School Funding: dumping the derided decile funding system for the questionable 'Predictive Risk Index' funding method

Decile ratings as the funding mechanism for schools is on the way out.

That was the exclusive headline on Tuesday the 11th April from Newshub’s Patrick Gower.  I just happened to be leaving work when the alert popped up on my phone.  I had an immediate sense of dread, especially when I saw a new phrase: ‘Predictive Risk Index’.

This new phrase, ‘Predictive Risk Index’, is of course part of the National led government’s theory of social investment - identify who is most at risk, and then target the minimum amount of money at them.  Sounds great in theory, but, like everything this government has done (or attempted), it is a theory that can be likened to a can of worms.

What is social investment?

This is from the Treasury website:

Social Investment is about improving the lives of New Zealaners by applying rigorous an evidence-base investment practices to social services.

It means using information and technology to better unerstand the people who need public services and what works, and then adjusting services accordingly.  What is learnt through this process informs the next set of investment ecisions.


Much of the focus is on early investment to achieve better long-term results for people an helping them to beme more independent.  This reduces the number of New Zealanders relying on social services and the overall costs for taxpayers.


Social Investment puts the needs of people who rely on public services at the centre of decisions on planning, programmes and resourcing, by:

• Setting clear, measurable goals for helping those people;
• Using information and technology to better understand the needs of people who rely on social services and what services they are currently receiving;
• Systematically measuring the effectiveness of services, so we know what works well and what doesn’t;
• Purchasing results rather than specific inputs, and moving funding to the most effective services irrespective of whether they are provided by government or non-government agencies.

The way in which these principles are implemented will vary, and may include:

• a particular focus on vulnerable or high-risk groups;
• investing up-front to support people most at risk of poor outcomes later on in life;
• greater input from outside the public sector in analysis, innovation and service provision;
• working with local organisations to commission services within communities;
• new citizen-centre services that cut across existing departmental service channels; and
• interacting with each household through a single trusted relationship.

So how did we get here?

This is an except from a previous blog post of mine called How does child poverty affect access to education and success in achievement for New Zealand children? which I wrote for a Master’s paper last year.

The decile funding system was put in place in 1995 in an effort to fund schools equitably.  The range decided was 1-10, with one being the lowest, due to the highest degree of socio-economic disadvantage, and receiving significantly more funding per child than a decile ten school.  The decile ranking of a school factors in household income, parental educational qualifications and occupations, household crowding, income support payments and ethnicity of a small geographic area, or ‘mesh-block’, in the school community (Harrison, 2004).  There was a variety of reasons behind this initiative, such as a decile ten family having more opportunity to access educational learning in alternative ways compared to the opportunities afforded by a decile one family.  It was also considered that the decile ten schools had more ability to maximise effective fundraising measures from their community in comparison to a decile one school.

The impacts of this system included what is commonly called white flight – parents moving their children from low socio-economic schools as they believe the decile level could be a stigma and may mean the education provided at a low decile school wasn’t adequate (Gordon, 1997).  This changed the nature of communities as parents who could afford to would purchase or rent homes in communities with schools with higher decile ratings, ghettoising many areas as low socio-economic communities.

Education reforms in the 1990s entrenched many families with limited resources into the cycle of poverty generation after generation.

So essentially the National government of the 1990s initiated decile funding, which stigmatised schools in low socio-economic areas, and in combination with their other policy of getting rid of school zones, caused white flight from these schools meaning many communities were no longer a broad cross section of society.

In September last year I published another blog specifically about the actions taken by NZEI and PPTA in response to the School Funding Review and the threat of Global Funding.  In this blog Global Funding - Bulk Funding in fancy dress - why it’s a bloody bad idea I explain how the School Funding Review Advisory Panel were never given an opportunity to come up with solutions to improve how schools are funded fairly and equitably.

The eighteen members of the Education Funding Review Panel went into the first meeting expecting a blank slate and the ability to brainstorm proposals.

What they got was a wad of paper on the table by the Ministry of Education representative who said "This is what we will be looking at. That is the proposal."

The Education Review published the following in September last year:

Six out of seven of the School Funding Review proposals will go forward for further work following the Funding Advisory Group's report on the proposals. The unpopular global budget proposal was rejected by the group, following intense opposition from teachers who feared a return to the days of bulk funding.

