Thursday, October 08, 2015

Whitewashing Charter Schools

When the National government foisted its charter schools on us, they promised that they would be subject to rigorous assessment. But it turns out that that is exactly what they don't want:
The Education Minister shut down comparing student achievement results from charter schools with those of state schools despite ministry advice to do so.

[...]

The ministry's plan was to draw comparisons between the achievement of students in charter schools with a matched group of students in state schools.

Parata scribbled "do not agree" next to the recommendation before signing off on the report, which was passed on to Parliamentary under-secretary for education, David Seymour, who was instructed to notify the board.

In addition to student achievement information, the board had asked that the first phase of the evaluation be deferred while its re-scoped "to better reflect Cabinet's intent".


Which suggests that Parata really isn't very confident that her charter schools would measure up. But if they're not delivering, that's exactly the sort of information we should know, so we can hold the government to account for their failure.