An education system must work for all. Let’s deal with the issues rather than wholesale abandon the Kura Hourua concept, argues Carrie Stoddart-Smith.

There is a saying that policy is a contact sport. Never has that been truer than when it comes to education. In particular, when it comes to feelings about Kura Hourua (charter schools) – one of those love ’em or hate ’em kaupapa. Proponents and opponents alike position a practical education alternative within an ideological bun fight: the notorious right versus the sanctimonious left, or something. But is it really as black and white as the politicians make out?

Yeah sure, Kura Hourua were the lovechild of a National-ACT union, but origins aside we need an education system that works for all, and one that addresses the generations-long education chasm between Māori and non-Māori. Not an ideological war over funding.

I’m no education expert but I do have a unique experience of this kaupapa. Mine is the lived human story behind the obscene statistics of Māori under-achievement and negative cognitive bias in mainstream education. It took a great deal of support and personal growth to get me from the intermittently NEET (Not in Employment Education or Training) school leaver back into study as an adult student, where it was being part of a rōpū of other Māori students and Māori lecturers that strengthened my confidence in my ability to succeed.

This is not an argument against state schools, unions, or teachers. And for the record, yes I agree there absolutely should be greater investment in state school infrastructure and workforce development to meet the needs of students and prepare them for their futures. However, I do have gripe with the insistence that there is only one way or the highway, and that is enough to warrant comment on the imminent exclusion of Kura Hourua from Aotearoa’s education system.

We don’t hear how Kura Hourua is an evolving model producing positive learning experiences for a large proportion of its Māori students. The successes are not publicly or non-partisanly celebrated – despite kura like Te Kāpehu Whetū in Whangārei, a partnership school that is showing great promise in improving the learning experiences and outcomes of its Māori students and achieving above the national Māori achievement standards across all NCEA levels. We don’t see the light shone on its Ako (teaching and learning) philosophy that replaces age as a marker of aptitude with project based and place based learning where students don’t view themselves a part of a production line.

A key part of its success, and the achievements of other Kura Hourua, is the culture of high expectation fostered in these alternative learning environments. This is in contrast to the negative cognitive bias against Māori and Pacific students in mainstream classrooms and the low expectations of them by their teachers. Research prepared for Treasury found that these low expectations affect both the results of students in priority learning groups, such as male, Māori, Pasifika or students with special education needs and the learning opportunities made available to them.

You might think that Te Kāpehu Whetū is an isolated case – but it is an example that demonstrates a major breakthrough in a very short time. Where is even one example of a state school that has produced that same kind of transformation for Māori under the same intense political and industry scrutiny?

It is true that the Kura Hourua model does not and will not work for all students, and there are valid concerns from the profession around transparency, funding allocation, teacher quality processes and student exclusions. These are not all unique to Kura Hourua, however. In fact the same argument could be made against public schools. So let’s deal with the issues rather than abandon the concept and its successful prototypes because state schools embody many of their own problems, with Māori students in particular carrying the weight of decades of institutional baggage. And, yes, it astounds me that a significant proportion of the education profession cling to publicly funded state schooling as the archetype for Māori educational salvation, even if it has disproportionately starved us of achievement.

We heard over the past week at Waitangi, as aggregated in Bryce Edwards political column, that Māori would disproportionately benefit from universalism’s invisible hand framed as an “actual by-product” of [insert non-targeted (universal) policy where Māori are disproportionately represented here]. Personally, I’m not sure if we should be offended or amused.

Universalism works in the right circumstances. For instance, the universal application of superannuation means all people over 65 can receive their entitlement regardless of their economic position. However, there are times where relativism is the tika approach.

Where disproportionality is the result of almost two centuries of colonisation and its intergenerational impacts, universalism is not the answer. Where marginalisation is the result of centuries of bigotry and ignorance, universalism is not the answer. Where the issue of sovereignty – the basis for an equal Treaty partnership – is absent from the conversation, universalism is not the answer. If we seek transformational outcomes in education, then sharing policy and pedagogical power is critical to the attainment of that goal.

Suffice to say, in the context of this revitalised universalism, the minister for education’s statement that the core mission for education in Aotearoa is a publicly-funded education system for all was, well, depressing.

Firstly, it is not a core mission. Free education at least in the elementary and fundamental stages is an international human right. As is the prior right of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. To restate a human right as an aspirational target is wholly non-progressive given this is what we should expect from successive governments in Aotearoa.

Secondly, the aspiration places funding at the centre of our frame rather than the student. In doing so, it scrubs the student and whānau voice from the picture and signals their views on their futures are not important. It tells students and their whānau, by way of action, that their futures are government choices and not their own.