The six proposals the majority of the Group agree should proceed for further work are:

• Taking a per-child approach to funding
• Additional funding for those most at risk of underachievement
• Supplementary funding for small and isolated schools
• Proposals over the way property funding is delivered
• Better accountability for student achievement
• Supporting a diversity of education options

Education Minister Hekia Parata says she was ‘not surprised’ by the Group’s recommendation that the proposed global budget not proceed to the next stage of policy development.

“The Group’s report, and together with feedback from around 90 regional meetings with teachers and principals, will help inform my report to Cabinet on the options to take forward. The insight from staff right on the frontline of education is invaluable”, says Ms Parata.

“I want to make sure that we take the time to get these vitally important decisions right. That is why our timeline for implementation at the earliest would be 2019.”

Where are we now?

So it appears, under the Social Investment model that the second option, additional funding for those most at risk of underachievement, has been chosen.  This is the model that was also applied to the School Operations Grant in the 2016 Budget.  Instead of schools getting a 1% increase to their Operations Grant as had been applied in the last few years (not even covering the cost of inflation), schools would receive extra money according to the children who had been identified as being at risk, and the schools would not be told who the at risk children were.

This, below, comes from the official government website, Education Counts, and is the government’s explanation of the funding for children at risk in the education part of Budget ‘16 (please read with a critical eye):

Budget 2016 uses a Social Investment approach to direct an extra $43.2 million, over four years, to about 150,000 children and young people identified as being at most risk of educational underachievement. These students are those, aged 5 to 18, whose parents have been on benefits for 75 percent of the first five years, or 75 percent of the most recent five years of the students’ lives.

These students have been shown by our research as one of the most at-risk groups in our education system. For example young people who, for an extended period have lived in a benefit-dependent family, have only a 48 percent chance of achieving NCEA Level 2 by age 21. By contrast, 73 percent of the general population with have this qualification by the same age. This research also shows that young people without NCEA Level 2 have more chance of ending up on a benefit, or in the justice system, than those with the qualification.

This additional funding is an investment into schooling where it is most needed. The funding will go to schools, regardless of their decile rating, based on the estimated number of students they have from long-term welfare dependent families. Schools have the flexibility to use this extra funding to support all of their students most at risk of educational underachievement.

This increased funding to schools with children from long-term welfare-dependent families is instead of a universal increase in school operations grant funding. Overall, this new funding approach provides more funding to low decile schools compared to a universal increase of the same amount.

The $43.2 million in increased funding for schools with these children is in addition to the $1.38 billion in operations grant funding that all schools will continue to receive in 2016/17. Operations grant increases have run well ahead of inflation in recent years. Cost adjustments have seen schools’ operations grant funding rose by over 15 percent from the 2010 school year start to the 2015 school year end. By contrast, CPI inflation rose 9.6 percent over the same period.

And that is how we have gotten to the ‘Predictive Risk Index’.

As if deciles weren't already stigmatising enough, what will a 'Predictive Risk Index' be for schools and students?

I'm just so disgusted in this move by the government.

Below is the text from the Newshub 11th of April 6 o’clock news piece (hopefully the video is within the link):

The decile system, which is currently used to decide school funding, is to be scrapped, with an alternative called the 'Predictive Risk Index' lined up to replace it.

It will track individual at-risk students and then use that information to target funding directly to schools.

Under the decile system, schools are ranked from one to 10 based on the socio-economic status of their communities, which determines funding.

But under the Predictive Risk Index, individual students are deemed "at risk" after being assessed by Government data and a school's funding is based on the number of students it has with risk factors.

"This is very much going to be a much more specific approach than the decile funding allows," Education Minister Hekia Parata told Newshub.

The Government will use its pool of data to identify students from families on a benefit, with brothers or sisters who have been victims of abuse, or parents that have been in prison.

But privacy has sprung out as an obvious concern.

"The technology is there, and there is no intention to identify - in fact we will ensure that children aren't identified, that their privacy is protected," Ms Parata said.

The Primary School Teachers Union is worried it could shift the stigma from schools onto students.

"In the past we've had stigmatising of low decile schools, will that mean that individual children will be stigmatised?" NZ Educational Institute President Lynda Stuart told Newshub.

Another concern is that while some schools could gain funding, others will lose it.

"I certainly think that some schools could be at risk of losing funding," Ms Stuart said.

