, okay, no longer confused – the land and infrastructure will still exist; the transferring of ownership from the State to the private sector is a philosophical question that we’d disagree on obviously.
@ David One other point – in NZ unlike most of the US we don’t have a strict zoning system. Unless one is rural area – where even vouchers wouldn’t give a choice of schools, the only restriction happens when a school is full. People living in the neighbourhood get first choice, siblings get second and any spare places are sorted by ballot. Lots of families send kids to different schools for exactly the reason you outlined.
[Duplicate comment deleted, was being automatically held in moderation (your first comment on the blog perhaps?). Should be fine from now on - admin]
Research shows that Christ’s College and other fee paying schools in Chch do well in league tables – but their students, relatively, flounder if they go on to University. No research can’t be challenged. These results come from the Education Dept., Univ of Canterbury, some years back. Academic but also public knowledge. The Chch Press reported this survey because it’s a burning issue for some of its readers. Outsiders are still often asked what school they went to and told that X or Y went to Christ’s or Rangi even if they have not sought this information and don’t know what to do with it. Mrs Tolley will be supported on vouchers. Didn’t the current editor of The Listener write that tho she grew up in a working class suburb, she won a scholarship to St Margaret’s? (For those who neither know nor care, that’s one of the fee paying schools for girls but no-one in their right mind would go there hoping for a better education than they would get in their neighbourhood school). It’s not really my concern. i lived in Chch for a while. My kids were sometimes encouraged to sit for scholarships. I didn’t stop them. Unlike Pamela Stirling[?] and Ann Tolley they weren’t very enterprising. Still, they went on to do well enough at university.
Jenny. A study was done measuring kids in the first year at university. The summary was that those ex Private schools had the highest failure rate, then the single sex schools, and the highest success coming from ex coed schools. There was not much point in counting the pass rate of school exams in each group because the private schools had the high advantaged kids to start with. This study was done years ago and I cannot point to the data- just memory.
Also an article in North and South in the 90′s proudly claimed that the high exam pass rate at Auckland Boys Grammar was because they trained the boys in exam techniques and each boy would have sat practice exams at least 40 times before the real ones. Sort of rote learning?
Hello David! “why couldnt I have a voucher and send them to seperate schools that could have catered to their different needs ? Answer the unions wouldnt like it.”
In my town there has been a constant effort by competing schools to fight for publicity and to create image in order to support roll, and hence funding.
I consider it has been really damaging to the co-ed school I work that numbers of more able students choose to go single-sex because their anxious middle-class families perceive the outcomes as ‘better’ according to the sort of simplistic league table comparisons offered through the media.
Ironically we see a steady stream of students choosing to come to us in the upper forms because of their awareness of the school’s responsiveness to, and more human face for, the students.They realise that we do cater for ‘different needs’.
However, as a mid-decile school our results on a straight numerical comparison are below the other high-decile schools; we lack the accumulated wealth of the other schools; we have a less wealthy parent body;our sports teams don’t succeed as often; we have significantly poorer resourcing and equipment; we have a higher proportion of high demand students (behaviourally & learning impaired), and so on.
Since the early nineties I have watched our school struggle to stay afloat as suburban growth moved to the other side of the city, and as zoning restrictions were loosened and as two local integrated schools increased their roll entitlements by over a third (against a background of falling church attendance- I know because I saw the evidence on Sundays).
So have full parental choice by all means. Bring in vouchers too. And watch while some kids are trapped in schools which are crashing and burning. I know. I’ve been there. I am still there today while ours fights to fly again. (We did cream the maths and scince fairs this year- because we have a small group of bright motivated and proud students in Year 10:) )
I love teaching bright senior kids but accept that I often end up with some ropey seniors in my classes. Kids at my school are harder to teach by a long way than were those at the Boys’ High when I taught there. But I’m still here.
And my Union is the main source of my professionalism (and of educational leadership till it was effectively disengaged from professional influence in the post-Picot mess.So save your cheap shots.
Make your choices but recognise that nothing’s free. The Tolleys of this world were given their chances and taken them.Why should they condemn the poorer sections of our communities to unsupported and under-resourced education I cannot understand. Maybe they think they deserve it?
How NZ will build a future on a culture of winner and loser schools I do not know.
I have several problems with a voucher system.
