The Lone Star Foundation Conference
Public Education Reform in Texas: Comprehensive Progress Report
Austin, Texas - December 7-8, 2000

Hon. Maurice P. McTigue Q.S.O.

Distinguished Visiting Fellow

Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Virginia

An Explanation.

This is a précis of Educational Reform in New Zealand. It will serve to demonstrate the application of the principles of reform that determined the changes made to Public Policy in New Zealand. These principles are encapsulated in this statement. "That the role of Government is to deliver to the people the best quality services at the lowest possible price with the greatest level of availability." The Government would then made whatever changes were necessary to achieve that goal regardless of previous history or the pressures of interest groups. The only way Governments declared intentions could be changed was by demonstrating that there was a better way to deliver this particular service.

A Childs Entitlement

In New Zealand every child is entitled by law to a free education until after completing secondary school. At the post-secondary and university level, some partial charging for course costs occurs. This amounts to about 10 to 15 percent of course costs.

Funding

Education is fully funded by Central Government from general income tax and

consumption tax revenues. There are no property taxes or special taxes to support Education. Therefore everyone makes a contribution to educating the nation.

Since the early 80’s Government’s education funding has not discriminated between education providers. Private Schools get exactly the same per student funding as Public Schools the only criteria is the number of students at the school with parents having an absolute right to move their child to another school if they are dissatisfied. It is this right to chose that has the greatest effect on the quality of the education provided.

To qualify for public funding Private Schools must an application to the Minister of Education to INTEGRATE. This process requires that they prove that their buildings, grounds and facilities meet the code standards. About 15 to 20 percent of all schools are private, and to date about 90 percent of these schools have integrated. Once integrated they have the right to maintain their special character (normally religious education and ethics), though they must teach the core curriculum and be open and actively teaching the students for the prescribed number of days each school year. For this they get identical

funding to public schools including capital but they do retain ownership of their assets. They may compete to educate any children. This is a process started in 1970's amid some controversy but is now accepted and is no longer controversial.

Educational Attainment

Much has been done in the last 10 years to improve quality and achievement

in education. I will not cover this topic in any depth, as it is a subject that requires its own special presentation. However the major change inside the classroom was to do away with social promotion and to link advancement to competencies. The theory is to make education and learning a successful experience for all children. That necessitates a recognition that children learn at different rates therefore recognizing when an appropriate competency is reached could allow children to progress at a pace reflective of their talents without that being interpreted as a failure. There is some anecdotal evidence to support the concept that failure at school is much more likely to produce anti-social behavior later in life.

The process used to produce this new success oriented environment was to break learning into a series of modules of learning. Progress through the school system is earned as students show they have achieved competence in a particular module then move on to the next. The old process of social promotion has gone. The goal here is to see that every child succeeds at school and leaves with appropriate recognition of their competencies not their failures. Hopefully this will prevent some children being branded as failures and will recognize that children are individuals and will achieve different levels.

The Old

Education used to be administered by a very bureaucratic structure. The Ministry of Education was the central body answerable to the Government. It made all of the rules, controlled expenditures with extremely prescriptive regulations and made all major decisions. It determined the curriculum, how it would be taught, and how performance would be measured. In every region, it had established Education Boards to whom it delegated some power, but for the most part all major decisions were ad referendum to the Ministry’s head office in Wellington.

Funding

The ministry allocated money to the Boards according to a complex formula, of how many schools, how big they were, how many students attended and a measure of funding priority. The Board had final control over spending and facilities at each school but subject to the head office policy. While each school had a School Committee the Committee had little power and the Principal and the Board had final authority on most important matters.

The Problem.

This was a massive, unresponsive system where parents had little or no influence. Education was failing to meet acceptable achievement levels. There was outright bureaucratic capture and little or no accountability for performance. The bureaucratic system consumed most of the resources. Some 70 cents in every education dollar was being consumed in administration expenditures, with only 30 cents getting to in-classroom spending.

The New

The review of Education showed two problems, a lack of quality or attainment, referred to before, and excessive administration.

New Policy

The new policy was a robust attempt to make education more responsive to children’s needs and to break the bureaucratic capture which was stifling innovation and creativity in the classroom. It was determined that parents had the greatest interest in quality education so they should be given extensive control of educations resources.

* The new policy eliminated all the Boards of Education.

* It established Boards of Trustees for every school. These Boards are

elected by the parents of the children at that school and only parents can vote. They are the unpaid trustees of educational excellence at that school and control all of the schools resources.

Through these trustees accountability is now directly in the hands of education

Consumers, the parents.

* No teacher currently employed at a school may be elected to the board of that school, so as to avoid conflict of interest or teacher capture of the school.

* The Board of Trustees has full responsibility for what happens at that school.

* The Board of Trustees makes all spending decisions.

* The Board of Trustees first job was to write the Charter for their school in consultation with their community. They are bound by and accountable for achieving what is in the Charter. The Charter can only be changed after a consultative process with the parents.

* The role of the Ministry has been changed to that of the body that provides policy advice to Government and passes to the Board of Trustees a block of money determined by a formula based on the number of students at the school. It is also responsible for auditing school performance against its Charter requirements. The Ministry was reduced to less than half its former size reflecting its new role.

* The funding debate was about fairness. The old system was arbitrary and unresponsive to changes in communities and schools. The outcome was a

concept of equitable funding. This was based on a per capita formula for every student attending the school and called Full Time Student Equivalents.

Adjustments are made to the formula for equity, e.g., low socio-economic areas or Special Needs children.

* There are specific dates each year when schools must declare their enrollment. If they have more students, they get more money; if they have fewer students, they get less money.

* This is now the only mechanism by which schools receive public moneys.

The old policy gave little credence to parental rights to choose where or how their child would be educated. As, next to parenting, education is the most important influence on

the future of a child, then a significant debate was initiated on parental rights regarding education. The outcome was that parents have an absolute right to choose the school at which their children will be educated.

The consequence: good schools with good teachers get more students, more money and more teachers, less capable schools with less capable teachers get fewer students, less money and therefore fewer teachers are employed at that school. This creates strong incentives to lift the performance of the school.

Transition from Old to New

As the elimination of the Education Board bureaucracy and the diminished role of the Ministry of Education had freed large quantities of money, a decision was made that all of this money would remain a part of education spending.

This decision allowed

* Major investment in classroom technology, especially computers.

* Significant investment in teaching aides.

* Bringing all maintenance projects up to date.

* Reducing all classroom numbers to no more than 20 pupils in front of any teacher.

This policy almost reversed the previous spending ratios to a current situation wherein 67 cents of each education dollar is spent in the classroom and 33 cents is spent on administration. The policy of parental control and parental choice along with equitable funding of all schools has been a major success. School performance is certainly improving along with, as is overall student achievement.

Notes

Caution: This overview is just that-an overview. It has reduced difficult concepts and issues to a very brief consolidation of policy. It should not be read as an authoritative or exhaustive summary of New Zealand's Education reforms but as a précis' that might justify an in depth case-study. I would also remind readers that this paper focuses primarily on administration. The issues of school quality and student achievement are of equal or greater importance.

Honorable Maurice McTigue - Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and former member of the New Zealand Parliament.

Paper presented at the Lone Star Conference on
PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM IN TEXAS - COMPREHENSIVE PROGRESS REPORT December 7th and 8th, Austin, Texas. Contact information for the Lone Star Foundation 10711 Burnet, Suite 333, Austin, Texas 78758 (Telephone 512-339-9771).

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