Charter schools

With great reluctance, the ideological driven Education Minister Chris Hipkins has now released the third and final independent report by Martin Jenkins on Partnership/Charter schools.

Contrary to the Government’s wishes and propaganda, the report finds these schools are the most positive thing happening in education today. The schools are strongly focused on disadvantaged children, largely Ma¯ ori and Pasifika, the very people Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern claims are the target of her government.

Given the positive findings of this independent analysis, there is now absolutely no sensible reason to close existing charter schools and stop enlisting new ones. They are helping to fill a huge gap where the state education system fails.

The government’s intention is pure ideology driven as it is by the militant teacher unions whose only real reason for their opposition is their fear that the schools would succeed.

Would that, in this case, the government puts plain common sense ahead of socialist ideology and focuses on the interests of too many disadvantaged children.

Vince Ashworth

Morrinsville

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