While it apparently provides “schooling choice” for those who feel the need to go to a school that is either private or previously would have been in another zone, what about the kids who are left with their local school, because they can’t afford to commute? What happens to them and their school when they are left behind once those who would rather be in and are able to get to a farther away school take their demand elsewhere?
In the market situation created, are schools really going to have any incentive to provide for one or two disabled children attending the school? I know their money goes there with the voucher, but some of the costs involved in providing for disabled students would outweigh this.
“Richer” schools will always demand more money from students to top up their vouchers, people are kidding themselves if they think that this is going to solve any sort of “gap”. It simply takes funding and the right to education away from those who need them most.
“Ianmac says:
Also an article in North and South in the 90’s proudly claimed that the high exam pass rate at Auckland Boys Grammar was because they trained the boys in exam techniques and each boy would have sat practice exams at least 40 times before the real ones. Sort of rote learning?”
Private schools these days (well as of 4 years ago, I’m getting old!) also have their students resit internal assessments multiple times if they are not getting merits or in some cases excellence.
You are also right in what you were saying above Ian, fundamentally education is a service not a product, while there is a small amount to be gained from going to “the right schools” (see the comment about Christs and Rangi above), what really counts is how much smarter a school can make students.
While I’m sure private schools would like additional government funding in the form of vouchers, one must wonder what would happen to their high levels of performance once the “riff raff” are let it. Which raises another issue, additional government funding should also mean additional government input and oversight, I for one, am uneasy about govt funded religious education.
Finally from a macro view point, what will vouchers really do? They are just another way of allocating kids to schools, all we will see is a shuffling around. Act says they give parents the freedom to send their children to the school they want them to, that is just silly. You can go to an out of zone school through the ballot system, there is still going to be the same number of students wanting the same limited number of spaces in popular schools, weather this is through zoning or ballots.
Living in Burwood, Christchurch I only had two choices for high school one was Aranui which appears to do a great job but not in areas I felt were particularly good career wise. The other was Mairehau which has had huge issues but apparently is much better with a new principal. Neither of these schools were any good and I had to buy a house in the Shirley Boys school zone.
Of all the things the Nats have ever done their deal with Christine Fletcher to re-introduce zoning was the worst.
I have no issue with the teachers or any other union at all I just think that as a parent I know my children better than anyone and I should be trusted to send them to a school that will help them develop as young men and help them into a good career. I cant see why as a taxpayer I cant take my childrens funding and spend it where I think is best.
A bit more competition from the private sector/charitable trust is a system that has lots of merit, particularly for the less well off who cant afford to move into the right zone.
I well recall standing a checkout queue in a US supermarket and the checkout operator telling the buyer (who was using food stamps – ie: a voucher) that chocolates were not able to be bought using food stamps.
I thought “thats what we need”
When I got to the checkout I asked about the stamps. No chocolates, no alcohol, and No to a whole list of what we call luxury items.
Best thing I ever saw (and theres not a lot in US to get excited about).
Bring on vouchers.
LOL Barry.
-Read the thread before posting.
Vouchers are an excellent way of increasing the gap between rich and poor. The poor schools aren’t working? Let’s send the poor kids to a rich school! They’ll get a better education there and they might learn how to create inter-generational wealth and then learn how to exploit the poor people they left behind when they got given a voucher!
What about the kids that don’t get vouchers? Do all kids get vouchers? Then what would happen to the schools in poor suburbs? – They would close down. House prices in the area would drop and crime would rise.
All part of National’s secret agenda to ghettoize New Zealand.
I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding about how vouchers work. All kids do get vouchers – parents, grandparents or banks supplement those vouchers to pay for school fees – obviously much higher is schools perceived as being better. Probably no supplements in poorer areas.
Then what would happen to the schools in poor suburbs? – They would close down
They might sharpen their act – they might even sharpen it enough to attract kids with their vouchers from richer areas.
Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books
Pretty hard to do when funding stream has been collapsed.
Read all the thread, Andrei.
<blockquote.The big difference is that the Swedish system prevents private schools from charging top up fees. They get paid the same per student as a public school.
Plus the Swedish system had nothing like the existing diversity or transparency of the NZ system. Tolley et al may bang on about Sweden, but outside the DC experiment, I’m not aware of a study that shows positive educational outcomes from vouchers. That’s possibly worth considering given the excellent relative and absolute performance of NZ schools by international measures.