1. School choice in New Zealand
Liz Gordon,
Research Leader
Pūkeko Research Ltd, Christchurch
New Zealand.

2. The school choice reforms of 1989- principles
“Good people, bad system”
The schooling system is inflexible and overly bureaucratic (the broken window dilemma)
Parents and students are locked into schools, some of which are failing. There is no incentive to improve schooling
If parents control schools, they will seek to improve them.
In order to change… break down ties of collegiality and consensus (some said complacency), reduce power of educators and increase that of parents.

3. The school choice reforms of 1989 – actual changes
DEVOLVED management of schools to elected boards of trustees, including bulk funding of operational costs but not teacher salaries.
Gave significant (but not unbounded) AUTONOMY to schools: at first ‘free market’ principles but later more controls brought in (e.g. enrolment)
Opened the whole network of schools up to CHOICE and COMPETITION.
DISMANTLED the national/ regional structures that supported schools.

4. Education or Ponzi scheme?
A free market in school enrolment soon caused huge problems. Some examples:
Person living right next to a secondary school declined admittance
The Christchurch Girls’ High Rejects Association
Fears of illegal ethnic bias
Choosing up – social characteristics
Enrolment policy: four major changes in 10 years. Major lesson: where they can (because of market position), schools will play Ponzi with students.

5. The teacher salary struggles
Plan to devolve teachers salary funding strongly resisted by teacher unions and most schools. Concerns:
Once devolution complete, no requirement for central government to continue to fully fund teacher salaries – no benchmarks would exist for what is ‘fair’ funding – there was a fear of ‘bulk under-funding’;
Volunteer school boards would end up in school by school battles over pay and conditions – highly inefficient devolution of industrial relations; and
Would likely put pressure on the well-qualified status of New Zealand teachers.

6. What happened next 1
Over the period since 1998, there has been a significant but partial recentralisation of services, due to the large gaps that emerged in an autonomous system: services, quality factors, planning and reporting functions;
There has been a tilting of school numbers, as parents choose ‘up’, with many schools in poorer areas having small numbers while rich schools are stuffed full;
There is increased questioning of the effectiveness of the system. While NZ’s international performance has not fallen, neither has it risen.

7. What happened next 2
There are 2,600 schools in New Zealand and every one is self-governed. Each has its own administration (except teacher salaries), own board, planning and reporting functions, systems for teacher PD and everything else. Good practice is rarely shared between schools – a competitive ethos makes that quite difficult. Is this an efficient system?
Very recently (past two years), there has been some work undertaken by a revived Ministry of Education to share good practice and encourage connections between schools. Is this too little too late?

8. Inequality
New Zealand has a high ranking on the OECD PISA tests, but also has a larger than average learning gap based on social characteristics. This particularly affects Māori and Pasifika learners. Numerous small interventions make some difference but fail to be applied across the system. Devolution is a barrier to change.
Self-management can be good management, and can be poor management. Unfortunately it leads to unevenness of response across all schools

9. Last lesson – choices are never enough
Even though New Zealand has a whole-system school choice model, proposals for more choices continue to come from the political sphere. These include:
Partial public funding for private schools;
Publicly funded scholarships for poor children to attend private schools;
S. 155 schools (kaupapa Māori)
S. 156 schools (e.g. Discovery)
Integrated Schools (mainly but not totally religious)
2014 Partnership Schools: kura hourua

10. Conclusion
A whole system model based on competition and choice, with schools run by parent boards, was implemented in New Zealand in 1989
Schooling in New Zealand has neither improved nor got worse since that time, and we are still among the world leaders in education.
But the system has tilted and changed, and the network no longer has the capacity to make good system changes
The persistent problem of intergenerational poverty and under-education cannot be resolved by this model.