No independent testing planned for charter school students

The Charter School Agency says there will be no independent testing of charter school students even though officials identified that as a potential gap last time the charter model ran.

The government agency told RNZ there is no need for independent checking because this time the schools must use the same assessments as state schools and provide evidence.

"Sponsors are required to provide evidence to support the results they report, and that information is reviewed through our regular monitoring," it said.

"We take a risk-based approach to monitoring. If we identify any inconsistencies, gaps or other concerns, there is clear intervention and escalation process."

An Education Ministry report completed in 2019 said results could have been falsified when charter schools ran from 2013 - 2018.

"It remains possible that performance may have been inaccurately or deliberately misreported," the report said. "Very few elements of the reporting regime were subject to independent checks."

The Charter School Agency agreed the schools had a lot riding on their results.

"There are higher stakes for charter schools than in state schools in that their funding is linked in part to academic performance," it said.

"That's why we have additional reporting and monitoring requirements to support the accuracy of the information schools provide."

It said another difference from the previous round of charter schools was that they were required to hire registered teachers - the same workforce as state schools.

"Because of these additional checks and balances, any further independent assessments would duplicate safeguards already built into the model," it said.

Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie said it felt like too much was being left to trust.

"These are basically private companies getting millions of dollars of taxpayer money and I'd have thought a bit more rigorous assessment of their abilities would be necessary," he said.

Abercrombie said assessments conducted by the Qualifications Authority were independent, but there was a lot that was assessed directly by teachers.

"A lot of their internal stuff, we have no idea what's happening."

The schools' 2025 annual reports published last month showed they received millions of dollars in government funding last year.

North West College principal Michelle Randles said the school worked closely with a performance monitor at the Charter School Agency.

"They just keep us on track doing as we should be. I don't feel like we're being over-checked," she said.

Schools were expected to meet "performance thresholds" for attendance and academic achievement based on averages for schools with student intakes with similar socio-economic backgrounds.

However, one of the schools, Mastery Schools in Christchurch, was discussing its thresholds with the agency.

It was classed as facing moderate barriers to learning, but deliberately targeted disengaged pupils.

One of the school's directors, Dave Jessep, said many of the school's pupils had dyslexia or were disengaged with schooling for other reasons.

"We've got kids that are in Year 6 and 7 that are at a Year 2 level. So some of our kids are really quite behind so it is a little hard for us under the reporting framework," he said.

"We're going to probably struggle to really get up to those standards in the short-term because our kids are so far behind."

Jessep said the school exceeded its attendance and maths thresholds last year, but fell short on reading and writing.

He said Mastery Schools' structured learning style achieved great results in its schools in Britain and Australia, and he expected the same would be true of the New Zealand one.

"We love going to school each day because these kids, their whole emotional sense of well-being is just so improved from when they came in.

"They all feel like they have a home and they can actually learn instead of being in a state system which struggles on the edges sometimes just purely due to funding.

"This could be an opportunity for every town in the country to have a school like ours that really does provide a really great home for kids that are struggling."

Jessep said the school had about 130 students and aimed to start next year with about 170.

Another school that deliberately targeted disengaged students, Auckland's Busy School, narrowly missed its attendance performance threshold last year, but exceed its school-leaver qualification threshold with nine of 10 leavers achieving level 2 or 3 of the NCEA.

The school's principal Moana Va'aelua said the results were better than expected given the school's target group.

"When you've got disengaged students who have spent a lot of time away from school, who often have had previously high abesenteeism away from school, it often takes them a little while to get back into the swing of things," she said.

Despite its focus on disengaged students, the school was last year classed as facing moderate barriers to achievement.

Va'aelua did not comment on whether that was fair, but said students had to learn to turn up for the day at some point in their lives.

She said the school consisted entirely of students who would be a minority at regular schools.

"We're working intentionally with a group of students who, let's say if you worked at a school with 1000 kids, they might make up 50 or 60 kids at a school," she said.

"That's all we think about all day long, that's all we work with all day long. It makes the job easier in a sense because every day we know what we're getting at the coalface."

Va'aelua said the school currently had 107 students and expected to finish the year with nearly 200.

North West College principal Michelle Randles said it had 150 year 7-13 students and was on track to have 160 before the end of the year.

She said families enrolled their children with the school because of its focus on the creative arts and its small size.

"We're a small, boutique school," she said.

"That kind of safe learning environment really appeals to people."