Calder Cam: Education Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCalder Cam: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9865. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr CAM CALDER (National):As the chairman of the Education and Science Committee it is a great pleasure to rise and take this call. I just want to correct an assertion made by my colleague Mr Chris Hipkins who believed that partnership schools are exempt from current exemptions in the Education Act 1989 regarding the employment—or the continuing employment—of a teacher whose practising certificate or limited authority to teach has been suspended or cancelled. The schools are not exempt from those current restrictions.We received and considered 2277 submissions from interested groups—a large number of them were form submissions from the teacher unions and on the subject of partnership schools. Much of the committee’s work in fact has been looking closely at submissions on the surrender and retention issues and crafting amendments to clarify provisions in the bill and ensure schools can exercise powers in respect of the properties they occupy.I want to pay thanks to the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association and also Grant McMillan principal of Ashburton College for their very helpful submissions on the surrender and retention issues. May I also thank my National colleagues on the committee for their work. We were particularly fortunate to be able to co-opt Mike Sabin on to the committee. Mike brought 12 years of experience as a police detective and his time running a national consultancy addressing drug policies for schools and corporates. He has also spoken at the UN on drug-related issues. I wish to also acknowledge though opposing the bill the constructive engagement of New Zealand First’s Tracey Martin and Labour MPs particularly in framing and supporting the amendments made to this Education Amendment Bill—it was appreciated.The partnership school model is but a strand in this Government’s efforts to lift student achievement. Currently four out of five students are doing well in our system but we are working towards lifting five out of five students and equipping them to unlock the potential that lies within them all.The Programme for International Student Assessment studies are often held out to show that all is right with our education system but what is the reality? In 2009 New Zealand ranked seventh for reading. On the surface that is ostensibly a good result but if we disaggregate the score we find that Pākehā were second in the world Asians seventh in the world Māori 34th equal between Slovakia and Slovenia and Pasifika students 44th—just above Mexico. Our much vaunted system is not working for everyone. As one submitter to the committee pointed out in truth the only place where New Zealand is first in education in the Programme for International Student Assessment 2009 study is in the inequality scores. Our highest and lowest achievers are further apart than in any other OECD country. Another submitter said: “Are we living in two different countries? Can we afford to be complacent?”.The committee heard that the partnership schools working group has received 35 indications of interest with groups saying they want the chance to do something about this they want to see innovation to enable their kids to engage in learning and get a decent start in life and they are willing to be held accountable for their success in doing that.The most fundamental difference between partnership schools and State or State-integrated schools is that the relationship with the ministry is contractual rather than regulatory: a contract to deliver engagement and achievement outcomes in return for per-student funding. The Government will still safeguard taxpayers’ interests but with more emphasis on what results are achieved and less on micro-managing how they are achieved—a point that seems to be overlooked in the baying obscurantism of the unions in that the policy aims to lift achievement for children by empowering teachers and offering teachers greater autonomy. They overlook the point that this policy is aiming to empower teachers and offer teachers greater autonomy.It is noteworthy that in Sweden teachers unions did not oppose the introduction of this model. Believe it or not they did not oppose the introduction of this model some 20 years ago because they recognised the partnership schools model’s potential to provide professional development opportunities for their members. Interestingly the Swedish unions were proved correct and later research by the independent Swedish Quality Index found that teachers in the partnership model schools had a higher level of satisfaction than teachers in regular State schools.I have spoken in the House in the past regarding the outstanding principals and teachers I have met in the schools that I have visited in the vibrant and diverse community of Manurewa. I have long felt that the innovation and passion these committed professionals bring to their vocation do not square with the education unions’ quasi-nihilistic denial of any soupçon of merit in any of the measures this Government has introduced to lift student achievement.As recently as 26 April an opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald by the national president of the New Zealand Educational Institute criticised this Government’s—listen to this—$1.4 billion spend on early childhood education. The highest ever spend on early childhood education was criticised—our drive for parents students and teachers to understand at an early stage how a student’s achievement measured up against others of a similar age the clustering of specialist resources to facilitate access to them for a greater number of students and yes potentially and inevitably the partnership schools initiative. Virtually every strand in the education cable to help lift our children’s level of achievement in New Zealand has been opposed by the teacher unions and incidentally by their thralls in the Opposition.Their opposition flies in the face of the McKinsey consultancy report that looks at why countries like Finland Canada Korea and Singapore succeed so well in educating their young people. Fundamentally they get the best teachers they get the best out of teachers and they intervene early when children are falling behind. So why are the unions opposing all efforts to lift student achievement? The surprising tenor of the submissions seems to suggest that the unions alone know what is best for our children that experience elsewhere in the world can be ignored and that we can solipsistically say that all is right with our educational world and that we have enough choice already. Nothing new needs to be contemplated and nothing needs to change. This I find is a very worrying mind-set particularly among people charged with our children’s education and in the Opposition who you would hope would be trying to lift student achievement as well. The unions cannot seem to cope with choice. The unions and I should add the Opposition cannot seem to cope with choice and they seem to have a deep-seated anathema to democracy.Partnership schools are not compulsory. No one has to go to them. This Government is providing an education system that is capable of helping unlock the potential of all New Zealanders particularly our most vulnerable. Our public education system does well for many but not for all.To suggest that a partnership school because it sits outside the public system is inherently unable to provide an environment capable of lifting student achievement and unlocking individual student potential is fatuous naive and wrong. Successful education of necessity must be infinitely varied in its engagement strategies—no one size fits all. Partnership schools in their different manifestations will empower teachers working within them to use all their myriad of skills abilities and passion to engage with and lift the achievement levels of those students who choose to attend them. Partnership schools are but another strand in this Government’s drive for educational equity. Thank you.