The U.S. and New Zealand educational systems have similar histories.  Both have complex histories that include discrimination, reform, and power struggles.  The New Zealand system is different from the U.S. system in one major way, though: size.  The U.S. system actually has over 50 educational systems that are similar, but slightly different.  The New Zealand system has one.  New Zealand can be considered equal to one of the U.S. states in terms of population and geographic size.

New Zealand’s education system history goes back to the mid-1800s when schooling was run privately for wealthy children or through churches for poor children and Maori families.  Publicly-funded, compulsory primary education didn’t start until the late 1800s/early 1900s.  Along with publicly-funded schools came native schools.  These were schools set up in Maori villages to educate children.  Native schools started out as te reo Maori-medium, but quickly transitioned to English-medium with a ban on te reo Maori in schools.  Attending primary school was compulsory, but Maori children were not required to attend native schools.  They were allowed to attend mainstream schools, but that was often not practical because at the time most Maori lived in remote villages away from Pakeha cities where mainstream schools were located.  The native schools continued until the late 1960s (Calman, 2015).

Currently, families can still choose to attend schools that cater to Maori communities.  These schools are known as kura kaupapa.  These schools are mostly taught in te reo Maori and include cultural teachings.  Native schools were designed to eliminate the Maori culture.  Kura kaupapa schools are designed to continue the Maori culture while also preparing students for life in the modern world (Calman, 2015).

Compulsory secondary schooling came around in the mid-1900s.  Entrance to secondary schools started out with a qualifying exam and ended with a qualifying exam.  Both exams were eventually removed.  Curricular diversity followed the removal of the qualifying exams (Swarbrick, 2012).

While publicly-funded schools were growing, religious schools were also growing.  Similar to the U.S., religious schools charged tuition.  As religious schools grew, their costs also grew.  Additionally, teachers in public schools were now paid on a national teachers salary schedule.  Private schools had to compete for teachers. In the 1970s, religious schools were at a financial cliff.  They no longer could afford to provide schooling at the cost levels that parents were willing to pay.  Because New Zealand doesn’t have a constitutional Establishment Clause to prevent entanglement between government and religion, they simply integrated the religious schools into the publicly-funded system.  Now, religious schools receive the same government funding that public schools do.  This was the first step into what I consider to be a major problem with the New Zealand system: school choice.  Once religious schools were integrated, parents had some limited choice, without a financial burden, of which schools to send their children to (New Zealand Catholic Education Office, 2012).

Special Education was another major change for the New Zealand education system.  Before 1989, many schools sent special education students to “special schools” where teaching was adjusted.  Some schools actively blocked special education students from attending.  The Education Act of 1989 changed the schooling model for special education students.  The act provided access to the local school for special education students.  After the act was passed and well into the 2000s, the Ministry of Education shifted (and still is shifting) schools into more inclusive learning environments for special education students.  Additional funding was sent to schools for services.  Severe and profound students are still sent to special schools, though.  This is done because NZ schools are small and do not have the resources to host severe/profound services on-site (Brown, 1997; Shaping Education, 2012).

The New Zealand system went through many changes during the early to mid 1900s.  They quickly transitioned from being rural, private enterprises to compulsory, publicly-funded systems.  Control of the systems changed a few times also.  The Department of Education was originally set up to send funding to local school boards and establish teaching standards.  It eventually grew in size and authority to be a centralized school authority.  Schools originally were managed by Education Boards.  Across New Zealand there were only 12 Education Boards (Swarbrick, 2012).  The boards were very similar to the School Boards found in Illinois schools, except the Education Boards in New Zealand had many schools across large geographic areas.  It would be similar to the Illinois Regional Offices of Education functioning as school boards without the local school boards managing their schools.  Imagine how difficult it would be for a school to adapt to a local community if its governing board was at the county level! By the way, I think the model of county-wide school districts exists in some states in the U.S.

New Zealanders felt the pain of bureaucracy by having these large school districts and grew frustrated that the local residents had little input into the functioning of their schools.  In addition to the bureaucratic problems, the schools had many new and different students they were serving.  The native schools were now closed which meant public schools were responsible for educating all Maori students.  Special education students were now starting to enter the public education world.  Curriculum was seen as discontinuous with little coordination between primary and secondary schools.  These multiple problems with the education system made their way into politics and eventually led to the Tomorrow’s Schools report.  Tomorrow’s Schools is essentially the same as A Nation at Risk.  The report was written by a committee with an agenda and took advantage of the public’s unhappiness with the education system.  The difference, however, is that unlike the U.S., New Zealand took action.  Tomorrow’s Schools led to the Education Act of 1989.  The Education Act of 1989 had many changes for schools.  The act established public education for all citizens (more on the definition of “citizens” later) including Maori and special education students.  The act also dissolved the Education Boards.  Schools no longer reported to a regional board.  Instead, each school now has a Board of Trustees to oversee the individual school.  The Board of Trustees has local parents, the school principal, and a teacher as members.  The BoT coordinates with the national government through the Ministry of Education.  The Department of Education was dissolved and the less powerful Ministry of Education was created.  The BoT hires the Principal with the advisement of the Ministry of Education (Calman, 2015; Openshaw, 2014; Swarbrick, 2012).

