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.
Would this not apply to any urban area? Teaching in NYC has the same element of school competition and choice. Better ranked schools (whether in academics/sports/etc.) attract stronger pupils which yield better results. In NYC you can send a kid to any middle/high school in the city provided they apply and get into it. Maybe this is novel in suburbs/rural areas but this has been the case for the last century in most cities.