Woods Megan: Education Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10678. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I want to start my final contribution to this debate on this Education Amendment Bill by paying tribute to the parents and the teachers throughout our country who have the best interests of their children and their education at the front of their minds and that is what leads their actions. Unfortunately this is a group that has come under attack during the course of this bill’s passage through the House. We have seen attack after attack from members of the National Party on the fact that we had members of teacher unions come to the Education and Science Committee and offer their opinion. Well these are the trained teaching professionals in our country the people who have the expertise in education and yes they did have an opinion. They had a unanimous opinion that this legislation is going to do nothing to further educational outcomes in New Zealand.This is a dark day for education in New Zealand. Before the dinner break my colleague Chris Hipkins mentioned in his contribution that this is a fundamental change to what we understand about education in New Zealand that we are passing through this House tonight. I do not see this as anything to celebrate. I also want to pay tribute to the number of parents who are putting themselves forward for boards of trustees as we debate this legislation going through the House and who have stood to be part of the community governance of their schools because this is something that charter schools will not have. This is something that the kinds of schools we are creating tonight in this House are doing away with—the very thing that has led New Zealand to have one of the most innovative one of the most creative and one of the most community-involved education systems in the world. We are doing away with that system with the passage of this legislation tonight. It is absolutely nothing for us to celebrate.I want to make it very clear about the future of charter schools under a Labour-led Government in 2014. The ongoing funding and support for charter schools will not be guaranteed under a future Labour Government. We will not guarantee any charter school established during this term of the present Government the right to integrate into the State school system. We do reserve the right to impose additional contractual obligations on any charter school established such as a requirement to employ registered teachers and the removal of exemption from the Official Information Act 1982. No further charter school will be established under a New Zealand Labour Party Government and legislation allowing for their establishment will be repealed. Let us not make any mistake about what Labour’s position on these charter schools is. We do not agree with them and we do not agree with them because they are not in the best interests of the children of our country.Throughout the various stages of this legislation colleagues have outlined exactly what our problems are with this type of school being set up in New Zealand. It has been well rehearsed. Our objection to unregistered and unqualified teachers is on the record. We would not let unqualified doctors treat any of us but members opposite think that it is OK to put unqualified teachers in front of classrooms. We do not.Andrew Little: They don’t respect them.Dr MEGAN WOODS: We respect the teaching profession and the expertise that they bring to their job. This is not something that we are willing to undermine.We also object to the lack of scrutiny that these schools will be subjected to—the fact that they will not be subjected to the Official Information Act that parents will not get that level of scrutiny and that they will not have that recourse. We have talked throughout the various stages of this legislation and shown examples of when this has come into play and where it has been very useful and indeed needed. I have talked already in my speech about the lack of community engagement by doing away with something that has become a New Zealand institution: the rights of communities to be involved in decision making about their schools through the role of boards of trustees.But most disturbing we know these schools will not work. The international evidence points us in that direction. The very examples that have been thrown across the House by members opposite are actually the very failed experiments. They have touted Sweden as the great example. Well educational achievement in Sweden went down when they introduced their freedom schools. And actually if they had read their Maxim Institute documents they would know this because the Maxim Institute has told them this. Right-wing thinktanks are telling them that charter schools do not work so why do we not actually look at an evidence base for what we are doing with the education of our children? It just does not stack up. What we want is to celebrate the innovation that exists in our education system and to pay credit to the people who have been doing that and the wonderful things they do. Throughout the select committee process we had submitter after submitter come to us and tell us about the wonderful things they were doing and that nothing they were doing now—or indeed wanted to do—they could not do under the present legislation.But for me as a Christchurch member of Parliament one of the most disturbing aspects of this is the guinea pig nature of Christchurch children in the Government’s thinking—that we are having the closure of schools in the Christchurch network to make way for charter schools. In fact in question time today the Minister of Education refused to rule out establishing charter schools—or “partnership schools” as she preferred to call them because she could not quite stomach those words “charter school”—on the site of Christchurch schools that she closed down last week. She is not ruling this down.Before our select committee we had Karran Harper Royal come and tell us of the experience in New Orleans and the way in which natural disaster is used as an excuse for experimentation. Today in this House we had the Minister confirm that is exactly what she is thinking. She will not give that commitment to the people of Christchurch and the communities of Christchurch. For the schools in my electorate—for Branston Intermediate School and Manning Intermediate School—that are being closed down I want the Minister to give a commitment that a charter school will not be established on those sites. This is something these people deserve. They need to know that their school closure is not about building capacity in the network so this Government can implement its charter schools which are the price of coalition with John Banks. That is right. Christchurch children are being used as the pawn in this coalition game. It is the price of a vote. It is the price of getting through all the pieces of legislation that this Government has been able to do by that one vote. This is not something that we on this side of theHouse feel is anything to celebrate—in fact it is something that we should all be very sad about and something that we should all see as a shameful day for education in our country.This evening I received an email from a constituent. The Minister also received this email from this constituent of mine. She was very very upset after hearing what happened in question time today and the fact that the Minister was not going to rule out establishing charter schools at the very schools that she was closing. She wrote to the Minister and she copied me in: “The schools you have closed and you decide to replace them by using the land for charter schools to me is another kick in the teeth.” This is how people are feeling. This is how people in Christchurch are feeling on the schools that have been closed. The people of Phillipstown are feeling like this. They know they have been let down by their local member. They know they have been let down by this Government. They do not have a school in that community any longer.This is something that is straight from the playbook of New Orleans. That is one of the most distressing parts of this. We could have sat back and predicted this given this Government’s commitment to playing from that playbook. This is what happened in New Orleans. And it is nothing about educational achievement. The educational achievement there has not gone up. Indeed the educational achievement has not gone up anywhere where charter schools have been introduced. Members opposite have not been able to show us this through all the stages of this legislation be it in debates in this House or at the select committee and have not been able to point to the fact that these are going to lead to better educational outcomes. For Labour that is the bottom line: what will deliver the best educational outcomes for our children. We know it is not these partnership schools. This is not the way to do right by our children and Labour cannot support this legislation. Thank you.