KEY POINTS:
All power to Viv Goldsmith, Labour's candidate in East Coast Bays, for speaking out against the fiction that school fees are "donations".
However, her party bosses might not be so pleased she's drawn attention to the embarrassing fact that after nine years in power, Labour has still not stamped out the thinly veiled extortion too often associated with this "voluntary" giving.
Ms Goldsmith, a teacher herself, says she mails off her request for fees to the minister each time she gets one and challenged people at the election rally to do likewise.
The cheers and laughter that greeted this comment were, one assumes, the guffaws of disbelief of those who know what little effect such direct action will have.
We all know that, at best, all a minister of education will do when embarrassed into action by media headlines on this issue is to publicly chastise the offending principal, then close his eyes as the illegal tithing continues, up and down the land.
Ten years ago, I exposed how Ponsonby Intermediate School was demanding a "compulsory charge" of $450 and an optional "school donation" of $250.
The Ministry of Education responded with a reminder to schools that every child between the ages of 5 and 19 "is entitled to free enrolment and free education". Free, not fee.
In 2000 it was Auckland Grammar's turn for the naughty stool after it posted letters to parents of prospective pupils demanding they bring a cheque for a "school fee" of $500 on enrolment evening "to confirm acceptance of the place offered".
Education Minister Trevor Mallard responded that "compulsory attendance fees have no place in the state education system".
He growled at the principal and ordered "a prominent notice" be printed in the Education Gazette "to remind all schools of the voluntary nature of donations".
The present minister, Chris Carter, also growls loudly, but after years of hollow threats, the principals now openly mock him. Last year, Auckland Grammar's John Morris joined McLeans College principal Byron Bentley and Epsom Girls' Grammar's Annette Sharp to say the increased reliance on donations had rendered the concept of free education a myth.
A ministry official said core funding for schools in 2007 was $5.6 billion and that locally raised funds provided around 10 per cent of school funds for "extra benefits".
In January, Mr Carter raised telescope to blind eye and pretended all was well. "We know the spin is that somehow it hasn't become free," he told the Education Gazette. "Actually it is free and parents choose to pay it or choose not. That's their call."
This outraged National's then education spokeswoman, Catherine Rich, who said Mr Carter was being "irresponsible" for telling parents that making a donation was "their call". Even though that was the law and had been for more than 100 years. Yesterday, Mrs Rich's successor, Anne Tolley, was saying the same thing, claiming Ms Goldsmith's refusal to pay the "voluntary" charge was "selfish and irresponsible".
Some of the anecdotes I've heard over the years remind me of stories of certain churches which shame their congregations into giving by reading out the size of family "donations" at Sunday worship.
Schools play the guilt card, telling parents their kids will suffer for life if the classrooms are without the latest fancy-branded computers and associated software and the like. But how true is this?
Earlier this year in these pages, John Langley, dean of education, Auckland University, questioned the value of parents paying tens of thousands of dollars to move into the best school zones, and then "fork[ing] out even more in school fees".
Dr Langley said it wasn't the kind of school that mattered, or how fashionable it was.
Neither was it about streaming or class size. "What makes the difference in terms of an effective education for our children are the quality of our teachers and the environment in which they work."
Instead of bullying parents into funding the latest in technology, perhaps we should start focusing on teacher excellence instead. State-funded teacher excellence.
