A Whale of a Restart for New Zealand
Ed Sparks 8/13/04

Years ago when I was traveling around the world for Texas Instruments I made several trips to New Zealand. I was not very impressed. It was the most stifling country I had ever visited. The Government people simply ran the economy. Everywhere we looked we saw government people standing around. Even in the laboratory where we worked there were a few excess government employees. Wages were low. And the cars were unbelievable. I saw cars from the twenties still putting around but I have to give the owners credit, all those old cars were kept in very good shape. In Christchurch I saw a Ford Model T still running. There were no junkyards because no one could afford to throw anything away for it could not be replaced. Just to get some foreign funds, the manager of the hotel where I stayed took my personal check, paid my bill out of his own pocket and deposited my check in his account in San Francisco. Throughout my travels in New Zealand I carried a “Letter of Credit” from my bank but I never had to use it. Everyone wanted my personal check for it gave them access to foreign funds. There were few television sets in a nation of 6.5 million people. There didn’t have to be many. The government controlled the transmitters. The government did not allow importation of finished television sets and would only allow 100 picture tubes to be imported each year. The TV manufacturing industry was quite small.

The government owned airline, Air New Zealand, (ANZ) was so cheap the stewardesses didn’t even ride the airplanes. At the beginning of the flight one would check us aboard, then she would leave the plane. At the end of the flight another stewardess, dressed exactly the same, would quickly board the plane and tell us all good bye as we left the airplane. Nobody could own a gun hence no one could hunt. Deer on the south island ran rampant and became pests just as the rabbits in Australia. They got so bad the government would hire hunters, supply them with rifles and ammunition, and they would go into the mountains to kill deer for a year. Customs carefully took the serial numbers of my cameras when I arrived and then checked them again when I left so that I would not be tempted to sell them in the country. As I went through Fiji to New Zealand, I would always buy a small transistor radio—someone always needed it there and would gladly take it off my hands. Then, things got worse.

By the early 1980’s the government’s share of the Gross Domestic Product stood at 44 percent, government debt stood at 63 percent of GDP. At one time per capita income was third in the world. By 1984 it had sunk to number 27. There had been 23 successive years of deficits. Government micromanagement existed throughout the economy. Something had to give and it did--in a big way.

In 1984 a reform government was elected. And reform it did. Every government agency was asked what it did and what they should be doing. Then they were told to eliminate what they should not be doing. The Department of Transportation went from 5,600 employees to 53. The Forest Service went from 17,000 employees to 17. The Ministry of Works went from 28,000 to one. Those jobs didn’t disappear for the work still had to be done. The same people that worked for the government went to private companies, their wages tripled and their output went up by 60%

Government subsidies were eliminated. Farmers lost 44% of their income. Then the price of a lamb carcass rose from $12.50 to $115 when the farmers realized they could market differently to different consumers. The government reforming continued. The government sold off telecommunications, banks, airlines, irrigation projects, computing services, mortgages, railways, hotels and the list goes on and on. Not a single job was lost. In a relatively short time national debt went from 63% of GDP to 17%. Income taxes were reduced by half, incidental taxes were eliminated and a small consumption tax placed on everything. Farmers were allowed to raise and harvest deer and the deer problem disappeared. New Zealand is now the world’s largest producer of venison. Driver’s licenses became a one time thing, good until 74 years of age. State revenue increased by 20%. But the best is yet to come. Look at this!

The school system was failing 30% percent of its students. It was consuming more and more money while the school achieved worse and worse results. They even had to get a foreign international consultant firm to come to New Zealand to do the school audit because the government did not trust its own employees. It found that 70 cents of every dollar was consumed by the school administration. The government acted. In one day every Board of Education in the country was eliminated and every school was turned over to a board of trustees elected by the parents of the children who attended the school. The government schools were completely turned into private schools. For funding, every school received a block of money based on the number of children in the school. In all, 4,500 schools were converted, in one day, to this new system. Prior to this changeover the private schools showed a 15 percent advantage over the government schools. In two years the advantage totally disappeared. Everyone, the public and private schools, the entire school system, profited by this change. In international comparison New Zealand went from 15% behind its peer countries to 15% ahead (in terms of educational attainment). No jobs were lost, the ex-government school teachers simply realized that if schools did not improve the school would lose its block of money and they would lose their jobs. So they started teaching up to their capability that, surprisingly, was equal to the teachers in the private school sector.

While New Zealand faced many problems, for instance the huge national debt that has not materialized, as yet, here in the United States, this country will eventually reach the exact same position if we do not change our systems. This change must include education.

Let’s do some comparing. In the United States where does learning happen? Answer: In Libraries. All libraries are quiet and dignified and there people learn. All our government schools are sheer chaos. Imagine spending an hour in one classroom, only to then be herded into another room for another hour, hour after hour—all day. Now, let’s compare schools. In Switzerland only 22% of high school graduates enroll in college. In the U. S. 100% of the children are required to attend high school. In Switzerland only about one fifth of the children do. Yet Switzerland has the highest per capita income in the world. And where is your money the safest? In Switzerland! Hong Kong kids beats Japanese kids hands down whenever the two countries compete in education. Guess what. Hong Kong’s school term is ten and one-half weeks shorter than Japan’s. In Sweden children aren’t even allowed to start school before they are seven years old. They don’t want to have to face the social problems that come with taking the child away from his mother too soon. Three British Prime Ministers in this century, including the present one, didn’t attend college. It isn’t that these people don’t get an education they just get it in a different way. Remember all those quiet libraries? Why aren’t our schools like those? Enough of that, let’s get back to reality.

In the August 9, 2004 Indianapolis Star there was an article about schools. The picture showed one teacher standing in front of a huge bulletin board holding the thousand words the first year students are required to recognize at the end of the year. Their work consists of memorizing those 1000 words. This is called “whole word” teaching. It takes two semesters to teach 1000 words and the child that does that will be behind his peers for the rest of his life. Phonics can be taught to any child in six weeks. He then can then read and spell his normal vocabulary of the 4000 words he knows when he starts school plus the 25,000 he will learn during his school years. Yet, according to the Star article, our Indiana Government School’s do not teach phonics. If it did, there would be no need for any bulletin board filled with 1000 words. The Manns and the Gallaudets were wrong.

I am finally convinced that our present school system cannot be made to work. Therefore, I hereby propose that Indiana become the first state in the Union to convert its school system into a total private system exactly as New Zealand did twenty years ago. I propose that (1) the state Board of Education be eliminated and (2) every state and local administrator be relieved of his responsibility and (3) all schools turned into private schools. Every school in the state, public or private, will be financed by a block grant from the state or, more realistically, financed by entrepreneurship, free enterprise and competition via the free market. If the grant method is chosen, that grant would reflect a huge reduction from the $8000 now spent on each child. It would be reduced to about $2500 or by the amount previously absorbed by the school administrators. (It appears that something like 69% of our school contribution is presently absorbed by administration costs.) A board of trustees will run each school. That board of trustees will be elected by the parents of the children who attend the school. There will be no more need for teachers unions. Our teachers would be returned to professional status.

Schools will be forbidden to accept Federal money. Federal money will disappear from the schools along with the federal control of our schools and of our children’s future.

Once this is done we can let the students educate themselves. It is my goal to see our schools turned into places of learning where each is quiet, dignified and decorous. Our schools should be like our libraries.

See my Petition to eliminate government schools. This site.