School Choice in New Zealand
A guest post by teacher Tyler Vinton
Bet On It reader Tyler Vinton teaches in New Zealand. He recently sent me this email on the effects of school choice on the country’s students’ quality of life. Reprinted with his kind permission. Enjoy!
Hey Bryan,
A couple of things that change the state of education in New Zealand to promote competitiveness and I think improve schools (at least in terms of happiness for students).
Students have more choice over where they attend school. In Houston (where I am from) I was zoned for exactly one school. My choice was that public school, a private school, homeschool, or move.
In Auckland most students are zoned for 3 schools providing some choice over their public school. Schools then have an incentive to compete for the best students. I don’t know if there is financial reward for having more/better students, but there is non-financial reward. Teaching motivated, intelligent, well-behaved students is really fun. Furthermore there is one school that pumps money into their athletic program and hence get many of the top athletes, but it filters down into improved training programs for those mid-level athletes as well. The same goes for performing arts.
While parents of course care about long-term outcomes for their children they seem to be quite influenced by the overall vibe of the school and the extra curriculars. Parents and students visit the various schools at open days like it is a university and then make choices in part based on that. Additionally out-of-zone students can apply to attend other schools.
Another big difference is the culture around school attendance. I remember being a student in Texas the one time a student left school early and school administrators chased them down. It was unacceptable behaviour and the student was dragged back to school. In New Zealand skipping school (wagging) is quite normal. Only 53% of students attended at least 90% of lessons in the last school Term. I teach at quite a high-quality school and attendance is still an issue. This is one of our biggest challenges. The students will actually just not come.
This means that schools operate a little bit more like businesses in that if the product sucks, the customers won’t purchase it. So we do a mix of lowering the price (decreased workload) and increasing the perceived quality of schools. The increase in perceived quality is usually about cultural events, more clubs, improved teaching, and ensuring that we treat children fairly. Additionally we do things at lunch like 3x3 basketball tournament, family feud teachers vs students, football world cup, Battle of the Bands, and other “fun” things like that.
I’m not sure if NZ schools are better than other systems as the long-term benefits are difficult to measure. But I am convinced that due to different in-zone options and wagging culture create competition that effectively incentives schools to improve the quality of their service at least in the short term.
Note on the decreased workload… we have almost 4k students and 500 are international. The international students who come here are consistently astounded by how little content is actually covered in class or assigned as homework.
This seems to provide only ambiguous evidence for school choice. 1. If school quality depends on the other pupils, as much as on teaching, then school choice may not improve teaching much, but just lead all the good pupils to cluster in one school. 2. The low-calorie intellectual content suggests that schools are competing to satisfy pupils’ short-term preferences, more than their long-term needs.
So, they have a choice of 3 or so schools? Still a far cry from, say, voucher schools.
Y'all might also be interested in school choice in Canada, hwhich I have some insight about. At least for Ontario and Québec.
One important thing to note, as it is totally relevant to this discussion: Canada doesn't constitutionally require separation of Church and State, unlike the USA. We have freedom of religion, but not an "establishment clause".
In Québec, in my early childhood, we didn't even have "public" schools, per se. You had the choice of Protestant or Catholic schools, both were government funded. Protestant schools were mostly English. I have never heard of a French protestant schools. However, only Anglophone parents could send their kids to English schools. In order to qualify as Anglophone, you needed to do most of your Elementary schooling in English. Anglophone parents could send their kids to French schools, if they want. (At the risk of not being able to send their own kids to English school, anymore.) So, essentially, Anglophone parents like mine had the choice of English Protestant, English Catholic or French Catholic public schools. I tried all three. I think I preferred English Catholic the best. Catholic schools included Catholic religious education, as part of the curriculum. But parents could "opt out" their kids and have them sent to "Moral" class instead. A minority of kids at St. Mark's did.
I guess French parents could really only send their kids to French Catholic schools. So, oddly enough, they had less school choice in Québec than English kids.
hWhen I was a lil older, Québec tried to get more secular and instead just separated school boards along linguistic lines: French and English. They still taught religion (by, generally, very liberal Catholics) but you could choose between Catholic, Protestant or Moral class. I went to French public secondary school and took Catholic religion class. Very few students at that school took protestant class. But there were a few! Later on, Québec changed its curriculum so that all students (regardless of their parents' religion) took an Ethics and Religious Culture class. This was after my time. But, as I understand it, it sounds like a mix of World Religions + Woke Ethics.
Québec also partially subsidized certain private schools. They had to conform in certain ways like following the standard provincial curriculum, but this allowed many "discount" private schools. Including many private Catholic schools. But, even these were generally Catholic In Name Only.
One private Catholic School, Loyola High School, tried to slightly modify the Ethics and Religious Culture curriculum, so that, although they would teach students about other religions, they would teach that Catholicism is the right religion and its doctrines were right. The Québec government didn't let them do so. Loyola sued. All the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyola_High_School_v_Quebec_AG
There are also private private schools, which don't take government money and don't have to teach the government's curriculum. But, obviously, they're more expensive.
In Ontario, there are 4 school boards: English Public, English Catholic, French Catholic and French Public. Theoretically, Catholic schools can insist on students being baptized Catholic and French schools can insist on students or their parents being Francophone. But, as I understand it, these schools are rarely overcrowded so they tend to be more flexible. Indeed, in Ontario Catholic Schools, there are many Muslim students. hWhy would Muslim parents send their kids to Catholic schools? Cause they're better. Higher ranked than the public schools. That's hwhy. I don't actually know how hard it is for an Anglophone, Atheist or Muslim parent to get their kids into, say, a French Catholic school. (I heard it's a little less flexible at the Elementary level. But I really don't know.) I'm also not sure if non-Catholic parents who send their kids to a Catholic school can opt them out of Catholic religion class, in Ontario. But, I don't think they can.
We also have magnet schools: i.e. Certain schools, especially Secondary Schools, have special programs, like special Arts programs. If your kid qualifies for one of these special programs through a somewhat competitive admissions process, they can go to one of these schools, even if it's not the closest. But I believe y'all have that in the US, too. So, it's not that different.
Anyway, that's about it. It's still a far cry from voucher schools. But you still get SOME choice.