Privatising public education: are we there yet?

Much is changing in the educational landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand at present.In this editorial, we take a moment to pause and consider the position of some of these educational changes within an ongoing process of privatisation in and of public education.Recently, Thrupp and colleagues (2021) detailed political changes since the 1980s which continue to shift the State's role in education from governing to governance -that is, from delivering education, to governing the complex landscape of public and private (non-profit and for-profit) entities which deliver it.The reintroduction of charter schools represents the inclusion of one such entity under State governance.Fresh legislation amendments and a budgetary allocation of $153 million in new funding have paved the way for the introduction of 50 charter schools whose express intent is to "lift declining educational performance" (Seymour, 2024).Charter school funding will be provided under a bulk-funding model with individual schools given full autonomy to allocate this funding as they see fit.Teachers within charter schools will be employed on individual contracts, meaning that they are not part of collectively agreed union pay scales and conditions.Notably, these teachers are not required to be qualified as teachers.Advocates argue that such measures enable opportunities for parental choice, culturally specific curricula, and spaces for business to succeed where educators have failed (cf.Hosking, 2024).Critics problematise the allocation of significant public funds to a select few schools rather than tackling a national issue of underachievement within the national institution of education.As well, they point to [r]eports from the Ministry of Education after the schools were abolished by Labour in 2018 [which] highlight the lack of independent scrutiny and the success rates of the students, while teacher unions and principals are against the profit-taking model of charter schools by the privately-run sponsors or trusts.(Brettkelly, 2024, para.15) Yet how well founded are concerns over the potential privatisation of education as a result of the reintroduction of charter schools?And just how 'public' is a public education today?Compulsory education in Aotearoa New Zealand is overwhelmingly provided by the State.Figure.nz(n.d.) reports