Bernadine Vester: Let's chart the course for our kids' future

By pushing a junior high school proposal, the Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, is inviting a discussion about the structure of individual new schools. This misses the real question. How should communities govern and manage a network of schools for best outcomes?

The minister is looking for change in the system. The Tomorrow's Schools reforms introduced in 1988 gave every school its own governing body and the school structures in existence in October 1989 are the ones that are still in place today.

Change is difficult without complicated adjustments and political risk. This Government has already decided that the school network reviews in rural areas have been no more comfortable than picking limpets off rocks with your bare hands.

School networks in expanding areas are just as tricky. The plan for junior high schools has not been driven by a community desire for change to the way schools are configured. There is plenty of evidence that proves what goes on inside a school is what counts, and parents agree.

Having a middle school/senior school configuration, or a Form 1 to 7 school in the Flat Bush new town, will offer differences in style to the usual urban menu. But quality and outcomes from the network will come down to the ways the schools will be managed and governed.

There seems to be an argument in the Ministry of Education that in "greenfields" areas communities don't yet exist. This is superficial. In Flat Bush there are "governance" bodies in the form of a community board, a city council, a regional council, and an education trust, all with a mandate to focus on community development.

There are decision-makers and "key influencers" within ethnic and church communities. The businesses of nearby East Tamaki will look to this population for their future workforce.

For all of them, the network of schools is as important as each individual school, and, most especially, the achievement of students. They don't have to be parents to be interested in the quality and shape of the future schools in Flat Bush. They are today's "community", and need to be included in the consultation process.

The challenge in the "middle schools" debate is not about the school, but how it fits into the big picture. Even when schools are on "shared sites", as many are, separate governance and management structures create barriers for full integration of curriculum, resources, and services.

The best kind of change, for taxpayers and voters, will be a system that has a "plan for education outcomes" that is meaningful to the well-being of the community and its economy.

A "community vision" already exists in the form of Tomorrow's Manukau: Manukau Apopo. The plan for education for Flat Bush should steer decision-making to meet that community vision.

So who will develop and then steer the Flat Bush education strategy? At the moment, the minister's plan is to establish seven new schools with seven new boards of trustees, none of which will be obliged to consider the interests of the others, or the strategy.

It's like a yacht race without any rules. The big yachts and the little yachts can cross the start line together, but the course is up to the yachts themselves, and the finishing line depends on the wind.

The pearl in the minister's decision to spend money on new schools in Flat Bush isn't the middle school or junior high school. The real treasure is the opportunity to shape a cohesive network that offers real choice to parents - and adds value to the wider community.

Having an agreed course chart is more useful than redesigning the boat.

* Bernadine Vester is chief executive of the City of Manukau Education Trust.