Davis Kelvin: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:13024] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 If I thought the Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill would raise achievement then I would support it but it will not so I cannot. The bill amends the Education Act 1989. It gives wealthy boards of trustees control over the employment of teachers. It gives boards of trustees in Remuera Howick Epsom and the other leafy suburbs flexibility and choice. It also gives them licence to pillage and plunder the best teachers for their own schools while less fortunate schools struggle to recruit and retain excellent teachers which will get a whole lot more difficult. 
In this House we must be careful that when we advocate for the rights choices and freedoms for some we do not restrict the rights choices and freedoms of others as a result. We have to ensure that advocating for the rights choices and freedoms of some is not really an excuse to concentrate the skill talent and expertise in just those schools that can afford to pay for it. We have to be careful that the concentration of that skill talent and expertise does not simply exacerbate the inequalities in our system and country and entrench burdened and despondent communities across New Zealand. 
As it is many low-decile schools have to run deficit budgets to survive and provide for their students. I ask Sir Roger Douglas how he expects those schools to have the resources to compete with wealthy schools for the services of excellent teachers. The vision from the ACT Party should be for every child in every class in every school to have an excellent teacher because excellent teachers raise achievement. 
Bulk funding will not raise achievement. The vision should not be for excellent teachers simply to be concentrated in schools that are concentrated in wealthy communities. When every child in every class in every school has an excellent teacher in front of them the Government’s responsibility is then to provide the conditions where those excellent teachers can weave their magic. Bulk funding is not a condition that will enable excellent teachers to weave their magic. 
People who sing the praises of bulk funding in the 1990s always forget to mention the fact that those schools that opted into bulk funding received a hefty and attractive bonus for joining up and therefore their allegiance to the scheme was guaranteed by a bribe. They received substantially more funding than was necessary to pay all their staff at the top of the scale. This bill is evidence that parties on the other side of the House do not have a plan for education or raising achievement. 
Reporting achievement does not lift achievement; good teachers raise achievement. The parties opposite do not have a plan to reduce inequality and inequity in communities and they do not care that their ideological beliefs for education mean that schools that struggle because of the geographic isolation or socio-economic status of their communities will struggle to compete with more fortunate schools for the services of the best teachers in New Zealand. 
In the far north we struggled at times to get any applicants for some teaching positions. In order to attract the best teachers under bulk funding we would have had to divert tens of thousands of dollars away from the curriculum professional development and resources for the students in order to pay bonuses for teachers’ salaries. 
In Kaitaia the allowance for hard-to-staff schools is simply not enough to attract excellent teachers. At Kaitaia Intermediate School we would have needed tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses to attract teachers to move them away from the big centres. In fact I added it up and it would have come to over $200000 which is more than two-thirds of our operational grant. When I hear of some wealthy schools being able to raise $100000 in 1 day at a school gala I can understand why this bill would be attractive to them. They can afford to pay those bonuses. For those of us in struggling schools raising $2000 $3000 or $4000 in a fund-raiser would pay for little more than one-third or one-quarter of the bonus we would need to attract an excellent teacher. 
This bill will harm educational outcomes. It will reinforce educational and therefore social disparity. It will mean that struggling schools in struggling communities will be at a disadvantage compared with wealthy schools in wealthy communities. It will make it harder for every child in every class in every school to have an excellent teacher in front of them.