Martin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10514. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Talofa Mr Chair. I have no expectations that anything I say here today will change the minds of Government members. I have no expectations that anything I say here today will stop them or the ACT Party members or the Māori Party members from actually voting this legislation through. So why would Ispend my time talking about it? Why I would spend my time talking about it is so that the misrepresentations that have been wrapped around the rhetoric of this bill the Education Amendment Bill go on theHansard.The first one that I think the public of New Zealand needs to be aware of—and it is a conversation that is yet to take place out in the mainstream media—is around how these schools will actually be funded. They will be funded at a decile 3 level a decile 3 level with a full cash-up value of the property dollar and a full cash-up value of all the resource dollars currently available to mainstream schools at a decile 3 level. Some may say well that is the target market but these schools have an open-door policy. They cannot pick that target market. Anybody who shows up at their door whether they live in a decile 10 home or a decile 7 home or a decile 1 home must be allowed to enrol in these schools but they will all be funded at a decile 3 level. So you could have a charter school that is full of decile 10 children funded out of Vote Education at a decile 3 level with full cash-up of property dollar and full cash-up of resources dollar. But they do not have to spend that cash-up on property or on resources. That is the margin. That is the profit margin.Let us just say for example that they do spend the property dollar on the property. The asset belongs to the sponsor. This is public money paying for private schools paying for private assets and paying for private profit. The other parts that we pay for are the Education Review Office reviews which we could actually put a dollar value on and the professional development which we could actually put a dollar value on which every single one of these private businesses will be able to access. So let us get real about how these things are being funded. This is something the public of New Zealand needs to know because it is their dollar—because it is their dollar.Colin King: Nobody’s hiding it.TRACEY MARTIN: No they may not be hiding it Mr King but you certainly did not put out a press release on it did you?The reason why they are going to be funded at that level is that the basic operations grant for a mainstream school per child is $6000—$6000 per child per annum and that includes the property dollar. That is the basic grant per year that mainstream schools get. Then on top of that are the targeted education grants. That is not enough. That is not enough for a private school funded by public money to make a profit. The fee of the cheapest recognised private school in my area is $12000 a year. So when this was first floated and when the ACT Party and actually the National Party went out and spoke to their friends inside the private school sector they got a message back saying: “We can’t deliver for that price. We can’t deliver for that price because nobody can.” Mainstream schools can but private schools say they cannot deliver for that price. So the Government said: “How much do you want? Say how much you want and then let’s go away and figure out an equation that equals what you want.” That is actually what has happened. That is what has happened and that is why you have got this list supposedly of 35 schools.I would say to the Māori Party and particularly to the president Mr Bird that you should be whakamā. You should be ashamed. You should be whakamā on the way you have decided actually in the Education and Science Committee to suggest that you are going to take 23 successful kura under the current Education Act and leave the option open as in your submission to make more money by turning them into charter schools. That is the door that Mr Curtis and Mr Bird left open when they submitted. They have successful kura inside the current system. They have no need to go outside of it but there is more money outside of it. The other thing that Mr Bird said was: “It’s too hard.” What he was referring to were the standards and the requirements that the kura aretested against to make sure that they have a very high standard of academic outcome and they meet them.There is another statement I want to address for the public of New Zealand because everybody in this Chamber actually knows it and it was a statement made by Catherine Isaac in the working party submission. We all know Catherine Isaac. She is the previous president of the ACT Party. It is very very interesting that as the previous president of the ACT Party the policy that is now under the name of her party has created a job. Where there was no job previously there is now a job and Ms Isaac is filling it. But it is not just a job for up to this moment when this bill is going through this House; since the authorisation board was appointed on 1 March she has had a job going forward. That is a really cool way to create an income for yourself. That board which has been the one recommending the schools is now going to be the body that monitors those schools and their progress against the agreed outcomes. That makes the authorisation board in a way its own review body. It said these guys would be the good ones to actually put forward a school and now it has got to do a report to say whether its recommendations were appropriate or not. I do not see any incentive for honest reporting there.But let us get back to Ms Isaac’s statement. Her statement was that employing unregistered teachers does not mean they are unqualified. Yes it does.Hon Member: Oh come on.TRACEY MARTIN: Now we are going to hear the National Party MPs saying: “No it doesn’t.” This is the ignorance involved in the conversation. The process of registration for a teacher is a period of 2 years spent inside a school with an experienced tutor teacher being appraised in your practical application of the 4 years of theory. This is the teaching apprenticeship. You are not a trained teacher until you get registration—so it does mean you are unqualified. Considering that it was the previous National Government that changed the environment so that teacher training became about bums on seats this registration process is even more pivotal. It is this absolute lack of basic understanding that makes any constructive conversation with the ACT Party and unfortunately some of my colleagues in the National Party virtually impossible. Hence my expectations of nothing at the end of today’s conversation.In answer to oral question No. 6 on 8 May the Minister of Education tried to reassure the public that if there was an incident of misconduct in a charter school that involved a teacher then the procedures of the 1989 Education Act and the Teachers Council would apply. After Mr Hipkins quite rightly pointed out anomalies in this statement Dr Cam Calder stood at the second reading and said: “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.” I am not sure whether this is very very clever of Dr Calder in trying to manipulate the discussion—and clever of the Minister also around playing with words—or whether he actually just needs to go back to his office and give his research team a bit of a bollocking.It is not possible to hold a practising certificate unless you are a teacher registered with the Teachers Council. Registration comes first and then the individual must be in the classroom for a prescribed number of hours each year with the constant appraisals that go on during that period. The individual must prove this to renew their practising certificate every 5 years. So Mr Hipkins is right: only registered teachers can be tracked and only registered teachers can be deregistered and recorded on a national database for incidents of misbehaviour. Let us just reinforce the point. If children are victims of misconduct by an unregistered charter school teacher there is no body recording theseincidents. There is nothing to stop these so-called teachers moving from one charter school to another—no protection whatsoever. There is no register of them anywhere. Perhaps the Government may now have to take more education dollars to create a duplicate system of registration so that these profit-making businesses can keep themselves safe while they skim off the taxpayer dollars.