A welcome end to segregation in schools

schemes has shown that some schools have deliberately formed enrolment schemes that avoided low-income areas in their locality.’’

The report points out that school rolls ‘‘drive school staffing, funding, and principal salaries’’. No wonder schools pandered to the delusional, segregationist urges of some of our parents to get their kids into the right classrooms.

As usual, Ma¯ ori were left behind by the wonders of competition. About a quarter of students nationwide go to schools drawing from the poorest communities (decile 1 to 3), but about half of Ma¯ ori kids do. It’s a jarring disparity in supposed choice.

So, assuming you want to, how do you get out? Well, you need to make it into the advantaged schools’ out-of-zone ‘‘skim’’ (that’s the report’s word) of poor kids with academic, musical or sporting talent.

The good news is that change could be on the way.

All enrolment zones would be reviewed ‘‘and adjusted as necessary’’ so they are fair and reasonable, under the recommendations. If neighbouring schools can’t decide their turf amicably, then the decision would be made by new regional educational hubs set up to take over some board of trustee duties. Out-of-zone enrolments would be capped by the hubs, and the number of these students at a particular school could be forced down over time.

There has been criticism of hubs as another layer of bureaucracy, but some decisions need to be taken out of schools’ hands. In this case it would see students, and the associated funding they carry, spread more evenly across schools.

Iknow, some people are saying they should get the chance to offer their kids the best opportunity for a good education. But your kid’s success isn’t decided by a fancy administration block, and high-decile community. Some of the best learning, for some students, takes place in supposedly poor schools.

Meanwhile, other people are thinking they don’t want the character of their school changed with a flood of the wrong kind of people. Frankly, if you get upset by poor kids or brown kids going to your school, then this Government has done at least one thing right. Believe me, the change will do you and your school good.

The truth is that, much like life in general, things get nasty when you pit schools against each other. One of the sadder things I came across as a general reporter covering the occasional education story was the strange case of coverage-envy.

A story on one school would trigger a gloriously passive-aggressive complaint about uneven coverage from another trying to extract its own publicity.

Now I understand why.

Segregation is generally acknowledged as a destructive, unjust, thing – but somehow we always seem to find our way back here. Poor divided from middle class, brown from white, and even, it appears, colleague from colleague.