Charter schools escape added financial scrutiny

Charter schools will not be legally obligated to provide financial statements each quarter. This goes against the Ministry of Education’s advice to Associate Education Minister David Seymour.

“There’s a danger that you dig up to kūmara so often it never gets to grow. Yes, we want frequent and rigorous financial checks because it’s taxpayer money but not much happens in a quarter,” said Seymour.  

Instead, he wants financial reports to be made each half-year and audited every year, which Seymour describes as “about right for most businesses.”  

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Seymour’s stance on charter schools’ financial regulation has come to light following a report proactively released by the Ministry of Education, which shows Seymour disagreeing with official advice.  

He wrote that charter schools “cannot become overregulated,” writing “what other org has this obligation?” beside the recommendation.  

He also disagreed that the Ministry of Education should be allowed to issue an intervention for charter schools, stating that this should only come from the Authorisation Board.  

These recommendations mean that this time around, charter schools will face less financial reporting than during their first iteration. However, education staff have said that financial and management oversight during the first round of charter schools from 2013 to 2018 may have led to poor accountability.  

In their old form, charter schools were reviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The report noted that “in general, PwC was not able to gain full confidence.”   

Charter schools have seen significant opposition from some in the education sector due to their model of providing privately-run education with public funding. The government has allocated $153 million over four years to set up the model, which critics say could be better used in the public system.  

Kieran Gainsford, the vice-president for PPTA Te Wehengarua said financial accountability is only one of the concerns their members have over charter schools.  

“We saw last time with charter schools there were issues with some sponsors underperforming or issues with their use of taxpayer money. 

“I think it’s obvious to any member of the public that self-reporting is unlikely to lead to good outcomes and good use of taxpayer money for education. 

“We think we can do better with $153 million of taxpayer money than allowing schools to drop safeguards like having registered teachers or having to teach a national curriculum.”  

Additional changes to bill  

There have been further additions to the bill since it was made open for public consultation, including preventing unions from engaging in combined bargaining for teachers across charter schools. The consultation window was briefly extended to account for these changes but have since closed. 

State school employers may require their teachers to provide services to charter schools or students enrolled in charter schools.  

Gainsford said although the legislation is vague, he believes teachers in state schools may be made to take classes if a charter school is unable to provide the whole curriculum. Students from charter schools may also attend a state school for certain specialist classes.  

Contracts for teachers will also cover a longer ten-year period and teachers must at minimum have a limited authority to teach. Unqualified teachers will be subject to Teaching Council’s disciplinary processes but not the competency processes required at public schools.  

The Minister of Education can also direct a state school to convert to the charter school model.  

Gainsford said that there are major concerns around the fate of students enrolled in poorly performing charter schools.  

“Where do parents send their young people to school if they don’t agree with the direction of their local charter school? 

“The consultation process has been really rushed and there hasn’t been a lot of dialogue with the community about what could happen to their local school.”  

Lessons from 2013 – 2018 

Charter schools are supposedly meant to meet the needs of underserved students by improving school choice. However, an evaluation of the charter school model found that although charter schools were able to reach and enroll underserved student groups like Māori, Pasifika, low SES students and those with special education needs, the achievement of these students was unclear.  

The Advisory Board concluded they weren’t able to have confidence about the performance of schools.  

There was some evidence that charter schools used their legislated flexibility to meet the needs of their student groups, but evaluator Martin Jenkin said this innovation was not “substantial innovation in terms of pedagogy or curricula design” when compared to state-schools.