The ACT Party may be tying its own noose but it will still be able to get its pet project passed into law. Charter schools are a pretty simple concept. They receive the same per-child government funding as state schools but have the freedom to set their own curriculum and qualifications, teacher pay-rate and school-day length and school terms.
The Templar is excited by this trial. Charter schools act as a laboratory of reform, identifying successful practices that could then be used by traditional state schools. This extends to the most prohibitive practices which can be identified and eliminated in all schools. In short, the Ministry will save time and money by getting the private sector to identify the best and most productive ways of educating our children, and then implement these nationwide.
People with innovative educational ideas can use these schools to put them into practice without being hampered by bureaucracy. Parents have the choice to send their kids to these schools and so you will find that children are at schools they want to be at, whether that is more religion-based education, Rudolf Steiner institutions or other specialist education institutions. They may even provide competition for state schools that encourages innovation in our education system, which is in dire need of some shock therapy.
One size does not fit all when it comes to education. All parents have the right to choose a school that best meets the needs of their child. Charter schools stress a more personalised approach to education, and are more flexible in meeting children’s individual needs and more innovative in trying new ways to improve student achievement. These include gifted children, dropouts, and children with learning disabilities. While most parents would need to pay thousands of dollars for such specialist education, public charter schools make choice possible for low‐income families, so everyone is happy.
The idea has long been used in Europe and North America. In the States more than a million students attend more than 4,000 charter schools in 40 states. We need to be fostering a more diverse education system where individual children are treated like the customers of education, which they are. We need the private sector to provide a product that suits its consumers, all its consumers. As for the likely claim from the left that it creates an educated elite or champions religious dogma; well, that wouldn’t be so bad after all now would it?
–The Tory Templar
The Tory Templar | Issue 11
On Charter Schools
