‘We were promised the nice organic shop on the corner that would meet the needs of the whole community, with the friendly face at the door that knew everybody’s name – and what we’ve ended up with is Walmart.’
James Kerr has endless stories, data, and impassioned reasons why charter schools are to be avoided: he’s spent many years seeing how their counterparts in England, ‘academies’, have eroded the education system and failed to deliver those rosy outcomes initially promised by politicians. In fact, the Conservative Government recently admitted there is no conclusive evidence to show that academies have resulted in better educational outcomes than their ‘local authority’ counterparts.
‘Our real concern about academies is the impact they have across the system – the impact on groups of students with special educational needs, Black students as well – and the way it has shifted the culture in English education and made it a more corporate, stale and staid culture. That affects everybody, regardless of what school they’re in,’ explains James.
He says that over the past couple of decades, academies have had a detrimental effect on all teachers’ experiences, even for those not working in them – such is their power.
Like our schooling system in Aotearoa, the best of the education system in the UK, James believes, is borne out of the community – and that unique flavour and responsiveness will be lost with the conversion from public to charter schools.
‘We’ve got schools that have more than a century of history, they’ve got a real character, that are now part of these big monolithic, faceless, multi-academy trusts,’ he says. ‘All of that character and pride, the memory that people have of their school and education, is being chipped away.’
James says it is crucial for educators, unions, parents and supporters of the public system to show in their campaigns that there is more to education than ‘maths and English results and data exclusively – that’s in the corporate heads’ own interests’. We must also show the great things that are happening in classrooms, the connection with our communities, the joy and fun, the expertise and enrichment we provide.
‘[In UK academies] you have a CEO who is making fundamental decisions about the way that [a school] is run,’ James explains. ‘Some of the characters who now hold very powerful positions within the English education system in the past would have come nowhere near schools, would have no interest in it whatsoever. Because ultimately, they’re not interested in education, they’re not interested in children, they’re interested in a new and emerging market – to be able to make money and gain power.’
‘Ultimately, they’re not interested in education, they’re not interested in children, they’re interested in a new and emerging market – to be able to make money and gain power.’
Part of the ironic beauty of our current school system is in its imperfections, James points out – and the fact that the school community is allowed and encouraged to speak up about them. This democratic, symbiotic process will be lost with charter schools, if the UK academy system serves as any sort of warning.
‘The need for frank and open and honest discussion is really important,’ says James. ‘The academy programme shuts down a lot of that dialogue and that democratic accountability. Parents’ voices are not amplified, they’re not heard.’
He sees what is happening here with our Government as concerning. ‘It’s very interesting when you come to New Zealand and you hear a right-wing government talk about freedom and autonomy,’ he says. When he says ‘interesting’, he raises a wry eyebrow. ‘Our experience [in England] of the last decade and a half of a Conservative government has been some of the most restrictive measures, the most standardised, top-down way of running a country – including running an education system.
‘Lots of the guidelines that the Conservative government brought in were incredibly restrictive in the way that we could talk about social and international issues within schools, so it’s been very difficult to talk about the conflict in Gaza because of the way that the government has targeted the education sector, it’s been very hard to support our trans and non-binary students because of the guidelines that the Conservative government has issued. We’ve seen in almost every aspect of public, civic life a real clamping down on anything that doesn’t fit with their narrative.’
If you’re in Auckland on Wednesday 14 August 2024, you can attend a Charter Schools Forum with James Kerr. Find out more and register here.
