Fase II: Diseño Conceptual

REGION NUMBER REVIEWED CLOSED SCHOOLS REMAINING

Northland 15 6 9 Auckland 1 1 - Hawke’s Bay 22 10 12 Taranaki 19 11 8 Manawatu 2 1 1 Wellington 8 3 5 Greymouth 12 7 5 South Canterbury` 28 11 17 Southland 25 13 12 TOTALS 132 63 69

Twenty years after the introduction of Tomorrow’s Schools, the Chief Executive Officer of the New Zealand Catholic Education Office, Pat Lynch, reflected on its significance in Lighting New Fires,73 the newsletter for integrated schools:

The self-managing school model was regarded as something of a revolution, since no other nation had been bold enough to do what the Lange Government inaugurated….While economic philosophies were part of the 1989 initiative, the active involvement of parents in the education process of their children was of greater significance. Teachers and parents working together was the genius of the reform….the self-managing school model has enabled a mosaic of diversity to evolve as local communities have put their own stamp on the education they provide for their young people.74

In the Masterton District Review and the Bush District CIEP it became clear that educational communities placed a high value on the ‘mosaic of diversity’ that became possible after Tomorrow’s Schools.

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When the Masterton District Network Review began, most of the people deciding the outcomes had received the benefit of being educated in a New Zealand society strongly influenced by educational values which originated in the 1877 Education Act. One of its core values was that the provision of education by the state should be based on the socially democratic notions of social equity and social justice. Although it did not satisfy everybody, for over 100 years this Act had provided an educational system which produced a large degree of social cohesion because it was seen as being socially diverse and inclusive and perceived to be fundamentally fair. A free education was valued as a public good, provided by the state, to which all might have access. However the politics of social equity was giving way to the politics of “ choice.” Tomorrow’s Schools was the turning point. Codd and Openshaw75

describe this transition and distil the ideological essence of the conflict between the politics of social equity and the politics of choice in their contribution to Education and Society in New Zealand.

The beliefs the stakeholders have about their educational communities affect the way they respond to school closures and mergers. Some stakeholders believe that education is a public good, a social and professional service that they have a right to expect as New Zealand citizens. Others prefer to see education as a saleable commodity subject to the laws of supply and demand. Politicians find themselves assaulted with angry electors from all sides. Labour’s Paul Swain said that the Wainuiomata EDIs had been the most difficult issue he had encountered in his thirteen years as an electorate M.P. Teachers find themselves at the cutting edge of a highly stressful process not of their choosing with a strong possibility that it will have a significant effect on their careers. Principals do not have job protection. The aftermath of the process is a strategic management minefield. Peter Debney, retiring principal of Masterton’s newly merged Lakeview School, told the Wairarapa Times Age in 200676 that the EDI experience was the most stressful experience he had had in his forty-one year teaching career. The high stress levels experienced by the stakeholders in school merger and closure processes was confirmed by the overwhelming majority of the responses to the survey associated with this thesis. Educationalists find themselves embroiled in debates about the relative merits of large versus small schools and whether or not school size affects student achievement. The goal of the National Educational Monitoring Project (NEMP),

which began in 1993, was to obtain ‘a detailed national picture of the educational achievements and attitudes of New Zealand primary and intermediate school children at Years 4 and 8 and to provide high quality information to help inform policy making in the area of student achievement.’77

This report provides a rich source of data about student achievement tested in fifteen curriculum subjects including reading, language, mathematics, music art and physical education over a period of time. The results, reported in 2002 and 2004, the same time as the network reviews were being undertaken, make a significant contribution to this debate because of the 144 schools participating, ninety per cent had a roll of less than 140.

School type (full primary or intermediate), school size, community size and geographic zone did not seem to be important factors predicting achievement in the reading and speaking tasks. The same was true in the 2000 and 1996 assessments.78

The supporters of smaller schools felt vindicated by these results and were pleased to learn, usually through the media, that when the data for students in Years 4-8 was analysed, students in small schools performed as well as if not better than students in larger schools.

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Ninety per cent of schools with rolls of fewer than fifty were rural schools. In Rural Schools and Government Policy,79 Ministry of Education representative, Martin Connelly, confirmed that the NEMP showed few differences between large, medium or small schools and few differences related to community size or location. Rural Year 8 students scored lowest in two out of thirty-five tasks. If these figures are valid, then whatever the arguments are for closing or merging small schools, poor student achievement is not one of them. Although ERO research80 _{has confirmed that with its} population of over 4,000,000 New Zealand is one of the few Western educational systems in which small primary schools form the majority, there was a developing official preference for larger schools. Karen Sewell explained this preference in a 2003 interview with Michelle Quirke of Dominion Post:81

The ERO’s chief review officer, Karen Sewell, says its work shows schools with fewer than 100 pupils are more “fragile” in terms of keeping good teachers and good governance. Larger schools can offer a wider range of opportunities and benefit from economies of scale as more teachers can work together and support each other in developing programmes.82

The rationale for school closures and mergers was ‘a sustainable future’ based on a blend of political, economic, social and educational arguments and fiscal efficiency. High school maintenance costs and unused classrooms are not a prudent use of scarce educational resources or taxpayer dollars.

While some might argue that the ‘power’ exercised by trustees is largely illusory, one of the significant political outcomes of self-managing schools has been the increasing politicisation of education which can be seen at board of trustees level, in the local media, in e mails and on internet sites and willingness to engage in protest action against school closures and mergers. As a result, educational issues in the localities can easily assume national significance and be monitored by an international audience.

The children whose educational futures were being decided in the network reviews were a generation whose educational experiences were shaped by philosophies which viewed parents as ‘consumers’ in the free market education policies associated with Tomorrow’s Schools. After 1988 the core value of individual choice became more important than the core value of equity and the collective good. Many of the conflicts that occurred in the Masterton District Review were connected to the debate about the core values of equity versus choice. The reason why this ideological conflict about the provision of education can be seen as a moral issue on which a community should have reason to reflect, is clearly and succinctly expressed by researchers Adams and Openshaw et al:83

In education, political power is also about the distribution of life chances. Education is about identity and aspirations. It is about who we are and what we want to become.84

As the evidence provided in this chapter clearly demonstrates, educational restructuring occurs within an historical context. The elected trustees, principals, staff and community leaders who were faced with the decision making about school closures and mergers in the network reviews were the products of a pre Tomorrow’s Schools educational system which had equity as a core value. The children whose future they were deciding were receiving their schooling in a system which had shifted to having freedom of choice as a core value. The outcome of school closures and mergers usually removes freedom of choice from many stakeholders. To what

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extent was it possible for educational communities faced with a network review to resist and contest this restriction of freedom?

In his 1998 Listener article “Close or be Closed”85 Bruce Ansley alerted readers to the increasing social significance of EDIs, drew attention to the fact that eighty-five schools had closed and claimed that once a school was selected for closure by the Ministry of Education the outcome was inevitable because the power in the matter resided with the Minister. Ansley claimed that schools selected for an Educational Development Initiative were:

Like the lame duck of the regiment they are given a loaded pistol and left alone in the study. It is plain to the smallest community that when push soon turns to shove: if they don’t decide to close and merge with another school, the Minister of Education will.86

This claim raises the question which is the main focus of this thesis: to what extent can school closure and merger decisions be contested?

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CHAPTER 2