PM: Hope for charter schools

Ardern says path for conversion to ‘special character’ designation may be made easier

Pdeputy political editor rime Minister Jacinda Ardern has signalled the Government could make it easier for charter schools to convert to “special character” schools as it moves to end the old model.

Ministry of Education officials will meet the principals of the so-called partnership schools this week after Education Minister Chris Hipkins introduced legislation to scrap the model introduced by the former National Government and the Act Party.

Labour is offering the schools the chance to convert to “special character” schools which will require them to work within the usual cur- riculum and have all registered teachers — an option not all schools want to take, while others may not meet the criteria.

Ardern said moves could be made to make it easier to become a character school, saying some partnership schools had initially applied to be character schools.

“And this is a lesson to us that that process probably needs to be made a little bit more straightforward because they ended up defaulting to a charter school model.”

The issue is particularly sensitive for Labour’s Maori MPs Kelvin Davis, Peeni Henare and Willie Jackson who had spoken in support of the schools in the past and could face a backlash if they are forced to close.

Several are run by Maori or have a high proportion of Maori students and last year Davis said he would resign if the two schools in Whangarei ended up closing altogether.

The three MPs are due to front publicly on the issue today as a group.

Ardern said the three had not raised it with her directly but did support moves to turn the schools into character schools.

She said the point Davis was making was that he believed there was a way forward.

“And so do I. I imagine we are going to find the compromise required.”

Hipkins accused National leader Bill English of scaremongering after English described plans to end the schools as “nasty and vindictive” poli- tics driven by ideology and pressure from unions.

He said Labour had always been clear it would deal with the schools on a case-by-case basis.

“Ringing round all those schools and saying we are about to close them down is irresponsible because we’ve got a process in place around how we are going to deal with them.”

Hipkins said he would not be at the meeting with the schools because he would have to decide on any character school applications.

That was a legal process which was subject to review, so it would be inappropriate for him to get involved directly in the negotiations.

There are 11 of the schools which have about 1500 students at them.