Ms Parata said whether schools could lose funding is something "for the future" - but her political future is limited as she retires as Minister in three weeks.

Her goal is to get this signed off as her last project.

Hekia Parata steps down from her role as the Minister of Education on Monday 1st of May, with Nikki Kaye expected to take up the reigns.  Ms Parata wants to have this new funding system signed off before she leaves.  That is alarming in itself.

Patrick Gower did point out that ‘Predictive Risk Index’ is a title the government itself does not see as voter friendly.  He said to expect this to be renamed.  But to rename it will be like putting a dress on a pig and slapping some lipstick on it - it is still a dubious way to fund schools.

What do the people think?

I posted the Newshub piece in three different teacher/education forums on Tuesday and the responses from teachers and parents are still coming in.  They are horrified.  Any comment that may be deemed remotely supportive is an outlier.

The general concerns people have are:

• that individual children could be stigmatised even though schools technically won’t be told who the target students are;
• if the funding is targeted to at risk students and the schools are not told who those students are, how are they supposed to help those targeted students;
• If the funding is targeted to at risk students, who are also usually the most transient students, what happens if the funding ‘follows’ the student;

I have included the comments teachers and parents have made, warts and all, so you can see what the people who work in the system think of this proposal:

On the surface, it sounds pretty ineffective. I bet they have worked out that the govt will save $X. I can't see how this can direct funding for extra assistance in a meaning flu way. Like getting $19.00 a student a year ????

And what if it's meant to follow students? So many of these kids are the transient kids. What a nightmare!

Yeah - if a school is funded for a kid, puts s programme in place with that funding [with others] and then that kid moves away and the school loses that funding.... so now the school has to reduce or downsize the programme - yes a flipping nightmare. And one of the side effects will again be the insecurity for Teacher Aides.

I don;t understand how they can use this 'tool' in this way. PRM is meant to be used to try and target children that may be abused - not for funding of schooling. How will this work when kids move around from school to school so much

As a teacher at a decile 1B school, l have never been a fan of the decile system. It places a stigma on schools and students, who are low decile. Schools already receive funding per student. Targeted student funding is probably not a bad idea. School funding is allocated quarterly anyway. Implementation is probably the main concern and the lack of consultation with educators(nothing new). Maybe they need to broaden the criteria to include students with learning disabilities and special needs? Orrs funding is really hard to qualify for and l have seen so many students over the years failed by the education system. There needs to be an intermediary agency that links the information between schools, ministries and other agencies to target students at risk from becoming a negative statistic.

Patrick Gower's piece on the news as now been added. He says that the name "Predictive Risk Index" is an issue for the government and needs a make over. Just like IES, they think putting the pig in a new dress and slapping some lippy on is going to make it more palatable to the masses.  (Yep, this is my comment).

The government's sole purpose is to spend less money. This is just another way to do it. Their 'at risk' children criteria is slim and does not cover the many many children out there who also need a great deal of support.

I wonder if school will then be expected to transfer any remaining funds from the massive payout to the next school

Especially as it states that they will anonymise the children involved - how will schools know who to pass funding on for anyway !! I can see it getting very messy !

Exactly. Imagine the nightmare of trying to keep a budget, programmes and support staffing on track.

We all know that so-called digital privacy is a joke!! What about schools that have wonderful parents / whanau who are in low-paid jobs, but because they parent successfully, their children are not deemed 'at risk' . No funding there, then! What is happening to the education system in our country???????? We are stressing our teachers, planning to exorbitantly increase registration fees, forcing MLE / ILE / FLS onto many, regardless of mutterings of discontent from around the world on this system

Typically National. A badly thought out initiative that will be rolled out so Hekia has the limelight, but before the kinks are ironed out. We will be paying (literally and figuratively) for this for years to come. It's the Novopay of school funding and the National Standards of curriculum reporting.

But since the funding is to be for specific children, one assumes that when these children change schools (as children who meet this criteria are likely to do - beneficiaries/ parents in prison these families are transient by nature) that the funding will go with them. What a nightmare to police! And probably will impact the benefit to the child of the said funding, due to admin costs associated with changing schools and setting up whatever support is required.

Interesting they are putting money into 'supporting' children who are disadvantaged socially, but where is the funding to help children with suspected learning difficulties who require outside assessment for confirmation of specific difficulty (eg dyslexia, auditory processing)? Which, with a diagnosis starts the ball rolling to get the supports in place so these children can achieve at their optimum.