You cannot treat organ failure with a sticky plaster, in the same way you cannot address educational achievement and the learning experiences of Māori without examining the system, developing a treatment plan and cauterising structural bias. Every student and their whānau – Māori or otherwise, should have trust and confidence in the learning institutions of their choosing.

We must accept that a publicly funded education system for all is not the same as an education system that works for all. The nuance matters. We need a diverse education system with all the component parts: Public, Private, Partnerships (Kura Hourua), Special Character and Kura Kaupapa Māori plus room for new models that do not exist yet.

As we grow as a nation, we can be innovative and resourceful about how we deliver education to achieve the outcomes we seek and to improve shortcomings and failures across the board. It is not enough to stamp out Kura Hourua citing “special character” already exists. If we could have gotten by with special character provisions alone, we would have. But we didn’t.

If we are honest with ourselves about our failed history of educating Māori and other priority learning groups, we wouldn’t be here uncritically claiming a universal (-istic) model of education for all students. We would be examining the special character provisions and pointing out that they allow the minister to misuse their power for ideological or political gain through being granted the absolute discretion to refuse to establish a designated character school.

The layers of bureaucracy and the way the interpretative licence given to the responsible minister creates uncertainty are major drawbacks for genuine entities wanting to establish partnership models. It is the autonomy to create alternative environments and freedom from an imposed curriculum that make Kura Hourua a practical alternative to special character schools.

And let me nip this in the bud before moving on – Kura Hourua for Māori are not the same as Kura Kaupapa Māori, whose principal language of learning is te reo Māori. Placing intergenerationally urbanised Māori, many with fragile or non-existent connections to their hapū and iwi, in immersion environments without the groundwork needed to succeed in that environment is setting the kura, the student and their whānau up for failure. I hope to see Kura Kaupapa Māori become the natural choice for Māori students and their whānau but there are major externalities to address before that can happen. Kura Hourua offer one of multiple buffers as we advance and expand our Māori immersion education models and capacity.

There is nothing except political will preventing a less drastic approach to concerns over Kura Hourua. An alternative might be a moratorium on establishing new Kura Hourua with a plan to develop a longitudinal picture of what does and does not work in our national context. We are in an ideal position to innovate how we get the most out of a diverse education system such as investigating the viability of co-locating models and partnering to share resources. This could spawn many mutual advantages for students, teachers and the wider community.

The extensive amount of dissent and support for Kura Hourua and non-mainstream models is an argument for retaining and enhancing a diverse systems model, to ensure an education system that is fit for purpose for all. If we get the frame right then we might actually make a meaningful difference. We can resist an either/or binary and accept we can do both. Because we must demand an education system that works for all students and their whānau, where student wellbeing and aspiration is at the core of that mission. If it’s not that, we’re doing it wrong.

Carrie Stoddart-Smith (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whātua) works in the Māori economic development space and has written extensively on Māori politics. She ran for the Māori Party in the electorate of Pakuranga in the 2017 general election.

Every year indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand go under the spotlight on Invasion Day and Waitangi Day – and every year the media finds problematic ways to report them. This won’t change while our media is still controlled by the coloniser, writes Miriama Aoake.

January is a dry marathon. Days fold into themselves and time is stagnant, patience wears thin. January 26th to February 6th is exposure season for the indigenous mob in Ahitereiria, and Māori here in Aotearoa. Each year on the 26th, we tautoko our neighbours as they weather the gaze of rampant white nationalism, and the living memory of devastating settler violence. This year, Tarneen Onus-Williams (Yigar Gunditjmara, Bindal) helped to mobilise the biggest Invasion Day rally in Naarm since the 1970s. Addressing the crowd, Onus-Williams stood and spoke. “F—k Australia, I hope it burns to the ground. All you fellas in your Australian flags should be ashamed of yourselves.” Her words were deliberate and she did not apologise. Nor should she.

Tarneen’s words have been stripped of metaphorical context, contorted and translated as literal by media outlets. She rejected the trope of the polite activist. She understands that regardless of compliance with the impossible rules of ‘orderly’ or ‘respectful’ protest, ordained by the very people who seek to oppress you, your existence will forever contradict their expectations and they will die trying to silence you. The glare of the media gaze that spikes on the 26th allows White Australia the comfort to participate in the tradition of complicit settler violence, without having to dirty their hands. The convenience of this narrative means indigenous people are easy scapegoats for settler guilt.

