Multiple choice: The results

In the new education market, schools for the affluent are flourishing. At the other end of the scale, schools are dying.

Every morning, 15 year-old Paul Taylor rises in time to cut through the backstreets and catch an ageing school bus as it hits Kingsland, having thread its way through cafe-lined Mt Eden village, Balmoral and the old villas of Sandringham.

By the time he boards, the bus is almost full with "heaps of friends" who travel "out of zone" to Western Springs College on the other side of Auckland.

Why make the trip, when highly sought-after Auckland and Mt Roskill Grammar Schools are so close?

In Paul's case, "because my brother went there. It's co-ed. And it's good. I've heard about other schools that are more strict and stuff."

His mother, Julie, a Mt Eden doctor, puts much the same sentiments differently.

"We liked the more liberal co-ed education of Western Springs more than the highly disciplined all-male culture at Auckland Grammar."

Rohan, 16, an art folder in hand, says he left Mt Roskill Grammar after the third form because it was "much too militaristic, disciplined and tight."

Shane goes to Western Springs College because "all my friends go here, it's mufti and I didn't like any of the schools round here."

Tessa says she feels "more confident coming to our school than Auckland Girls. The teachers have more time for you."

This is a fragment of the picture made up by Today's Schools in action.

Eight years ago, before the Education Amendment Act (1991) removed the zoning that forced parents to send their children to local schools, Paul, Shane and the rest would have been at Mt Roskill, Mt Albert or Auckland Grammars.

Now they are part of a snakes and ladders-like process that takes place every school day as children commute to the school of their choice.

Abolishing zones was supposed to create a perfect education market. Parents would have choice, popular schools would thrive and multiply, bad schools would improve or die.

With the ebb and flow of the new system, as some parents choose more liberal co-ed schools and others go for rigour, discipline, top exam pass rates, fewer brown faces or, crudely, a better standard of classmate for their offspring, a new order has emerged.

It is a lopsided, sometimes ugly picture. A system that was supposed to give parents absolute choice to pick good schools has instead given good schools the choice of clientele.

In Auckland and Northland, for instance, 32 per cent of schools have enrolment schemes, compared with 14 per cent in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty. That means parents in Auckland and Northland have less chance of ultimate choice than their southern neighbours.

Typically, schools in the richer areas have enrolment schemes. Those schools which the buses bypass don't. And although enrolment schemes must be approved by the Education Ministry, critics insist they are used to "cream off" the best students.

Most, but not all, include a proximity clause. Those that don't have sparked headlines when children living next to the school gate have been turned away, prompting Education Minister Wyatt Creech to draft a loosely worded Bill which, if passed, will give children the right to attend a conveniently close state school.

While top schools flourish, those catering for the poorest and most disadvantaged children in the country are struggling.

The research is unequivocal. Phase two of the ministry's Smithfield Project, Testing the Polarisation Thesis, was designed to "examine the impact of changes to Government policy enacted in 1991 on educational equality of opportunity and school effectiveness under conditions of market competition."

It shows the policy has indeed widened polarisation between schools. The results of rigorous research into student enrolment patterns in 11 secondary schools in one urban centre between 1990-1995 concludes:

* Students with high socio-economic status, relative to their residential areas, bypassed local schools in the greatest numbers.

* Schools with the lowest mean socio-economic status and the lowest percentage of Pakeha students experienced the greatest loss of students after zoning was removed.

"The effects of the introduction of market regimes are both clear and dramatic," say the ministry's researchers. "The market we studied was chosen to test whether, as critics of marketisation would predict, there was a `domino' effect with ... the highest socio-economic status students moving out of the area to solidly middle-class suburban and inner-city high socio-economic status schools. The data tells a story which is consistent with this scenario."

Although the Smithfield Project does not identify the winner and loser schools, the losers are usually tagged in industry jargon as decile 1, meaning they are in areas of low income and high unemployment, either isolated or intensely urban with large numbers of Pacific Island or Maori students.

The winners are invariably decile 10, meaning they are stacked with the children of the affluent upper-income-earners.