"in fact we will ensure that children aren't identified, that their privacy is protected," Ms Parata said.

Sounds like the start of a bad Tui ad...

MSD data breach anyone??

What happens to those students who aren't identified through the new system as being at risk? Not all family violence is recorded, not all family members have the same surname so how will the system pick up a parent in prison unless it is "advertised" by the family etc. There will be a lot less "decile 1" schools in NZ with this system, so lots of money will be saved.

Doesn't this feel like an equilibrium system with a really low bar?

"You have at risk youths. Here's some funding".

"Oh you have less at risk youths. Take less funding".

"You've had to cut some programmes because of less funding? And you have at risk youths? Have some funding".

To summarise...

I really think Hekia Parata has failed the standard again.  I believe she missed a golden opportunity last year when she set up the School Funding Advisory Panel.  She had eighteen of the best people in one room to come up with some worthy systems for funding our compulsory education system and she dumped preconceived ideas upon them and stymied their creativity - just like National did when they dumped National Standards over the top of our awesome New Zealand Curriculum Document.

References:

Gordon, L. (1997). ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ Today: School Choice and the Education Quassi-Market. In Olssen, M., & Matthews, K. M. (Eds.). Education policy in New Zealand: The 1990s and beyond. (pp. 65-82.  Palmerston North, N.Z.: Dunmore Press.

Harrison, M. (2004). Education matters: Government, markets and New Zealand schools. Wellington: Education Forum.

Hekia Parata and the Public Achievement Information Tour

One Friday afternoon, the 15th of August to be exact, after school, I made my way, at the speed limit only, to Hamilton, an hour's drive from my school.  My destination was the Public Achievement Information meeting by held by Hekia Parata at the St Peter's Cathedral Hall.

 

I only knew about this meeting due to a member of the NZEI National Executive telling a meeting I attended about it the previous Saturday.  He then emailed me the details and my principal agreed that I could attend.

 

I did arrive half an hour late.  I had to complete the IES (Investing in Education Success) voting process for my school as I am the NZEI worksite representative.  A valid reason to be late in my opinion.  I was assured by my NZEI National Executive friend and another friend who is a Board of Trustees chair that I hadn't missed anything other than a lesson on reading the PAI statistics and graphs.

 

PAI - that means Public Achievement Information - and I only found that out by googling "PAI meeting Hekia Parata" after the meeting because no one else knew what those letters stood for.

 

So what is this Public Achievement Information?

 

It is the National Standards data displayed for public consumption broken down by city and district council.

 

Here is a link to the MOE Public Achievement Information starter page.  And here is the blurb for the reason for the meeting:

The purpose of these public meetings is to present the 2013 New Zealand public achievement information. The wider context is not just the results but the "so what", the challenges we face and some insight into the Ministry’s response to those challenges.
This set of results represent the New Zealand wide education system view, covering early childhood education participation and NCEA level two achievement (two of the Ministry’s Better Public Service targets), along with a wider set of indicators including National Standards, Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori and school leavers.
We can put these in to a local context and enable you to use this data in your communities and schools. It is about supporting you in having the right discussions and making the right decisions in order to raise student achievement.
The Minister of Education, Hon Hekia Parata will speak at the meetings. The Minister will be accompanied by Ministry Deputy Secretaries Lisa Rodgers and Katrina Casey.

 

So I had arrived for question time.



The meeting in the St Peter's Hall in Hamilton.  This photo comes from www.stuff.co.nz

The woman asking the question when I sat down was first giving a comprehensive background to it.

Her intelligent son, who wants to be a doctor, has a conduct disorder.  It was effectively managed and controlled at primary school.  The wheels got wobbly at Intermediate.  The wheels fell off at High School where the child ended up being excluded during his Year 10 year.  By the time of this meeting, he had been out of school for seven months and had only just been accepted for Correspondence School.  In the meantime, this boy's personal worth had taken a dive and he had attempted to take his own life.   

So the question asked was what is Hekia doing for kids who slip through the system due to behaviour issues?

Hekia replied that it's not what she's doing personally, but what schools are doing.   She said that quality teachers and good decision making by BOTs would solve this boy's issues.  The room groaned. 

