A charter is a school that is government-funded, but which sits outside the public education system. Essentially, it is an independently run business that is publicly-funded.
A ‘sponsor’ has a contract with the government to receive funding and to meet performance standards, but how the school runs is up to them – the normal school rules don’t apply. This means that a charter school is able to set its own opening hours (or open on weekends for instruction).
Charters can hire unregistered and unqualified teachers, and don’t need to meet the professional competency standards set by the New Zealand Teaching Council.
Charters do not need to teach the New Zealand Curriculum – they can create their own curriculum. This does not guarantee that the expectations and outcomes for students in charters will be any better than in a public school. A qualified teacher must be responsible for teaching and learning programmes, but they have the ability to choose what is taught in the school.
Teachers are not guaranteed to be paid the same as in a public school. They are employed on individual agreements and the pay and conditions are set in agreement with the school sponsor.
Charter Schools are not subject to the Official Information Act (OIA). This means that there is no public scrutiny of how they are using tax-payer dollars. They will ‘self-audit’ each year and report the results of this to the charter schools agency. This agency is going to be independent of the Ministry of Education.
There is no requirement for community or staff involvement in the governance of the school. Currently, school boards are required to have community members, a student representative, and a staff representative on them. Charter schools will be run more like a business – with a sponsor who has final say on all decisions.
Ministry of Education directives won’t apply. This includes the requirement for structured literacy and the cellphone ban. The ministry of education will not require charter schools to be part of initiatives and strategies such as Ka Ora Ka Ako School lunches, and Ka Hikitia | The Māori Education Strategy.
Charter schools can be run as for-profit businesses. They make students a commodity in the free market. This means that at the end of the day, the school is not responsible to their students, they are responsible to their bottom line.