So how exactly are schools organized now?  All schools are independent and reflect their local communities.  If the community has mostly Maori families, there is a large emphasis in the curriculum on Maori culture.  If the local community has a large group of families from Tonga, there is a large emphasis in the curriculum on the Tonga culture.  All schools do their best of teach students about different cultures, but they are free to alter their environments to reflect their communities.  There aren’t any school districts which means the “central office” or “district office” doesn’t exist.  Superintendents don’t exist here.  The Principal has the authority and accountability for the school.  Schools aren’t entirely free, though.  They still must focus on the national curriculum and ensure that they are educating all of their students.  Schools are evaluated through a mixed-methods approach by the Educational Review Office (ERO) of the national government.  The ERO visits schools every 3-5 years to evaluate them.  They look at student achievement (not standardized test scores… more on that later), curriculum, culture, and goal setting (Educational Review Office, 2016).  Here’s the latest ERO report for a school as a reference.  http://www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/grey-lynn-school-26-06-2015/  I encourage you to dig around the ERO website to better understand their purpose and the changes to the review process currently underway.

In a later post, I’ll explain what many of the unfamiliar words are within the ERO reports.

The Education Act of 1989 decentralized the schooling system of New Zealand.  Schools are now run by the local parents, principal, and teacher representative.  This has given schools an incredible amount of flexibility to adapt to the local community.  The act also positioned the school principal as the local educational leader.  While this sounds amazing, I should also note that one additional item was slipped into the Education Act of 1989:  Absolute school choice for parents.  If parents are not happy with the way their schools are run, they can move their children to another school at no cost (except for transportation).  They can choose to send their children to the local school, a different public school, a religious school, or a kura (te reo Maori-medium school).  When the act passed, geographic boundaries, or “school zones” were abolished.

So now I’ll end with a realistic view of what schools look like in New Zealand.  All schools operate independently with local control and the principal as the leader.  Schools located near each other compete for students.  Many schools have marketing plans and marketing materials.  Central offices don’t exist which means that finance, operations, HR, IT, and curriculum are responsibilities of the principal.  Many times the principal delegates these responsibilities to assistant principals or deputy principals.  Because schools are competing for students, there is very little collaboration between schools to improve teaching and learning.  Instead, the universities have taken on the role of professional developers.  Schools can hire university staff to do PD with their teachers, or send their teachers to the universities to participate in PD.

In what I think is a lesson learned, New Zealand is starting to back away from some of the sweeping reforms of 1989.  Some schools now have geographic boundaries and schools are starting to cluster together into what are called Communities of Schools/Communities of Learning.  Basically, schools now have the option to form into a cluster with other schools.  Money is provided for a principal at one of the schools to be the cluster leader (while also performing the duties of principal at his/her home school).  Teacher-leaders are selected (and paid) to coach teachers throughout the cluster (Ministry of Education, 2016).

My goal is to generate hypotheses of why New Zealand students historically perform better than U.S. students on PISA and why their scores are dropping dramatically.  I hope you’re starting to see one of my hypotheses emerge regarding the dropping scores.

References

Brown, S. (1997). Special Education 2000: Developing a Policy for Inclusive Education in New Zealand.  New Zealand Annual review of Education, 6, 141-156.  Retrieved from http://www.victoria.ac.nz/education/research/nzaroe/issues-index/1996/pdf/text-brown.pdf

Calman, R. (2015). ‘Māori education – mātauranga – Education in traditional Māori society’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 16-Sep-15
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/maori-education-matauranga/page-1

Educational Review Office. (2016).  About ERO Reviews.  Retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/how-ero-reviews/information-for-parents/

Ministry of Education. (2016). Information sheet: communities of schools; making a difference.  Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/specific-initiatives/investing-in-educational-success/communities-of-schools-making-a-difference/

New Zealand Catholic Education Office (2012).  A brief history of the integration of catholic schools in new zealand into the state system of schools.  Retrieved from http://www.nzceo.catholic.org.nz/media/resources/brief-history-of-integration.pdf

Openshaw, R. (2014). Picot Report/Tomorrow’s Schools. Dictionary of Educational History in Australia and New Zealand (DEHANZ),7 January. Available http://dehanz.net.au

Shaping Education. (2012). Ministry of education supports and services for learners with special education needs/disabilities.  Retrieved from http://shapingeducation.govt.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SpecialEducationOverview.pdf

Swarbrick, N. (2012).  Primary and secondary education – The state system in the 2000s.  Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 13-Jul-12
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-1