She then went on to describe PB4L and other work programmes focused on behaviour.  Hekia admitted that special education is under funded and needs work.  She said a range of things were in place to help this boy.  

But cleatly it's not working, because then the parent said that despite ticking every box her kid was denied help. The MOE had admitted to this parent that hundreds of kids like her son missing out. Personally, I know at least three kids who fit this profile.  If the MOE has no confidence in their own systems to support at risk learners with behaviour issues, then how can parents?

The next question was about IES and how a community of schools selected will work.

Hekia replied it's about making transition between ECE to primary to intermediate to college.  Schools and centres will opt in and look at these pathways, what barriers are in place and how to soothe them.  The community of schools will be asking questions like:  

• What are the typical pathways within a community?
• What is the baseline data? 
• What are the needs in that community?  

These must be common challenges to work on together in addition to schools own goals.  Then the executive principal, expert teacher and lead teacher (or whatever the new titles are) will work together to spread excellence and work on the needs identified.

 
Hekia then went on to say that the Prime Minister announced it in January so it could be co-constructed with the profession.  I choked a little on that comment. 

Hekia then said that the MOE had been in negotiations with the PPTA for month and that we would know where NZEI stood the following week.

Since then PPTA have finished their negotiations and their members will vote on it in early term four, well after the general election.  And 93% of the 70% of NZEI teacher members who participated thoroughly rejected the option to vary the Primary Teachers Collective Agrrement, and primary principals also rejected their collective agreement being varied as well.

It is intended that the IES structure will be in place for term one 2015 if National is returned to government.

A question was then asked by Terry Casey, the principal of Kaihere School, in regards to the union's (NZEI) message over the IES consultation that has happened.

Hekia replied by talking about the minister's forum that has been in place during the last two years.  She talked about it being a voluntary involvement.  Then she explained that NZEI took itself out at the end of 2013, but NZEI still welcome and able to participate.  Her tone of voice at this point was condescending despite the polite phrases used.

Hekia then went on to explain about the delegation to Asia in October 2013.  Judith Nowataski (the NZEI president) was invited to be part of the trip and took part in reporting back.  Angela Roberts (PPTA president) and other education group representatives (STA, Spaanz, NZPF) also participated in the trip and reporting back. 

 

After that development of IES started (at this stage the only parties involved with the MOE and STA - not even the MOE's own research unit knew anything about it and were appalled to find out on the day of John Key's State of the Nation speech that this policy had been developed without the appropriate research to back it up). 

 

Then the IES announcement was made on the day of the State of the Nation (and every education group was blind sided).  The work streams began in February and NZEI has been on all work streams as they want.  Hekia explained that as things are resolved in the work streams, it is made public. 

 

During this little explanation of how it all worked, Hekia's distain for NZEI was palpable.  While she made pretty phrases about NZEI, the condescension dripped.

It is time to clear this up for the Minister.  This is why NZEI withdrew two times from consultation with the Minister and the MOE:

• The Minister's Forum was established after the class size debacle.  NZEI participated, but it became apparent during 2013 that it's voice was being drown out due to the process.  All recommendations to the Minister were made by majority consensus.  Often NZEI had a contrary view to the final recommendation due to it not being a good fit in the primary or ECE sector or contrary to the collective agreements of the members.  As a result, after consulting the membership, NZEI made the decision to withdraw from the Minister's Forum in December.  Prior to the withdrawal the IES proposal was never discussed in the Forum.
• NZEI did participate in the work streams and consultation on IES from February 2014.  But again it found that the process for recommendations being forwarded to the Minister was by majority consensus.  Again, NZEI found that its contrary view was drowned out, and that to stay within the process was to condone recommendations that they did not support.  That is why when the MOE finally presented its claim to vary the collective agreements of primary teachers and principals, NZEI went back to the membership to get a mandate before opening negotiations with the MOE.  70% of the primary teaching and principal members responded by the due date, and 93% of those members refused to begin the negotiations and supported an alternative way to spend the $359 million allocated for IES directly on students.

As Hekia spoke, I looked over to my friend from the NZEI executive.  He was exceeding the National Standard on Self Management.  I know it grated him to hear Hekia defame the decisions of the NZEI executive and the membership, and that is why I am writing this part of the blog about the meeting to clarify the position NZEI found itself in.

A grandparent stood to speak and commended the minister for her good work with Maori & Pacifica achievement.  Obviously blue party faithful.
 

