How It All Started: The History of Charter Schools

American History

Audio reading of article by Sam Carter:

Albert Shanker came up with the idea of charter schools in 1988 in America (Carter, 2013). His original vision  of supporting public schools and helping drop-out students became corrupted and in 1993, he denounced it (Carter, 2013). Less than a decade later, 'for profit' organisations took over, and the privatisation of public education began (Carter, 2013). Because of this, Charter schools became competitive (Carter, 2013).

Competitive = test results improvement or be shut down = doing work to improve test scores = students having to meet the schools new standard.

The standard became so high that Geoffrey Canada un-enrolled an entire class who were 'under performing' at a particular school (Carter, 2013). 

Summary of  audio reading:

This link has more information on American charter school history. 

New Zealand History

The National Government agreed to opening Charter schools in 2011 (Armstrong, 2012). Considerable opposition, especially from teacher groups, arose due to these Charter schools setting their own school terms, timetables and teacher working conditions (Armstrong, 2012). 
Teacher unions and academics have also pointed to the failure of Charter schools in America, who are unable to lift student standards above traditional schools standards (Armstrong, 2012). Still, Catherine Isaac supported the idea, saying that Charter schools were not a "silver bullet which guaranteed  disadvantaged children would lift their achievement levels" (Armstrong, 2012).
However, already one of New Zealand's first Charter schools, which opened at in beginning of 2014, is on the brink of closure, with only 30 percent of students achieving NCEA Level 2, as opposed to the expected 66.9 percent. Although, this shouldn't be surprising given the fact that teachers do not need a qualification...

My thoughts summary

This history was really fascinating, yet quite contradictory to Shanker's original purpose; starting as a help based system, and changing to a money making system. Charter schools are now seemingly linked to corporatisation, which is the conversion of government assets into independent, private companies (Corporatize, n.d.). Corporatisation's are known for their interest in making money and in order for Charter schools to gain funding, they need to show good results, which sometimes result in cheating scandals.  
I feel that Charter schools also undermine teacher qualifications, allowing unqualified people to teach students. I wonder why the government still encourages people to pay for a degree and commit years of their lives to gain a higher education when they are also, in contrast, are endorsing Charter schools which do not require teachers who have a degree. Why then are people still paying thousands of dollars to gain a qualification if it is apparently not needed? 

References:

Armstrong, J. (2012, April 21). Charter school trials to take place across the country. In The New    Zealand Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10800485

Carter, S. (2013, May 15). In A History of Charter Schools. Retrieved from http://thechicagoschoolreviews.com/a-history-of-charter-schools/

Corporatize (n.d.). In The Free Dictionary: By Farlex. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Corporatisation

To Charter School, or not to Charter School: An Introduction

As given away by the title, the topic I will be discussing in this entry and my future blog entires, is Charter Schools in New Zealand. 

One of the main reasons why I want to delve deeper into this political issue is because, if I'm being completely honest, I don't see the negative side of having Charter schools (or the positives, really), even though I have heard a few people in my class noting how they are  'no good'. 

Due to feeling slightly left out about the knowledge or understanding that apparently Charter Schools would not be / are not good for New Zealand, I have come up with four key points, or questions if you like, to help me on my road to discovery about Charter Schools and decide for myself.

• What is the difference between Charter Schools and other schooling types (what other schooling types even are there??)

• The positives and negatives of having a Charter school here in New Zealand.

• What are the different types of Charter Schools around, or are they all fairly similar?

• How may Charter schools effect early childhood settings and education in New Zealand.

Please understand that I really have no idea about any of this Charter School stuff. But hopefully, after I have looked into and answered these nagging questions I have, I will come to my own, justified, decision on whether having Charter Schools in NZ is a good or bad thing, or whether all the fuss is really for no good reason at all.