The Charter School Move That’s Not About Profit — It’s About Survival

Escaping the System That Failed Us: The Real Reason Behind One School’s Charter Bid

by Rebecca Thomas

I never imagined I’d be writing this in support of a charter school.

I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with educators opposing charter models because I’ve seen how they erode public education and invite inequity under the guise of innovation. I’ve called them instruments for privatisation — and I still believe, in most cases, they are.

But I also know Northland College. And I know Duane Allen.

And this move — this bold, public step toward becoming a charter school — is not a sell-out.

It’s a strategy of survival.

It’s a story of resistance.

It’s a school saying: We’ve tried everything within the system — and the system is still failing our tamariki.

The hardest decision — and the right one

When Duane Allen, principal of Northland College, first arrived five years ago, he was — in his own words — a staunch opponent of charter schools. And yet, here he is today, standing at the centre of the very change he once resisted.

Why?

Because he’s tried everything the state system allows — and it still hasn’t shifted outcomes for the students of this predominantly Ngāpuhi school.

“We’ve got really, really good people here who are working really hard... and we haven’t been able to get the direction that we’d like to.” — Duane Allen, RNZ

If you’ve read my blogs over the years, you’ll know this truth is not new.

You’ll have felt the trauma.

The frustration.

The proud spirit.

The marginalisation.

The tears behind closed doors.

The isolation of a community that keeps showing up — and of teachers who strive every day to be better, even as the system undermines their efforts.

This isn’t a shift in principle — it’s a shift in survival strategy.

It’s a story of resistance.

It's about the system that is still failing our tamariki.

A school that refuses to give up on its kids

Northland College has seen generations of promise stifled by a public system that values conformity over culture. The school sits in one of the highest Māori population regions in the world — a fact confirmed by journalist Aaron Smale — and its students, 96% Māori and mostly Ngāpuhi, have been labelled “the tail” in national education statistics for decades.

And still, despite this geographic and demographic truth — that this is where our brown kids live, learn, and deserve to thrive — the system remains indifferent.

Aaron Smale recently highlighted the same shocking stats: less than half of students in Tai Tokerau are passing NCEA literacy and numeracy standards. Teachers report spending up to 80% of their time managing trauma, not teaching. These are not anomalies. These are consequences of a system that was never built for our people. I know these statistics are truth because I have lived and breathed it personally for the past nine years.

So why is no one listening?

Why are policymakers still rolling out reforms that erase te reo, that blame schools, that ignore the social and historical context of entire communities?

Attendance rates. Achievement data. Retention.

The Ministry sees numbers. 

Educators working here see names.

Faces. Whānau.

“In spite of our best efforts... we haven't been able to get the shift in those areas that we want to.” — Duane Allen

So he’s making a move that most leaders would be too afraid to make — not because it’s popular, but because it’s urgent.

He’s saying: If this is the only way to build a school that honours our tamariki, our reo, our tikanga — then so be it.

Ngāpuhi aren’t opting out. They’re stepping in.

What Northland College and Te Rūnanga-Ā-Iwi-O-Ngāpuhi are doing is not privatisation. It's not about control, profit, or shiny metrics. It’s not a Crimson-led, Rata-dominated rebranding of public education.

It’s a reclamation. A reset.

A refusal to let another generation of Ngāpuhi tamariki be crushed by the legacy of a system that was never built for them.

What makes this even more powerful is who is standing beside Northland College: Te Rūnanga-Ā-Iwi-O-Ngāpuhi. The iwi aren’t coming in as outsiders. They already sit at the board table. They’re already embedded in the school’s direction. Becoming a charter sponsor is simply the next step in reclaiming Māori authority over Māori education.

Moana Tuwhare from the rūnanga said it best:

“We think we can make it a school for Ngāpuhi... not exclusive, but with a Ngāpuhi identity.”

Imagine that: a school not defined by deficit, but by whakapapa.

Not scrambling for state approval, but grounded in mana motuhake.

Not asking to be seen — but leading from the front.

They said it out loud — and that matters

Here’s the other thing that sets Northland College apart:

They went public.

Where others have stayed quiet — submitting applications behind closed doors, wary of political heat — Northland College front-footed it. Spoke it aloud. Backed it with the mana of their community.

In a space filled with suspicion and spin, they chose transparency.

That’s not just a PR move — that’s mana motuhake in action. It's a signal to their whānau, their tamariki, their iwi: we are not ashamed of trying something different. We’re proud of it.

And maybe more importantly, it’s a quiet challenge to the education sector: If this path is truly about community empowerment, why are so many schools walking it in silence?

Northland’s courage reveals just how uncomfortable this country still is with schools stepping outside the state's shadow — even when it’s in pursuit of something better for Māori.

“It’s a genuine opportunity for our iwi to take a lead in the education space... to walk the talk of tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.” — Duane Allen

This is not a rejection of public education — it’s a rejection of being left behind inside it.

The Post Primary Teachers Association president, Chris Abercrombie, said it was “disappointing” that a state school felt the state could not support it to meet its community’s needs. He also suggested it was “telling” that only one state school had admitted to considering conversion.

But perhaps what’s truly telling is that the union still can’t see what Northland College is doing here. This isn’t about abandoning the system. It’s about refusing to let another generation be written off by it. If we are serious about being successful as Māori — not just in statistics, but in spirit, identity, and happiness — then that should be celebrated, not framed as disappointment.

Maybe the real challenge for the PPTA is not to defend the system at all costs, but to reimagine what success means when it’s defined by communities themselves.

A Māori school excluded, underfunded, and ignored

A Māori school — almost entirely Ngāpuhi, almost entirely ignored by successive governments — has been excluded, underfunded, and whitewashed by a state education system that claims equity while gutting the very tools that support it.

Curriculum reforms have stripped back Mātauranga Māori. Funding models have punished low-decile schools. The government, in its obsession with compliance and standardisation, has made it impossible for schools like Northland College to thrive in their own right.

To create space to finally do what the state refused to: build an education model that centres their kids, their identity, and their future.

It’s poetic.

It’s fierce.

And it’s exactly the kind of quiet reclamation this country needs to pay attention to.

Shaking off the Native Schools legacy

We never truly undid the damage of the Native Schools Act. The idea that Māori knowledge was secondary — that te reo Māori should be punished in classrooms, that Pākehā success markers were the gold standard — still echoes in our system today.

Northland College isn’t running from the state. It’s rising above its limitations.

And if it takes stepping outside the state school model to finally build an education that reflects Ngāpuhi identity, values, and aspirations — then who are we to stand in the way? Especially those of us who’ve worked inside the system and know, in our bones, that it hasn’t delivered.

This is not a blanket endorsement of charter schools. 

But when a community steps forward — not to profit, but to heal — we must listen. When an iwi says: we will co-locate services, we will bring in hauora, we will embed identity, we will lead — we must tautoko.

When our kids say: we don’t want to be told we’re failures anymore — we must believe them.

Not the exception — the example

Let this not be a one-off.

Let it be a signal of what's possible when tino rangatiratanga is honoured in education. When mana motuhake is not just a principle, but a structure.

Northland College is not selling out.

It is stepping up.

This isn’t privatisation.

This is decolonisation.