The 2024-25 Charter School Debacle – only 215 students at $46,000 each!

In 2014 I was involved in beginning South Auckland Middle School in Manurewa.

We had 120 students to start and quickly grew to 180 and with a waiting list of over 100. The students were over 85% Maori and Pasifika. When they left us, at the end of Year 10, we tracked their progress and in the years when I was involved 88% were achieving Level 1 NCEA – and developing from there.

It was a similar story with the opening of Middle School West Auckland in 2015.

In 2018, with some huff and puff from ACT, Labour turned those schools into Designated Character Schools.

During the 2023 election campaign ACT promised to re-introduce Charter Schools and early in 2024 David Seymour (as Ass Minister of Education) promised to go big.

The Associate Education Minister told Q+A there is enough funding for “up to 15” charter schools to be operational by Term 1 next year.

Seymour, who has been a vocal supporter of charter schools for many years, said there was “overwhelming demand” for the schools.

Opening new ones [charter schools] at least initially does cost a little bit more money, so we’ve rationed it at 15 new ones,” Seymour added.

“Seymour says he’s learnt much from his previous attempt to establish the charter model here, although most of the lessons were political rather than pedagogical. This time, he’s going big and going fast.

“There’s probably going to be a couple of hundred of these schools by the time Labour gets back into power. And it’s going to be big, powerful communities with lots of capital and lots of lawyers.

“It won’t be a small group of poor brown kids that Labour can shamefully and disgracefully ignore like they did last time. And the contract is going to be much tighter and harder to buy. They’re going to be 10 by 10 by 10. Thirty years, with break points every 10 years.” See also here.

(Please actually read those quotes KBers [Kiwibloggers]. This is not me picking on DS. It is comparing his word to his outcomes).

A disclaimer from me is that a new company I formed took Seymour at his word and applied for four new schools, to begin this year, that I am confident would have a total of 900 students by now. There were other, very high-quality, applicants also looking to challenge NZ’s failing education system through significant provisions.

What have we got?

OIAs have confirmed that:

• Seymour was talking porkies about having enough funding to begin 15 new schools. Charter Schools were allocated just $10million from 2024 until June 30, 2025. Until the end of 2026 the total funding is $123m but $30m of that is being spent on the Charter School Bureaucracy (in theory – anathema to the Accociation of Consumers and Taxpayers).
• For the $10m spent, so far, the seven new schools, at March 31, have just 215 students between them (an average of 30 students). That is costing over $46,000 per student and these boutique schools are offering no challenge to the NZ system at all – which is why the teacher unions are giving the whole thing a great deal of – not bothering to oppose them. This is not the “overwhelming demand” Seymour likes to acclaim.
• The two new schools recently announced, to be opened in July, will also be fringe and tiny.

While Seymour is trying to remain positive and supportive of a truly inept Charter School Agency, I have no doubt that in the 2026 election campaign he will blame National for the debacle and say that there was simply not enough funding, and also turn on the public servants as he did last time. He will then promise big things if he gets another go at it.

The deep loss is for the thousands of students that could have been helped by this policy.

Image credit: Taylor Flowe