A parent stood to speak about student engagement and presence in school. They wanted to know why teachers and management are still sending kids out of class, and even home from school, for uniform issues?

Hekia stated that BOTs are responsible for issues such as the setting of uniform standards and the rules around it.  Parents and communities need to have their own discussion with BOTs about the standards and rules of uniforms.  But if the stand down process isn't being done properly go to the school and talk to the principal, then if you are still not satisfied talk to the BOT.  If you feel a satisfactory resolution is not met, then you contact the MOE for help.  If you are still not satisfied, then you contact the Minister, then ombudsman.  Hekia then went on to say that stand downs and exclusions are at a 20 year low.
 

Finally there was a question about that old chestnut, Novopay. Where are costs at now and where are we up to now?

Hekia said Novopay was clearly a dog.  She then explained that the government was now establishing a crown owned enterprise and Talent2 had been negotiated out.  The education payroll is the most difficult payroll in the country with numerous changes each fortnight. She said to solve this problem it would be ideal to simplify collective agreements without losing conditions or allowances.  Good luck with figuring out how to do that.
 

Shane Ngatai from Rhode Street School then asked a question regarding deciles and changing of the Education Act.

Hekia explained that the current Education Act is 25 years old with amendment after amendment.  The Act needs simplifying, modifying and currently doesn't really mention students.  She explained that deciles divide schools into ten categories according to socio-economic data and was well intended but a blunt instrument.  She believes funding has to be about the need of the children, and not a proxy for quality.  Hekia said that according to PISA data, decile 1 schools are producing quality achievement just like decile 10 schools.

The Minister then went on to say that she loves the job of being Minister of Education (obviously a response to the outgoing Minister of Health, Tony Ryall's, valedictory speech in Parliament a few days before).  She said being the Minister of Education was the best job in world.  She then said her own education was in decile 1 & 4 schools (funny thing is though is that decile funding was not invented until the 1990s by the then National government and all Hekia's formal primary and secondary schooling would have been in the '60s and '70s, so that really doesn't fly Minister).
 

The next question:  Who would IES roles report to?

They will report to their own BOTs. These roles will not be hierarchical, but horizontal according to the Minister (ahem... how?).  Hekia called it a new way of leading and the focus of these leaders will be coming in to lead the delivery of the achievement focuses.  She then went on to claims some elements of the IES model come from Finland (which ones are those Minister, because it looks nothing like the Finland model) as well as Asia.
 

A parent then stood up saying special education system was under funded and asked what the Minister would do about it.

Hekia replied that it is not an either/or situation. She said the quality of tching means special education kids succeed (collective groan in the room because we know that our access to specialised experts and teachers has been restricted and strangled).  But $359 million for IES is not for special education said Hekia. Its about improving quality of teaching for all.  And didn't really answer the question at all....

And then it was the end of the meeting.

This is a link to the news article published on Stuff about the meeting:  Deciles 'proxy for quality': Minister.

Hekia is reviewing the decile system... ohhh oh.

So Hekia is reviewing the decile system.  We all know it is clumsy as a form of funding and that it is also not an accurate reflection on individual schools at times, but how should funding be allocated to schools?  How was it done pre 1995 (anyone remember)?  Was the system better then, or better with the decile rating?

This announcement on Sunday will cause a flurry of concern.

School decile ratings could be scrapped by Education Minister Hekia Parata, who says they are sometimes used "to explain or excuse everything".

Deciles represent the average number of socially and economically disadvantaged students at a school, with decile 1 being the most disadvantaged and decile 10 the least. Low-decile schools receive more government funding.

Parata said the ratings, introduced in 1995, were well intentioned, but also "really clumsy". She has asked the ministry to explore new options for funding because, at present, deciles did not account for differentiation within schools.

"There are some significantly disadvantaged kids and families in deciles seven, eight, nine and 10 schools, but overall the average masks that," she said.

"Deciles one, two and three are where the economic disadvantage is used to explain or excuse everything."

The ministry is expected to report back in the next couple of months. (Stuff, 8/8/13)

Comments on forums are already flowing in from concerned teachers, principals and parents.  One teacher has the following to say:

Sadly this has little or nothing to do about improving the funding system, this is simply a cost cutting measure.  Education has been identified as a area which needs major trimmings, so Hekia would have been told by cabinet to find areas   Looking more carefully at the issue is the governments focus on reviewing the governance of schools   I would suggest at times the government's senior ministers have not been impressed how schools - including BOT's - have stood up to current policy.

