Plea to keep charter schools
Closing charter schools risks the spiritual impoverishment that the education system has historically imposed on Ma¯ori, MPs have been told.
Ma¯ ori educator Sir Toby Curtis, who recently submitted a Treaty claim against the closures, yesterday pleaded for the schools to remain as is.
Asking the parliamentary education and workforce select committee chair, National MP Parmjeet Parmar, if he could speak away from his notes, Curtis recounted his upbringing as a te reo speaker in an English-only education system. ‘‘The language was suppressed by the administration of the day,’’ he said. ‘‘I grew up speaking beautiful
Ma¯ ori with my ears and terrible English with my tongue.’’
Curtis said he was ‘‘shortchanged’’ by the education system, and grew up thinking the land around him ‘‘belonged to the Government’’. ‘‘The English language does not cater for my emotional intelligence, it does not cater for my spiritual intelligence, and it did not cater for my cultural intelligence.
‘‘I was taught away from being Ma¯ ori.’’
In his submission on the Education Amendment Bill, Curtis rejected suggestions changing charter schools into special character schools was largely a change in name and would minimally affect their operation. ‘‘That’s another way of saying: we want them to be another state school. There’s nothing wrong with the state schools, except they have been failing Ma¯ ori for 178 years.’’
He said te reo-speaking communities wanted to have charter schools, especially in areas outside of Auckland, where most of the schools are.
‘‘They see these schools as giving an opportunity for Ma¯ori parents to help and participate in the education of their children.
‘‘The state schools, as good as they are, don’t appear to allow the [families] to have as much say.
‘‘The question I ask, madam chair, is why does the minister [of education] want to close them? I have difficulty understanding that. If you have something successful, isn’t it fair to extend it to everyone? Children are not just happy that they are being taught; they are reaching for the stars, and when they leave school they are still reaching for the stars.’’
National’s education spokeswoman, Nikki Kaye, asked Curtis if he wanted the committee to oppose the Government’s plans for charter schools: ‘‘My English must still be as bad as when I was a child. Yes; that is what I’m saying,’’ Curtis said. He addressed a plea directly to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. ‘‘I’m sure she will understand the meaning of te aroha, which she has given to her child, and I think this situation calls for some aroha.’’