It is a ritual the media performs throughout contested indigenous spaces. Last week in Kanata, two young indigenous women were forcibly removed from a public event where prime minister Justin Trudeau was speaking. Media coverage relied on language encrypted with the self-defeating myth of settler nationalism. Dissent is treason. Rightful assertions of sovereignty are erased in service of capitalism. Trudeau quotes Churchill as the women are dragged away. How better to assuage the pervasive settler guilt, to justify the erasure of tino rangatiratanga?

In this climate, during this season of exposure, waves of anxiety wash over Māori as we prepare for our turn under the settler microscope. This ritual is defined by a singular, Pākehā perspective as the dominant world view. There is only room for one narrative. In the lead up to Waitangi, the media focus on the Crown’s engagement with Māori. They compare National’s approach to Labour’s in ‘handling’ or ‘dealing’ with Ngāpuhi. They tout Jacinda’s decision to stay five days as a ‘charm offensive’ intended purely as a tactical assault to settle the Northland treaty claim which National failed to do. They consult Pākehā political commentators, reporters and journalists to examine if Labour’s efforts have been successful. They stumble through their reo pronunciation, projecting an image of Northland Māori as stubborn, cutting off their nose to spite their face.

New Zealand media suffers from a glaring blindspot they refuse to acknowledge or accept. The structure of treaty settlements, for example, is never scrutinised. The settlement structure champions the Western legal framework over tikanga, prompting neglect of the Māori worldview in practice and a disregard for te Te Tiriti’s founding principle – partnership. The process is difficult for a litany of reasons but one that reoccurs is the attempted dissolution of hapū. There has been much criticism of iwi slowly becoming large corporations which, arguably, brings prosperity for few, while many remain in poverty. It is a structure that mirrors capitalist institutions.

We must remember, in our consumption of Waitangi Day coverage, that Ngāpuhi have never ceded sovereignty. In 2012, Ngāpuhi published a report which describes the manifestation of tino rangatiratanga in excruciating detail. A thriving economy, abundant resources and the numbers to crush a settler confrontation are preserved within oral traditions, and is less susceptible to human error and manipulation than written texts (as we know with Te Tiriti). Each year the media glare returns and purports to show Ngāpuhi as disrespectful and ungrateful, particularly during the media blackout last year, without any recognition of Ngāpuhi’s authority as mana whenua.

Every year mainstream coverage lacks the vital context of colonisation, often even when it’s framed positively or in support of tangata whenua. The absence of protest this year was chalked up as a ‘successful’ outcome, despite hīkoi having a constant, valid presence at Waitangi since 1840. The refusal to engage with protest speaks to the media’s arrogance, exposing their ‘objective’ approach as nothing more than poorly disguised prejudice. When in office, John Key clung to the lie that New Zealand was settled peacefully. Colonial violence exists in the repressed vaults of our national memory. Pākehā dismiss the historical connection between loss of land, desecration of social structure and erasure of language and culture and high rates of imprisonment, suicide, poverty and poor health outcomes, because they aren’t shown how the Western foundations of this country are designed to suppress Māori. When history is discussed on Waitangi Day, it is still framed by a singular, Pākehā reading of the past.

This intense media gaze on Waitangi Day, for many Māori, causes grief, anger, and apathy. We spend the day putting out the same bullshit, racist fires that have burned every day since Pākehā arrived. You ignore our rāhui, our sovereignty and our desire to protect Papatūānuku. You tell us the taonga that is te reo Māori is irrelevant. You give Hosking and Jones unconditional access to publish the same tired BS without any critical oversight. New Zealand media follows the same settler patterns used by Australia, Canada and North America to delegitimise and extinguish customary title. You observe te ao Māori through six-inch glass, prod our wounds until we respond and berate us because we’re not playing nice. Still, we rise.

As Moana Maniapoto (Tuhourangi-Ngati Wahiao, Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Te Rangiita – Tuwharetoa) put so succinctly for E-Tangata last week, everyday is Waitangi Day. We carry on with the mahi every day, regardless of whether you are staring down the barrel of the cameras or not. Give your attention to the platforms working to decolonise how we look at the relationship between Māori and the Crown, and how we present and frame Waitangi Day. Ask yourselves, who is missing, who is shaping the narrative, and to what end?

For mainstream media, connecting colonisation to our present realities is difficult, but hardly impossible. The problem is our reluctance to reconceptualise our methodology. Implementing a kaupapa Māori framework, structure by tikanga, ensures a diverse range of Māori stories are delivered by Māori voices, with robust cultural oversight. It is inclusive by default, by the centrality of manaakitanga in te ao Māori. It demands active investment from Pākehā and tauiwi to acknowledge the role of tangata whenua, an affirmation of the principles of Te Tiriti as a living, breathing document. We have to burn it all down, and start again.