While the Left has been fiddling about with much gnashing of teeth and tears of concern over the right of two Canadian neo-fascists to speak at an Auckland City council venue – National’s focus has been laser-like at regaining power in 2020.
Well the big announcement has been made and charter schools are to close (sort of). The latest of National’s ideological experiments is to be consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. In a previous blog I went through the performance shortcomings of the New Zealand experiment. For some, though, the performance issues do not matter. It is the ‘freedom to choose’ that is important.
The ACT Party were out on the weekend with 100 people supporting their Auckland march to oppose the closure of charter schools.
For many on the neo-liberal Right, education is a business not a public good and therefore should be no different to electricity supply (semi-privatised); Air New Zealand (semi-privatised – again); or a whole host of other services and assets that were once owned by the tax-payer but have been sold off over the last thirty years.