Concerns are mounting that the changes will be at the expense of children, vulnerable children in particular.

One wonders how they will decide the new model will work and who will make the decisions about allocating the funding.

Consider this idea:  with PaCT (Progress and Consistency Tool to "help" teachers make "better OTJs" about childrens' National Standards levels) the MOE will be able to access the data of each class who uses it, trace each child, trace each teacher.  It is proposed that local bodies (city and district councils) will also have access (and who knows who else!).

The idea that PaCT information will be available to councils and the review of the decile funding system and the rumours around the future of BOTs makes me wonder if this government is looking to put councils in charge of education for their localities. 

This is what happens in countries like the UK and the USA.  Now consider the wider implications of this:  many schools have been shut by American city leaders in poor "underachieving" neighbourhoods; many English schools that are seen as failing have been closed by Mr Gove, the British Secretary of Education, or local councils.  So what happens then?  American and British councils have devolved local schooling to charter schools and academies.  Charter schools and academies are seen by the right in politics to be an effective way to control the burgeoning education budget, bring in free market philosophies to education and abdicate responsibility for social spending to the private/business sector.

So what is the background to decile funding?  According to a definition from Wikipedia:  Socio-economic decile (also known as Socio-economic decile band or simply decile) is a widely used measure of socioeconomic status in New Zealand education, primarily used to target funding and support to more needy schools.

A school's socio-economic decile is recalculated every five years, after each Census of Population and Dwellings using data collected during the census. Current deciles came into force in 2008 following the 2006 census.

Before the deciles are calculated, Statistics New Zealand calculates the following factors in each individual meshblock (the smallest census unit, consisting of about 50 households each), disregarding any household in the meshblock that does not have school-aged children:^[1]

• Household income: the proportion of households whose total income, adjusted for householder composition, is in the bottom 20 percent nationally.
• Occupation: the proportion of employed parents who work in low skilled or unskilled occupations, specifically those that are skill levels 4 and 5 on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO)
• Household crowding: the proportion of households in which the number of householders exceeds the number of bedrooms, adjusting for couples and children under 10.
• Educational qualifications: the proportion of parents who have no formal qualifications.
• Income support: the proportion of parents who receive the Domestic Purposes Benefit, Unemployment Benefit, Sickness Benefit or Invalid's Benefit.
  

So why do some schools, communities, parents, teachers and principals and the Minister of Education have issues with the current funding through decile ratings for schools?

First let's start with Hekia's point of view.  She sees (because Bill and Steven told her so) that the education budget is huge and needs some trimming and the best place to do that (apart from cutting the cost of salaries for teachers) is to severely trim the money that goes into the Operations Grants for schools.... and so getting rid of deciles and funding schools the same across the board would fix her little financial dilemma.

Also, decile ratings of schools are a blatant acknowledgement of how poor some communities are and that poverty is alive and raging in New Zealand, child poverty in particular.  If one was to get rid of the decile ratings for schools, one wouldn't have to acknowledge that poverty exists in certain communities.  Therefore poverty and low decile ratings can be eliminated (cough, cough, choke, choke) as an excuse for schools not meeting the standards and teachers can truly be blamed as awful.

Communities and parents don't want to be seen as living in a poor neighbourhood, with their child attending a school that only has poor people, most likely brown people (low decile schools tend to have a higher proportion of Maori and Pasifica students than high decile schools) and who don't meet the standards.  These things colour how a school is seen by its community, alas.

Schools, teachers and principals have a variety of concerns and things to value due to decile ratings. 

If you have a high decile school, your school is seen as desirable, more likely to meet the standards, have a better class of children (darling, another latte!!), have better teachers, have better facilities.  The reality of a high decile school is that it is so popular it has larger class sizes and often not enough classes to fit all the children in physically and teachablely; they tend to have less access to ICT equipment unless the school has a BYOD policy and capacity in place; swimming pools and other facilities are unlikely to meet the demands of the size of the school; the kids do better because they tend to come from warm homes, with full bellies, appropriate clothing and footware, access to good health support and if they need help with their learning their parents are very likely to be able to afford to pay for it; parents are usually very financially supportive and do well with fundraisers for the school.  Higher decile schools also get the opportunity to have BOT members that may have greater financial literacy and influence in fundraising.  The big kicker from decile ratings though is the higher the decile the less funding your school gets.

