Perspective with Ryan Bridge: The Government needs to give us the truth about boot camps and charter schools

How many times have you heard the Prime Minister say this Government is different because it will set targets, track progress and be open about its actual results?

That's how we're going to get back on track, that's what we've heard from National so many times.

And what's more important than turning around education and getting on top of youth crime?

Not much. Which is why they've got charter schools and bootcamps. Everybody said 'yep', those kids need sorting out in the case of bootcamps - or those kids deserve more choice in the case of charter schools.

But now this week, we’ve heard from the agencies involved in these programmes and they've decided they won't be telling the public how many students are enrolled at the new charter schools.

And in the bootcamps- they won’t talk about how many of the kids are re-offending. They’ve given various excuses for this, but none of them stack up.

They reckon telling the public general details, no specifics or names, about youth re-offending is potentially harmful to vulnerable kids - which sounds very cotton-wool, wraparound luvvie Labour for the the big game this Government talked, don't you think?

The fact is, people can’t trust a system or a programme they know nothing about. When you're not totally upfront about the results, it looks like you're trying to hide something. And you only hide news when it’s bad.

So either they know charter schools and boot camps are a bad idea, which I doubt, otherwise why would you do them? Or -they’re scared of failure on key programmes a year out from the election.

Here’s some free advice: give us the truth and let us make up our own minds.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How many times have you heard the Prime Minister say
this government is different because it's going to set targets,
it's going to track progress, and it's going to be
open about its actual results, going to be honest. That's
how we're going to get the country back on track.
This is what we've heard from National and from the
Coalition so many times. And what's more important than turning
around education and getting on top of youth crime, youth justice,

(00:23):
not much, which is why they've got charter schools and
why they've got boot camps. Everybody said, yep, those kids
need sorting out in the case of boot camps, or
those kids deserve more choice in the case of charter schools.
But now this week we've heard from the agencies involved
in these programs and they've decided they won't be telling
the public how many students are enrolled at the new

(00:46):
charter schools, and in the case of the boot camps,
they won't talk about how many of the kids are
actually reoffending. They've given various excuses for this, but none
of them really stack up. The fact is people can't
trust a system or a program that they know nothing
about when you're totally upfront about the results. When you're

(01:07):
not totally upfront about the results, I should say, it
looks like you're trying to hide something. It looks like
when you're trying to hide something, it's bad news normally
that you're trying to hide. So, either the government knows
that charter schools and boot camps are a bad idea,
which I doubt because otherwise why would they do them,
Or they're a little bit scared of failure maybe on
some key programs. We're a year out from an election.

(01:29):
Here's some free advice to you. And I don't know,
to be honest, whether it's the government directed in the
agencies to do this or just the agencies themselves, but
here's some free advice. Give us the truth and we
will make up our own minds. For more from hither
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