Here we go. I think this is my last post before I can link all of these posts together into a single hypothesis.
Before I go further, I should clarify that the following points are from the Auckland perspective. There are many areas of the country where school choice and housing haven’t been as significant. However, keep in mind that New Zealand has a population of around 4.3 million people with about 1.4 million people living in the Auckland region. In 2012, Auckland had about 33% of New Zealand’s population. The next census is in 2018 (Statistics New Zealand, 2016). Most people believe that Auckland now has an even higher percentage of the national population living within its region.
Housing
New Zealand is in the middle of a housing crisis. Auckland is the hotbed of the crisis. There is less supply than demand and the causes of this are hotly debated around the country. First, New Zealand is an island nation and therefore doesn’t have the vast amounts of land that the U.S. has. Also related to this is the Kiwis’ strong beliefs in land preservation for recreation and the return of lands to Maori iwi (tribes). So, Auckland has land available for development, but that land either belongs to local Maori or belongs to “The Crown” (government) which needs a lot of red tape cleared in order to free it up for development. This leads to one possible solution which is intensification of housing. Driving around the Auckland area makes it clear that this isn’t the first housing crisis the country has faced. Houses that used to have very nice large backyards now have two additional houses sitting on the lots. Homeowners subdivided their plots and sold off their backyards for other people to build houses on. This practice continues into this housing crisis too. People buy a house, have it moved to the back of the lot, build another house in the front and then sell both for a nice profit. Subdividing hasn’t provided enough housing supply, so now the fringes of the city have intensification projects going vertical. Construction cranes are a common sight in the skyline. Rents are crazy expensive in the Auckland area because of this crisis. One of the debate topics is determining who the investors are that are flipping houses and buying properties to rent out. One camp believes most are oversea investors who are inflating the housing market, but the national government insists that most investors are locals. The debate continues, though, because the government estimates don’t include financial trusts which are what overseas investors commonly use. Adding to the problem is that some investors are purchasing houses and letting them sit empty just to sell them later at a profit. Those investors don’t want to deal with tenants while their properties accumulate equity (Wane, 2016).
Another part of housing that is impacting schools is the gentrification of neighborhoods. Our local baker has lived in Grey Lynn her whole life. I recently had a great chat with her about the history of Grey Lynn and similar neighborhoods. Here’s the short version of her story.
In the early days of Auckland, the towns surrounding Auckland were built and lived in by Pakeha (European descent people). The Maori mostly lived in remote villages. When WWII came around, many Maori moved to the cities for work. Also, Pasifika people immigrated to New Zealand due to NZ providing them with citizenship during NZ’s colonial period. As cities became more diverse and cars and fuel became cheaper, Pakeha moved to the suburbs for bigger lots of land and bigger houses. The once Pakeha neighborhoods changed to Maori and Pasifika. Due to low incomes, houses were not maintained well and crime became worse in the now Maori and Pasifika neighborhoods. In the late 1990s, Auckland heavily invested in the city center and waterfront. This attracted Pakeha families back to the fringe neighborhoods so they could get easy access to the city. Now, neighborhoods like Grey Lynn are in the final stages of gentrification. High SES families are buying old villas, renovating them, and putting large fences with security gates around them. There are still remnants of Maori and Pasifika families, but I’m sure they’ll eventually be relocated to other areas. I use the phrase “relocated” because very few Maori and Pasifika families can afford houses in Grey Lynn. Instead, they are living in the social housing that is still located in the neighborhood. Fringe neighborhoods like Grey Lynn are only affordable to people that already own a home in town or very high SES families.
That’s the short version of housing in New Zealand and the gentrification of neighborhoods. What does this have to do with my hypotheses regarding declining PISA scores? Well, something else significant happened as gentrification took off.
School Boundaries
Previously, I talked about how Tomorrow’s Schools abolished school zones. After 1991, all school zones were abolished. Parents could freely choose which schools to send their children to. Schools could only refuse students if they didn’t have the capacity for them. Schools were also allowed to use any system they wanted to decide which students would be turned away due to capacity issues. This all changed in 2000 when the government started allowing schools to establish geographic zones again. Since 2000, schools have been able to apply for the establishment of a geographic zone (LaRocque, 2004). Most times the Ministry accepts the application if the school can show that the school zone will fill the school to capacity.
This site shows the current school zones.
The schools with grey pins don’t have a school zone which means they accept any students regardless of where they live. The schools with the blue pins do have school zones and only accept students that live within the zone. There are exceptions, though. Some zoned schools accept out of zone students, but the families have to pay tuition. Also, slightly related here, is that education is free to only citizens or children of parents with proper visas. If there are undocumented immigrants, those children do not qualify for free education. But, with New Zealand being an island nation, their undocumented immigration problems are not very large. This next statement is my own general assessment of school zones now that I have a better understanding of the neighborhoods around Auckland. There are zoned schools in low-SES neighborhoods, but those are usually cases where intensive intervention is happening in the local schools and neighborhoods. A majority of the blue pins are in high-SES neighborhoods. A majority of the grey pins are in low-SES neighborhoods. School zones are acting as fences now. I’ll explain that statement further in my next post which will be my hypothesis 1 regarding falling PISA scores.
References
LaRocque, N. (2004). School choice: Lessons from New Zealand. Cato Institute. Retrieved from http://nzinitiative.org.nz/site/nzinitiative/files/speeches/speeches-2004/cato_conference_2004.pdf
Statistics New Zealand. (2016). 2013 census quickstats about a place: Auckland region. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/quickstats-about-a-place.aspx?request_value=13170&tabname=
Wane, J. (2016). Running on empty: Auckland’s “ghost” house problem. Metro. Retrieved from http://www.metromag.co.nz/city-life/property/running-on-empty/
Robert E. Lang, Ed.D. 