'We need change': Charter schools can help struggling Pasifika and Māori

Following low NCEA pass rates for Pacific and Māori students, a long-standing educator says the pushback on charter schools ignores "how bad things are".

NCEA figures from May showed a staggering 77 per cent of Pacific students and 71 per cent of Māori failed in maths, with the national total being 54 per cent.

In reading, 63 per cent of Pacific students alongside 54 per cent of Māori did not pass, with writing 56 and 55 per cent failing respectively.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, charter school advocate Alwyn Poole said PPTA member Austen Pageau, in an earlier interview with PMN, scratched the surface on the reality for low-income families.

He said charter schools was one of the innovative solutions that could help improve Pacific and Māori achievement rates in schools.

"Most of my education has been about trying to further the education for New Zealanders who are currently missing out," Poole said.

"One thing that - particularly if I was Sāmoan, Tongan, or Māori - I would find very offensive about Austen's presentation was the real light touch about how bad things are in our education system for people on low income.

"For Māori people, for geographically isolated people, Pasifika people and for people who learn differently which has commonly become now neurodiverse."

Poole began teaching in 1991 across Tauranga Boys College, Hamilton Boys' High School, and St Cuthbert's College, going on to open Mt Hobson's Middle School as principal for 18 years.

Poole said he was a part of the opening of the two charters, South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland, with the former teaching 85 to 95 per cent Māori and Pasifika, remaining a specially designed character school.

Watch the full interview via 531pi's FB below:

Poole said from annual data set on high school leavers, he found that in their "top 40 schools" 87 per cent of children left with their University Entrance.

However, for their bottom 40 schools, the average was 2.7 per cent.

"It is appalling and yet we go 'we don't need to change very much'. We need massive change in New Zealand.

"A few years ago, I was in New York and I was talking about results with people and I was saying in New Zealand, this is what happens for our Māori and Pasifika children.

"We went through the results and they said 'they must march every day'. I said we never march for education in New Zealand except for a pay rise.

"I would join anyone to march for the education of our Māori, Pasifika, and low-income children."

Seymour also weighed in on the grim results for Pacific and Māori students, saying it highlights a failure to uphold "what this country should be about".

"There should be a deal where if you're a part of this country you have a chance.

"You don't get many chances if you can't do basic maths and reading. There's so many jobs unavailable, further study, it's all closed off to you.

"When you see statistics like this, you see that different kids are getting totally different results and it seems to relate to their background that tells you you've got to do something different in my view.

"We've done badly with education in general, all students have been getting worse over the last 20 years in terms of their performance."

He said Māori and Pacific students have been behind on average and that a way to tackle that is through the charter schools, citing Sir Michael Jones co-founding Pacific Advance Secondary School and Sita Silupe's Rise Up Academy.

"That's just a couple of schools when charter schools were very small last time you saw a couple of schools with that focus on how to connect with Pacific kids.

"They did things differently and I think our education system should be a mirror image of the people that are trying to learn.

"That's our goal with charters so I hope that's going to make a big difference."

Watch the full interview with Seymour via 531pi's FB below:

Labour MP Tangi Utikere, a former secondary school teacher, said the NCEA results exhibited the need to lift achievement for Pasifika learners.

Utikere has been vocal about charter schools, calling it a "stupid move" and that special character schools were a better approach.

"Secondary schools in the state sector have a lot of innovation. In order to do more they need passion [and] they need resourcing.

"That's where it needs to go and so my concern if we touch on charter schools is that that is a significant amount of money that is basically directed to a small number of schools.

"If we were able to spread that further across the state sector, I believe it would make much more of a difference."

Watch the full interview with Utikere via 531pi's FB below:

Poole shared similar sentiments on the long-standing issues with the current system which continues to worsen over time, but that an approach of keeping things as is, is the wrong one.

"It's not just the current system, it has been happening for a long time. Effectively, the PPTA and the Ministry have been complicit in that failure."

He said he agreed with Pageau's comments on there being plenty of education choices for families but that that was a matter of privilege.

"For people with money, there's a lot of choice if you can go into the Catholic system.

"But if you're in a single school town and don't have money to send your children away to boarding school, if you're in the far North, if you're in South Auckland - you don't have choices.

"Zoning has become a way of keeping children out of areas and not helping their education. And guess who's affected?"