The idea was very simple. Open up schools to ‘parent power’, and educational failure would disappear. Fuelled by the threat of the loss of students, schools teaching failing kids would up their game to attract students, or would fail. Coming from the dulcet tones of Labour Prime Minister David Lange, it all sounded so rational. The trouble is, the formula failed to factor in the national and international trends that, whatever the notion and whatever the group, lower socio-economic groups have significant barriers to educational success. What is the strongest indicator of educational success in New Zealand? That’s easy! It is the number of books in the home. Those with less than 10 books are pretty well guaranteed to be down the bottom end of the learning scale, while those that come from book rich families (500 or more) have a free ticket to educational achievement. The average learning gap between the bottom and the top groups at age 15 is more than three years, according to the OECD’s PISA studies. From day one of Tomorrow’s Schools, as discovered in every research project that has ever been done on school choice, Graph 1
parents have chosen ‘up’. In qualitative studies they say things like ‘I want to send my child to a school with other children like mine’. While they mean in terms of values, the effect is a socio-economic and ethnic profiling of choice. Over a quarter of a century, the choosing ‘up’ has radically reshaped the schooling system in New Zealand. Lower decile schools have got smaller and smaller, while higher decile schools have increased in size. The graph 1 (below) shows what has happened over the years to school numbers by decile – If 320,000 children currently live in poverty, they populate the equivalent of the whole bottom 40 per cent of schools, because lower decile schools are so much smaller than higher ones. (Of course, children in poverty, while concentrated in low decile schools, are in schools at all socio-economic levels). The change has also been ethnic in nature. In the average decile one school today, five children out of every ten are Māori, four are Pasifika and a quarter of a child is Pakeha. I have called the process of white children moving away from low decile schools ‘white flight’, although I have been accused of deliberately using an emotional term for this!
The positional change for pakeha is shown in graph 2 (right). In an ethnically equal system, the line should be flat at the 10 percent level – 10 percent of all pakeha students should attend schools in each decile, all else being equal. Note that between the two periods, the number of pakeha students has dropped significantly in decile 1–4 schools, and has risen significantly in decile 8–10 schools. White flight! I have been asked in the media what the educational implications are for those students, predominantly Māori and Pasifika (with a small but significant Māori movement over the period) left behind in low decile schools. I always start by saying that there is nothing bad about low-decile schools. They are full of teachers trained to the same standard as teachers in all other schools. They are often well-tuned to the needs of their communities and often have a significant commitment to them. But, their children have significant learning needs. They start off two years behind in language, literacy and conceptual knowledge. If that were all, perhaps good teachers could, with additional resources, close the gap. But the difficulties and barriers that cause the children of the
40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 -10,000 -20,000
Graph 2
1996 2013
Decile 1 Decile 2 Decile 3 Decile 4 Decile 5 Decile 6 Decile 7 Decile 8 Decile 9 Decile 10
poor to be behind at school entry do not magically fade away once a child enters school. Children bring the barriers and problems with them and these cannot just be ‘trained out’ in the classroom. Schools need to work with, respond to, get resources for, find solutions to and (in the meantime) try to educate in ‘catch up’ mode. While I do respect the Minister’s goal to get schools to improve student learning, she appears to have little understanding of the multiple powerful social factors that affect the learning of poor children. You cannot just magic up educational success from nothing, and berating schools for the large damage caused by social inequalities and child poverty is pointless. As schools get smaller, they lose teachers and other resources and their finances do not go as far. The additional funding low decile schools get to increase students learning often has to be spent on plugging increasing gaps. As capital works funding is directed to building new facilities in growing high decile schools, low decile schools have been neglected over the years. While high decile schools have their own problems dealing with increasing demand for places, it is really tough down in low decile struggle street. There are career implications for Principals. Your pay rates are partially
