Families voted with their feet
The simplest test of whether charter schools would work was whether anyone would enrol. Critics from the union movement predicted thin demand and wasted money. The numbers tell a different story.
Enrolments across the eight schools that opened in 2025 grew from 287 in July to 427 by September. Charter School Agency chief executive Jane Lee told Parliament’s Education and Workforce Select Committee that most schools, if not all, would hit their establishment rolls by year end. Some are turning families away. One school received more than 120 applications for 30 places. Twin Oaks, a classical education school, filled its 60 places and built a waiting list of 200.
This is not manufactured demand. It is parents choosing alternatives the state system does not offer.
Attendance already beats the state average
Associate Education Minister David Seymour released baseline attendance data showing the average regular attendance rate for new charter schools was 59.7%, compared with 58% for state schools. That headline number understates the result. Three of the eight schools specifically target chronically disengaged young people, students who were barely attending at all. Strip those out and the four non-specialist schools averaged 66.7%.
Beating the state sector average while deliberately enrolling the hardest-to-reach students is a meaningful year-one result. Seymour’s framing was characteristically direct: “When children can learn and grow in ways more specific to their needs, they attend school more.”
The government’s target is 80% regular attendance. Schools that fail to improve face real consequences: the Authorisation Board can terminate their contracts.
Less than 1% of the education budget
The programme is funded at $153.09 million over four years. Actual spend to 30 June 2025 was $16.973 million, under the allocated amount. Sponsors received $10.9 million in 2024/25, including $6.3 million in one-off establishment funding.
Maxim Institute researcher Maryanne Spurdle put the investment in perspective: the $153 million represents less than 1% of Ministry of Education operating expenses. Per-student funding is broadly equivalent to state school rates. The model is not more expensive per head. It is differently governed.
The conversion problem Seymour hasn’t solved
Not everything is working. Converting existing state schools to charter status has stalled badly. Only six expressions of interest have come from schools wanting to convert, against a target of roughly 35. Seymour has been candid: “I freely admit it has been more challenging than I first anticipated.”
The new-build pipeline is performing. Eighteen charter schools are now operating or approved for 2026, with a target of 25 by the 2026 election. For comparison, the previous National-led government managed 11 over six years. But the conversion gap matters because it was supposed to be the mechanism for scaling the model beyond boutique new-builds.
The transparency own goal
The Charter School Agency initially told schools not to disclose their enrolment numbers, citing “commercial position.” This was a gift to critics. When the numbers eventually came out through OIA requests and select committee testimony, they were fine. The handling was not. If you are running a programme designed to prove that competition and transparency improve outcomes, suppressing basic data about your own schools is a spectacular failure of message discipline.
Why this matters beyond education policy
The charter school debate is a proxy for a larger question about what the state system delivers. Former ACT leader Richard Prebble cites data showing at 15 high schools, no student achieved University Entrance, while 30 state schools average fewer than three UE passes per year. A 2010 OECD report found the world’s best-performing education systems had moved away from centralised bureaucratic control toward greater school-level autonomy.
Spurdle’s sharpest observation: “Among English-speaking countries, we have the strongest relationship between socioeconomic background and educational performance. It shouldn’t be this way.”
For employers struggling to hire literate, numerate school leavers, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is a description of the talent pipeline. Full achievement data is due in May 2026. If the attendance gains translate into learning gains, the case for a more plural education market becomes very difficult to argue against. And if they don’t, the contracts can be terminated. That accountability alone puts charter schools ahead of the state schools producing zero University Entrance passes with no consequences at all.
Sources
- Charter School Agency Annual Report 2025 (2025)
- RNZ: Charter School Agency reveals enrolment numbers after telling schools to keep figures under wraps (2025)
- RNZ: New charter schools open doors for term 1 (2025)
- Inside Government: First report card for new charter schools (2025)
- Budget 2024 Decision: Charter Schools (2024)
- NZ Herald: David Seymour admits charter school conversions tougher than expected (2025)
- NZ Herald: Why charter schools work – Richard Prebble (2024)
- 1News: Are charter schools a good idea? (2024-07-14)
- RNZ: Charter schools told to keep enrolment numbers secret (2025)