September 02, 2015
Charter school diversion for real problems
Labour leader Andrew Little has denied that MPs Kelvin Davis and Peeni Henare are in any trouble for supporting a fundraiser at a Whangarei charter school.
He says as constituent MPs it was their choice to back Saturday night’s event, which was to raise money to send pupils from Te Kura Hourua O Whangarei Terenga Paraoa on a trip to the United States.
He says while other parties have tried to spin it as a split in Labour ranks, the party’s opposition to ACT and National’s charter schools policy is about the effective use of state resources.
"If the issue is about Maori educational under-achievement, and it is a big issue, we should focus on how we should fix that, not on a select number of schools that get a huge amount of funding, don't have the same requirements that state schools do and don't have what most good educators tell you is the biggest constraint on teaching in New Zealand today, and that is national standards," Mr Little says.
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