Coddington Deborah: Urgent Debates — Education—School Review Programme 
Coddington Deborah: Urgent Debates — Education—School Review Programme 
[Volume:615;Page:11234] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Today we saw a precedent set outside. We saw a group of parents members of boards of trustees some teachers and children who came to Parliament to tell the Government that parents want to choose where they send their children to school. At the mere threat of this march on Parliament the Minister announced yesterday that there would be a moratorium on future reviews. What is wrong with parents wanting to choose where they send their children to school? I do not get it. What is the crime in parents wanting to choose where they send their child to school whether it be to a small rural school a co-educational school or a larger school? I do not get what they have done wrong to have these reviews visited on them. People out there do not get it either. These schools have good Education Review Office reports they have very strong community support and they have great parental commitment. 
One of the best things for a child’s education is having at least one parent connected with that child’s education whether it just be that the parent asks what homework the child has when he or she gets home from school or that the parent puts the painting the child has done at school on the fridge with a fridge magnet and says: “That’s beautiful darling.” That is one of the most important things for a child’s educational achievements. How do we achieve reinforce and celebrate that? We do that by saying to all of those people who came here today and all of the people they represent right around the country that they can choose where their child goes to school. 
The ACT party knows that sometimes schools close—that is a fact of life. Sometimes it is sad when a school closes but it is a matter of attrition. It usually happens when not enough parents want to use that school so a decision is taken in conjunction with the community—as it should be—that the school will close. But that is not what is happening in this situation. The Minister is just drawing lines on a map and saying: “In that grid those schools will be reviewed and these ones over here will be reviewed.” What is the point in having the Education Review Office when it gives these schools glowing reports and they still have to close anyway? We may as well close down the Education Review Office and the whole bureaucracy of education as well if this is how we run education in this country whereby one Minister can dictate what happens. 
The Minister says he is doing this to save money and that $90 million will go back into those schools and into education. He knows that that is not the case because I have papers from Treasury that show that after 4 years that money will not go back into education it will go into the consolidated account. 
 If the future reviews are so bad why are the current ones good? Why does not the Minister just dump the review process and give parents the choice? He is ripping the heart out of communities in New Zealand whether they are rural communities communities like Upper Hutt and Pinehaven or small provincial towns. In many of these places the school is not there just for children to sit in front of a teacher every day in the classroom. The school is the place where the parents meet. They are the places where sports are played. The parents watch out for each other. This is how we build a civil society where parents watch out and say: “Joe isn’t looking too great these days I wonder whether there is something wrong on the farm. Perhaps I had better ring him up and check him out.” The schools are where this all happens. 
I am a parent of four children. I was able to choose where my children went to school. They went to a little school in Russell up in Northland. The Minister has been able to choose where his children go to school. Why cannot everybody in New Zealand have that choice? We let them choose their car we let them choose their house and we let them choose which general practitioner they send their children to which family doctor they have. We do not tell them which one they will go to based on where they live. We do not draw a line on maps and say: “There are too many GPs in this little suburb or even in this street so some of them have to close and you will go to that one.” We allow them to have that choice. We allow them to choose which politicians they want in their House of Representatives but we will not allow them to choose which school they will send their children to. That is just nuts. 
I am really pleased that this issue has grown from something where people were thinking: “Oh well if the Minister is closing the schools it must be right.” It has grown into something really big. It has cross-party support. We have the Greens and ACT agreeing on the fact that the schools should—[ 
Interruption 
] I am not surprised because we are both parties of principle. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Oh! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: This is a very important principle that we here are debating. Those members over there might laugh. They did not have the courage to go out the front there. Where were those members when the parents were out there asking to talk to someone? The Government sent out the Hon Paul Swain. He was the only one there. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: I was there. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Mr Horomia must have been hiding behind the bus because I missed him. If he was there I apologise that I did not see him. 
Overseas research shows that big schools are in general more conducive to bad behaviour disruption and truancy—not always but in general they are disruptive. In New York they are breaking big schools down to small schools—100 to 200 pupils. 
The ACT party would not say which school is best for other people’s children. Nobody can tell me which school is best for my children. I cannot tell other people what is best for their child. They might choose a school of 2500 students; they might want to choose a school like the one of 11 pupils Wallingford School that greeted us 2 weeks ago at Wallingford. That has 11 students and is a sole-charge school. It is a wonderful school that has been there for a long time and has a good history. 
We have a crisis in education in this country. We have 20 percent of students leaving school at the most basic state of literacy who are unable to cope with everyday life. If we had 20 percent of children leaving school physically maimed so that they could not physically cope with everyday life there would be an outcry. There would be parents on  
Holmes. 
 The schools would be identified; the Minister would certainly be trying to do something about that. How can we change what the officials call “the tail” these people who are falling behind in the system? We give choice back to parents. Parents know whether their children can read write or add up. Wellington has to stop telling teachers what to teach turning principals into administrators where they are just filling out forms; and worst of all telling and ordering parents which school they should send their children to. Give the power back to the communities the parents and let them decide.