12. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
What proportion of parents are able to choose the school their child attends?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for Economic Development) Link to this
Generally all but 22 percent of schools currently have enrolment schemes that protect the rights of parents to have children attend their local school if that is the parents’ choice. This policy was introduced by National in 1998 after the disastrous results of its decision to abandon zoning in 1991.
If, as the member says, generally all parents have a choice about where their child goes to school, why is it then Labour Government policy to keep secret from parents information about schools that is contained on the SchoolSmart website?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Because this Government believes in undertakings made, when data is collected, being kept.
Moana MackeyWhat reports has he seen on alternatives to the current system where students have a right to attend their local school?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I have seen an approach that would introduce a competitive market between schools, reintroduce bulk funding, and set up schools for privatisation. These policies are advocated by someone who says he does not care who owns our schools—the absent Dr Brash.
Madam SPEAKER
Hon Brian Donnelly Link to this
Can the Minister confirm that when the then Minister of Education, Lockwood Smith, abolished school zoning in the early 1990s, the areas that were most negatively affected were blue-ribbon areas such as Epsom, and that the hue and cry from such areas became so strident that National, with the support of ACT and Mauri Pacific, reintroduced geographic zoning in November 1998?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Yes, I can confirm that all of that is correct. I can also confirm that as a result of the policy, 47 percent of Māori parents who tried to enrol their children at schools with limited entry were unable to, compared with 10 percent of Pākehā. When principals selected, we got some results that were not random.
Which of the following data, collected by the ministry and available on the SchoolSmart website, does the Government believe is too dangerous for parents to see, and that they should be protected from seeing: ancillary staff hours, expenditure on property and depreciation, predicted roll compared with actual roll, roll-change comparison by similar schools, or suspensions per 1,000 students?
Hon Brian Donnelly Link to this
Can the Minister confirm that when, under his administration, balloting of school students was introduced, principals such as John Morris warned the Government that parents would indulge in large-scale cheating in certain areas, and will he put in place some policies that might assist some of those schools in overcoming such practices of some parents?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I know that the former Minister of Education worked very closely with John Morris in order to work through some of those issues. They worked in a collaborative way and made a lot of progress. I note that currently there are 10 requests to the ministry from people who have been declined enrolment at Auckland Grammar who claim to live in the zone. So far, three of those cases have been resolved. There has been a direction to the school to enrol them. The other seven cases are being worked on.
If, as the Minister says, all the information available on the SchoolSmart website is publicly available, why has he stated publicly now several times that this information is too dangerous for parents to see and that he will not allow parents to have access to it, even though school principals and the ministry use it all the time to compare schools?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
What the Minister answering for the Minister said in the House today was that the three pieces of information that the member asked for were all publicly available.
Is the Minister now telling us that parents must be protected from actually being able to use information that is publicly available, because, as he realises, the SchoolSmart website produces that information in a way that means it can be compared from school to school? Does the Minister believe that the information is OK if it is publicly available, but is dangerous if it can be used?
Does the Minister understand how ridiculous it sounds when he says that information that is publicly available must be kept secret from parents in case they start using it to compare schools?
Can the Minister explain to members of the House—a number of whom are parents of schoolchildren—why this information on the SchoolSmart website should be kept secret from them, and what it is about parents that renders them so dangerous and stupid that they should not be allowed to see the information?