David Seymour: Associate Education Minister on the new targets for charter schools

The Government's announced attendance, achievement, and financial targets for charter schools.  

The schools must meet the targets or risk interventions, including possibly having their contract ended.  

Associate Education Minister David Seymour told Mike Hosking Charter Schools have the same goals as state schools, such as 95% getting NCEA level two and 80% regularly attending.  

He says the difference is they're putting in hard minimums for Charter Schools, and if they don't achieve them, they'll be shut down. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New details back here this morning on how the performance

(00:02):
of charter schools are going to be measured. So we've
got a framework that allegedly will boost student achievement. Pass
rates will be measured using an equity index taking into
account socioeconomic barriers. The Associate Education Minister, the man behind
charter schools, of course, is David see morning. He's with us.
Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Way of all the things you're progressing at the moment,
because you're a busy man. Where's charter school sitting in
the totem pole? Are things smooth or not as.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Very smooth? There's people who will say we don't need
these policies. Actually, we've had eighty applicants. People are around
the community, have put together destailed application to run them.
It shows there is demands and we're processing those are
pretty challenging given the volume. But it looks like we're
going to have a very good first crop of charter
schools very soon.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
So the numbers are there, so that's the good side
of it. Are they quality at the stage? Do you know?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I don't get involved, so I haven't actually seen them,
but I do ask the people at the charter school
agency in the Ministry of Education, and they tell me
that I can tell you that it's very, very confident about.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Good the equity index. How specific is it the school?
Is it the class or is it the kid.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's down to the school. So in a perfect world
it would be down to the kid. But you know,
I think one of the things we're doing across government
and especially in education is trying to improve the data.
So at this point, it's equity index sets a bunch
of targets for the school, and that's the percentage of
children that need to achieve a certain target such as
regular attendance or reading or maths for primary or NCAA

(01:34):
the secondary.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
And where does that sit against state public.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
School The basic rule of thumb is that charter schools
have the same goals as state schools, such as ninety
five percent getting NCAA Level two, such as eighty percent
attending ninety percent of the time. What's different with charters
is that we're putting in hard minimums where if they
don't do it, we will shut them down. And that's

(02:00):
what's really different with charters. They get more freedom, but
they also get targets for attendance, achievement, and fiscal probity
that if they don't reach them, we will shut them down.
And the last time they were charter schools, we did
shut them. Ok it's not an idle threat.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay. So, but you don't want to because the last
thing you need is a kid going to a school
and then suddenly the school's closed.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, and you don't walk in the day they go
one percent under the target and say you shut down.
There's a process, but generally speaking, the target for charter
schools is they must be in the top half of
state schools or they get shut down, and aiming to
reach the overall government targets eighty depending on the measure.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay. So there's a couple of things that come out
of that. One is their individual performance, and so if
they do well, they do well for the kids in
the community and all that's fantastic. If you get an attendance,
for example, at a higher level at a charter school,
that then flows by reputation to everybody else, at which
point I'm assuming and you'll go, they can do it,

(03:01):
so why can't you When they come back and go, well,
that's because they get so much more money. David, what
do you say then.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, put it this way, We're going to let state
schools that want to convert to charter schools, and the
day that they open up as a charter school, they'll
get exactly the same money as they got yesterday when
they shut down as a state school. There is no difference.
And it's exactly the same with brand new charter schools
that start from scratch. The principle is they get the

(03:31):
money that the same kids would have got were they
going to a state school. People like to put about
all of this misinformation and try and say that they're
getting funded at a higher rate, and you know, the
truth is that they're not. People need to ask themselves
why is that. One of the biggest differences with charters

(03:52):
is that we are giving them the ability to hire teachers.
They have to be registered, but they don't have to
be on the union tracks. Now, if you're the PPTA
or the MZDI, then a successful group of schools that
have individual employment agreements are an existential threat. And I
just want to say that slowly, because this is the beginning,

(04:13):
the middle, and the end of the charter school debate.
The unions aren't afraid that charter schools will fail. They
are petrified that they're going to succeed, and I think
they just might because the children need it.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Okay, while I've got you a couple of things. Aut
we featured some information in the last couple of days
here Penny Simmons apparently had a meeting. I know this
isn't your area, but it kind of is so aut
And they're one of the many examples run the system
whereby if you want to travel as your elector of professor, whatever.
If you travel, you fill out a box and a form.
If you're MARI and if you're Pacific, you get extra

(04:45):
points simply by being Mari or Pacific to get the
money for travel. I thought that was over. If it's over,
how come they're still doing it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well. Number one, we've issued a circular cabinet circular to
the public as saying you must deliver services of need
not race. That came out last week, and yet it
doesn't necessarily apply. In fact, it doesn't apply to universities,
which are separate institutions. Nonetheless, I think you can be

(05:15):
confident that with the likes of any the responsible minister
telling them what's what, you're going to see that sort
of practice run out of tertiary institutions. But look, I'm
as frustrated as anyone that often we've got this state
apparatus of a quarter million people, thousands of institutions. You've
got people ingrained in there. But amazingly in twenty twenty fourth,

(05:38):
but blatant racial profiling where you have to tick a
box for your race and you get different amounts of money,
is somehow not just okay, but a good idea. And
these are the people running universities. I mean, it is astonishing,
but we are step by step telling them that we
abhore raci or discrimination. We believe in universal human rights
where the elected government and you better get with the program.

(06:01):
It's just a process of one organization, one institution, one
case at a time.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
I was going to say, because when do you run
out of patients, Because it's one thing. It's one thing
to have the idea. So you agree with your idea
or you don't. But you are the government that's irrefutable,
and you have issued a need that's irrefutable. Yet what
we now seem to have is pushback in the middle finger.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, in fairness, this has been in place for some time,
and it's been discovered this week. I don't believe it's
something that they've established this week, but you know, you're right.
I had a doctor just yesterday. So here is proof
in August twenty twenty four that we are racially profiling patients.
I believe that's wrong. But what do you do about it? Well,

(06:44):
you get the Minister of Health and say this is
what's happening in your organization. Can you do something about it.
Just two weeks ago we saw it with the GPS
in hawks Bay saying that it's free if you're Maoria Pacifica.
If you're not, you have to pay, regardless of whether
you're ritual or poor or what your true need is.
Shane's been in touch with Hawkes Bay to sector of
the Health New Zealand and said, guys new sheriff in

(07:07):
town the same how it works anymore and they've stopped.
So yep, frustrating, but it's just you know, you've got
to recognize that we're not a dictatorship. We're a pluralistic
society with a large number of organizations, some of which universities,
for example, have quite a lot of autonomy, and so
they should because we believe in academic freedom. At the
end of the day. But every now and then you

(07:28):
just have to give them a reminder of who's paying
the bill. It's the tax payers of New Zealand, and
the tax payers of New Zealand elected a government that
does not believe in racially profiling at citizens. It's bizarre
I have to say that in twenty twenty four, but
here we are good.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
On you appreciate it. David see Moore, the leader of Back.
We asked Penny Simmons, who had the meeting yesterday with
aut to come on. She's getting advice today apparently, and
we'll let us know how that unfolds.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
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