Education experts insist exam results and decile ratings are so tightly entwined that even the most dedicated and gifted teachers cannot unravel them.

They argue that more affluent and therefore more supported decile 10 students automatically equal high school certificate pass rates, while decile 1 students start too far behind to have a chance.

An educational researcher at Canterbury University, David Hughes, points to research he and colleague Hugh Lauder carried out in 1990:

"Pupils ... typically leave the most privileged schools with five school certificate or sixth form certificate passes, while those from the least privileged schools [but with identical ability] leave without qualifications."

Look no further than Auckland's lowest decile schools such as Hillary, Tangaroa, Tamaki and Mangere Colleges and their single figure School Certificate passes. They are under enormous threat as families bypass them for their slightly more affluent neighbours.

This is not white flight but socio-economic flight.

Ann Dunphy, principal of Penrose High, which sits "proudly" on a decile of 2, explains:

"In times of high unemployment and global competition parents are terrified for their children's sake. They are, rightly, deeply concerned about how kids are helped up by other kids ... The move is fundamental. Even within the lower deciles there's still a movement up the scale."

Take Mangere College, which faces potentially devastating roll pressure as Pacific Island youngsters cross the water to Onehunga High School, lured by its slightly higher decile rating and reputation.

Otara parents are avoiding Hillary and Tangaroa Colleges by keeping their children at nearby intermediate schools which have added third and fourth forms and re-branded themselves middle schools.

These are parents unwilling to risk their children's education while these most needy schools struggled to come to terms with self-management and were publicly damned by the dreaded Education Review Office.

The result for Hillary College is a roll that has dropped to around 370. A couple of kilometres away where Ferguson and Clover Park Intermediates fight Tangaroa College for third formers, Tangaroa's roll has dropped from 900-odd to 500 over the past six years.

So far, however, the Government has failed to take the ultimate free-market step and let these schools die, although it is being less magnanimous in Petone. Indeed, it has actually poured a huge amount of funding and expertise into Auckland's threatened schools.

But is it realistic to expect they will pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?

There have been extraordinary examples of schools -- such as Ponsonby Intermediate -- which have cured their own terminal illness. Can similar schools, without Ponsonby's advantage of a middle-class neighbourhood, do the same?

More money or not -- and remember that funding is tied to student numbers -- once the downward spiral begins, change comes hard.

Jim Peters, energetic former principal of Western Springs College, spent three years trying to work his magic on Tangaroa. Despite "the most dedicated, excellent teachers" the roll is still under pressure as students who can afford the bus fare bypass it in favour of slightly more advantaged schools.

What is the reality in the "sink" schools they leave behind?
Many of the mostly Maori or Pacific Island students arrive at school hungry and don't have anywhere to study when they get home -- let alone reference books, computers or educated parents to help.

Often families cannot afford even minimal school fees, and are unlikely to have the time or expertise to sit on the school board either.

For all that, says Peters, "they're wonderful kids. They're optimistic, high-spirited, charming, often with huge skills.
And in their way they're very proud of Tangaroa. The school offers them security, a feeling of community ... But they can't battle against the odds."

Even those on the winning side of the equation, such as Allen McDonald, principal of Howick's Macleans College, which came top of the 1996 national bursary rankings, agrees.

"It's like the poverty statistics. Once a decline starts it's an ever-decreasing spiral. I honestly don't know what can be done about buses full of students going past the doors of perfectly good schools staffed with dedicated, excellent teachers."

Linda Dillon, deputy principal of Western Springs, puts it succinctly: "The sad thing about Tomorrow's Schools is the competitive wedge it's driven between schools. Some principals have abandoned ethical standards and give out league tables [exam success statistics] to parents."

John Grant, former principal of Tamaki College and a passionate spokesman for equality of education, talks about potential damage to society as a whole if we allow polarisation to continue.

"Education is not a business but a community activity in which we're all vitally involved," he says. "Is education a force for social cohesion or social division?"

But for the parents of students like Paul, Rohan and Tessa, who rebelled against the state-dictated education forced on them by zoning, Today's Schools works very well indeed.