The NZ Herald has an editorial about the problems with school zoning that have become even more apparent this year.
The assumption behind school zoning appears to be that even school is fundamentally the same, and so a child will always do equally well at any school.
Obviously the majority of parents do not appear to agree with this.
I can definately symphathise with both the schools and parents involved here. Zoning makes it very difficult on the schools where they can have a ridiculous number of late, and possibly dubious enrolements, that they are required to take. And I cannot criticise the parents too much for wanting the best for their child.
Basically zoning means that a successful school cannot expand to allow more students if there are other schools in the area with space, even if those other schools are much lower quality. It means that house and rental prices in the zone of the popular schools will increase significantly, meaning that only the rich will be able to afford them anyway. Zoning can easily create a class system by accident.
If we allowed parents to choose the school for their child, and then allowed successful schools to take over the running of unsuccessful schools, I think we could get a vast improvement.
But at present the current system means that no matter how bad a school is (obviously within some limits) it has some guaranteed students, who are the unfortunate ones who live in the area. A market model would allow the successful schools to succeed even more, and more importantly, allow more children to get a better education.drivers matrix reborn xp
The assumption behind school zoning appears to be that even school is fundamentally the same, and so a child will always do equally well at any school.
Obviously the majority of parents do not appear to agree with this.
I can definately symphathise with both the schools and parents involved here. Zoning makes it very difficult on the schools where they can have a ridiculous number of late, and possibly dubious enrolements, that they are required to take. And I cannot criticise the parents too much for wanting the best for their child.
Basically zoning means that a successful school cannot expand to allow more students if there are other schools in the area with space, even if those other schools are much lower quality. It means that house and rental prices in the zone of the popular schools will increase significantly, meaning that only the rich will be able to afford them anyway. Zoning can easily create a class system by accident.
If we allowed parents to choose the school for their child, and then allowed successful schools to take over the running of unsuccessful schools, I think we could get a vast improvement.
But at present the current system means that no matter how bad a school is (obviously within some limits) it has some guaranteed students, who are the unfortunate ones who live in the area. A market model would allow the successful schools to succeed even more, and more importantly, allow more children to get a better education.drivers matrix reborn xp
Comments
Actually, I think that the rationale for zoning is to:1. Cut down on the amount of travel involved in getting kids to school2. Make sure that there are enough kids at all of the schoolsdrivers matrix reborn xp