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determined by the size of the schools you lead, and not at all by the strength of the challenge you face. Teaching in lower decile schools is thus less financially rewarding and the task is harder. There are learning barriers to be overcome which are virtually absent in schools in wealthier areas. There are also esteem issues. There is a golden glow among those who are Principals in the so-called ‘top’ schools, the high achieving decile 9 and 10 schools. Your salary is larger because everyone wants to get into your school, and you can rely on your talented, lavishly-parented, fortunate, often gifted and special students to bring you success. I am not saying the work is easier, but the barriers you face are far fewer than those of your underpaid colleagues in the lowest decile schools. Is the profession of school Principal now defined as much by the moving up of the deciles as anything else? There are three main systemic implications of the ongoing disparities between schools. There is an imbalance in the size and resources of schools across the socio-economic spectrum that raises additional barriers to learning at the lower decile end. Many high decile schools that have expanded have seen wonderful new facilities built on their campuses, justified by larger numbers, while there is a sense of
neglect at many low decile schools. Second, there is a concentration of Māori and Pasifika in the lower decile schools that may encourage a lack of esteem between ethnic groups, and outright racism on occasions. A society needs its different ethnic and social groups to mingle together to avoid disharmony. Many of us look with despair upon the ethnic wars being fought in the northern hemisphere. But it could happen to us too, if care is not taken (indeed, it did happen here, 150 years ago). Finally, despite the fact that there is absolutely no research evidence that choosing ‘up’ for any individual child will improve that child’s educational outcomes, our highways and byways are constantly clogged with parents shipping children out of their local communities in search of . . . who knows what. This is annoying, environmentally unsound and socially damaging. While we see the effects of the market era in schooling, and while an alternative ‘neighbourhood school’ model has been well discussed, there has been little sense of the possibility of change. As the research findings show, the model we have is distorting, damaging and divisive, so we will, sooner or later, need to look at change.
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SCHOOLS ARE FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER AN ARSON ATTACK THAN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS.
All schools can take some simple, inexpensive steps to improve fire safety and reduce the likelihood of arson.
FACT
1. KEEP RUBBISH BINS AND SKIPS WELL AWAY FROM OUTSIDE WALLS MOST SCHOOL FIRES ARE STARTED USING RUBBISH AND OTHER EASY-TO-BURN ITEMS
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We recommend you keep all fixed bins and wheelie bins at least two metres away from all buildings Lock and secure bins so they can’t be moved up against buildings.
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FACT
2. REMOVE MATERIALS THAT CAN BE USED TO SET FIRES MOST SCHOOL FIRES LIT BY YOUNG PEOPLE ARE OPPORTUNISTIC
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Empty bins every night and weekend if school grounds are being used e.g. sports, fairs Remove loose combustible items from under buildings e.g. timber, desks, school crafts Lock recycle bin lids after hours Monitor school boundaries, as nearby rubbish can be easily carried to school grounds.
FACT
THE LARGEST FIRES ARE SET AT NIGHT
FACT
3. INSTALL/INCREASE SECURITY LIGHTS
ADDITIONAL SECURITY LIGHTS HAVE REDUCED FIRES AND VANDALISM IN BRITISH
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Leave external lights on or increase timer periods for sensor lights Cut back vegetation to make school buildings more visible and minimise places for arsonists to hide.
SCHOOLS
4. INVOLVE THE COMMUNITY •
Ask neighbours and parents to keep an eye on the school and report any fires and serious vandalism to Police immediately.
FACT
5. CONFRONT ALL FIRE-SETTING BEHAVIOUR, NO MATTER HOW SMALL SCHOOLS OFTEN HAVE A SPATE OF SMALL FIRES ON THEIR GROUNDS BEFORE A MAJOR ARSON ATTACK
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Report minor fire lighting to Police as it has been shown it is likely to continue Increase night security patrols during November Contact the Fire Service’s Fire Awareness Intervention Programme (FAIP) on 0800 FIREINFO for further advice or visit our website www.fire.org.nz/FAIP. This programme is highly effective in ending fire-setting behaviour. The intervention can be directed at known fire-setters or to school groups when it is not known who is lighting the fires Record all information about fire-setting incidents for possible use by the Fire Service.
Order resources from our Get Firewise programme to teach children general fire safety. Go to http://www.getfirewise.org.nz/ to order these resources, and feel free to get in touch with us through this page if you have any queries.