If you have a low decile school, your school is not seen as desirable. 

The decile system has come in for criticism from teacher and principal associations in recent years for fomenting destructive competition between schools and the exacerbation of white flight. Data from the Ministry of Education indicated that 60,000 Pakeha/NZ European students attended low-decile schools in 2000, but that number had halved by 2010, while high-decile schools had a corresponding increase in Pakeha students.  The Ministry claimed demographic changes were behind the shifts, but the Secondary Principals Association and PPTA have attributed white flight to racial and class stigmas of low-decile schools, which commonly have majority Maori and Pacific Islander rolls.

So consequently white flight from low decile schools has occurred, and a significant number of Maori and Pacific families, with the means, have also enabled their children to attend schools with higher deciles.

And while the lower the decile you are, the more funding you get in your operation the less benefit you will get from fundraising.  Children are less likely to have access to ICT and internet at home, so the school needs to provide it (making the school a target for burglaries), are more likely to have poverty issues (hence lower decile schools have food in schools programmes, social workers, more likely to have the public health nurse involved....), are more likely to live in an overcrowded home, are more likely to have parents that work in low income jobs (often more that one job) and have limited time to spend with their families.  Lower decile schools often struggle to get people with the skills and experience to serve on their BOTs.

But those schools in the middle of the deciles have issues too that vary.  Mercury Bay Area School, the largest area school in New Zealand, serves a community that has a wide range of families in their community:  farmers, fish factory workers, service and food workers, orchardists, hippies..... however their decile rating is influenced by the people who do not live in the district or send children to the school.  How?  MBAS is situated in Whitianga on the Coromandel.  This town is the home of many holiday homes and baches, some of these houses well into the million dollar mark or more.  Absentee holiday home owners have influenced the decile of the school as well as the rates being charged by the Thames Coromandel District Council.  A couple of years ago, in an attempt to have their decile rating put at a more realistic rate to the families the school serves, MBAS embarked on a massive survey of families to present a truer picture of their school community to the MOE.

MBAS is not alone in this quandary.  Many rural primary schools are also affected by who their neighbours are.  Farm owners, who may not necessarily have children at the school anymore if they did, influence the decile of the school by simply owning the farms in the district.

What is the funding difference between deciles currently?

Decile ratings account for about 13 per cent of all operational funding. The decile funding examples below are based on a secondary school with a roll of 1000.  Does anyone know how it works for primary/intermediate schools?  Is it different?

Decile 1: $979,884.69 of decile-based funding
Decile 2: $699,354.69
Decile 3: $435,034.69
Decile 4: $266,984.69
Decile 8: $107,354.69
Decile 9: $85,324.69
Decile 10: $52,734.69  As you can see, a decile 10 school gets considerably less than a decile 1 school.  There are considerable reasons why.

If you would like to see a more detailed break down of how the Operations Grant is worked out in 2013, click here to go to the MOE page that lays it all out.

So what may be ahead for school funding?

Hekia's officials may report back that the current system is the fairest system and it just needs a tweak or two.  But don't hold your breath.  I won't be.

Another possibility that has just been floated today is that the new Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes, is in the midst of preparing a proposal for bulk funding of primary school....  Yes, back to the 1990s.  When will the Nats realise that model didn't work then and won't work now.

So here is my prediction:  I think that after the review is done, Hekia will recommend that all schools be funded the same, possibly at the rate for a decile 5 or 6 school, with say a 3% increase to make her look generous.  At this rate it looks good for parents in previously decile 10 schools in the blue belt of National voting territory... but in the formerly known low decile communities... well, does National really care about them?

My next prediction is that this will be rushed through without due consideration to actual facts and the people it will affect.  The decision will be made (by Hekia) with her personal opinions, bias and gut feeling driving it, along with the fact that Bill and Steven told her to do it.  How do I know this?  Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, has just released a report where he summarised: "Government policy-makers are using gut instincts instead of hard evidence to make decisions that influence New Zealanders' lives, the prime minister's chief science adviser warns."  (Dominion Post, 9/9/13).

I can not pronounce that Hekia has failed the standard on this yet, however, I predict she will.