Logie Jan: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Logie Jan: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:6003. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 This Education Amendment Bill represents the biggest shake-up in education this country has seen in decades and this comes at a time when New Zealand has been amongst the world leaders in education for over a decade. 
The latest OECD report from 2012 reviewing and evaluating the assessment of education in New Zealand confirmed this view and again the Programme for International Student Assessment confirmed this view. In the latest survey New Zealand students were ranked fourth in the OECD in reading literacy fourth in scientific literacy and seventh in mathematical literacy. It is not easy to maintain these rankings but New Zealand has consistently maintained these rankings since they were introduced in 2000. In contrast Australia has recorded a significant decline England has also slipped significantly and the US—the home of charter schools—has managed to be only about average in the OECD. New Zealand is better than average. I do not want to see us reduced to average. 
Although I say this I am not in any way suggesting that there is not room for improvement. A proportion of our young people—one in five as we keep on hearing from that side of the House—are not achieving their full potential. I am not going to minimise the significance of that because the Greens want every child to be able to reach their potential. 
But when the Waitangi Tribunal after hearing all the evidence found that the Crown had failed kohanga due to Government policy and funding decisions we can see where some of the problems lie. When the Government has withdrawn funding for the very few Pacific language resources that we had we can see where some of the problems lie. When feedback regarding ongoing resourcing scheme funding has been identifying significant barriers for students with disabilities for years we can see where some of the problems lie. When 270000 children in this country are living in poverty and the medical evidence shows a direct correlation between poverty and IQ development—and we know that it is hard to learn when you are hungry or worried sick about your parents—we can see where some of the problems lie. The failure lies at the feet of the Government not our schools. 
This bill seeks to shift the blame. It is a “psycho-ACT” of transference— 
Hon Member 
: A what? 
JAN LOGIE 
: I know it was a good line was it not? I quite liked that. To try to lift educational achievement for the bottom quintile by ignoring all of these factors and setting up charter schools and forcing national standards is counter-productive to put it in my most minimal non-emotive terms. 
The Education Policy Response Group which consists of 12 College of Education experts reviewed charter schools in other countries and looked at the evidence and at what it would mean for New Zealand. The group convener Professor Emeritus Ivan Snook noted: “The evidence is clear that charter schools have the potential to cause harm to the very groups of students they are supposed to help.” 
I will echo the group’s final warning which has been proven overseas that charter schools cream the most motivated or talented students from other schools and cleanse their own schools of those who are most difficult or expensive to teach and they distort the fair distribution of teachers across the system and siphon money away from existing programmes for most disadvantaged students. So that is this Government’s response to the one in five who are trailing—to take and take and take. I know which babies are going to be thrown out in this ideological bath and it will not help any of them to live good lives or have fair futures.