NZEI: Time to end the charter school experiment

<h4 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">NZEI Te Riu Roa is calling for an end to the charter school experiment&comma; and for all political parties to meet with education experts and agree on what&&num;8217&semi;s needed to improve education for all M&amacr;ori and Pasifika children&period;<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Charter schools are in the spotlight as politicians debate the future of existing schools and whether they&&num;8217&semi;re better for M&amacr;ori&comma; but NZEI describes that as &&num;8220&semi;a huge distraction&&num;8221&semi;&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&&num;8220&semi;Charter schools are an experiment that&&num;8217&semi;s been inflicted mainly on a small group of M&amacr;ori and Pasifika children&comma; and which does nothing to fix the long-term political failure to improve education for these children&comma;&&num;8221&semi; says Laures Park from NZEI&period; &&num;8220&semi;More than 85 per cent of M&amacr;ori tamariki go to mainstream public schools&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a cop out for the Government to present charter schools as a solution for M&amacr;ori &comma; while failing to adequately resource the schools that the vast majority of M&amacr;ori attend&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&&num;8220&semi;NZEI is offering to facilitate a cross-education&comma; pan-political forum to agree on a long term solution&period; Our tamariki don&&num;8217&semi;t deserve experiments&comma; they deserve education that works for them&period; There is no credible evidence that charter schools are better for M&amacr;ori than kura kaupapa or mainstream public schools&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;