Charter schools may have been given the tick to get off the ground, but the jury remains out on what sort of report card they will deliver.
The path for implementing the controversial schools - to be known in New Zealand as partnership schools or kura hourua - was cleared last week with the passing of the Education Amendment Bill in Parliament.
The schools are a key part of Act's support agreement with the National-led Government. The Maori Party also supported the Bill.
The schools will be fully state-funded, and can be for-profit or not-for-profit. They will be accountable to the Crown through a contract with the Ministry of Education, and their set-up and performance monitored by a ministry-appointed authorisation board/advisory group.
The schools will be governed by ministry-approved ''sponsors'', which can include businesses, philanthropists, iwi, community organisations, faith-based groups, private schools and culture-based educational organisations.
Act leader and Associate Education Minister John Banks says the most significant difference between partnership and existing state, state-integrated and private schools is they will be given more flexibility to make decisions about how they operate and use funding to deliver targets.
They can, but do not need to, teach the NZ curriculum. He says they will give pupils and teachers choice, and will address educational underachievement by targeting disadvantaged students ''in innovative ways''.
They are aimed at Maori and Pasifika pupils, those from low socio-economic backgrounds and those with special education needs in areas of ''significant educational challenge''.
The aims are laudable, but opinion is divided on the charter school model and whether it will really work for lower achievers.
Labour, the Greens, NZ First and other critics say they have not worked elsewhere in the world, the country's quality education system already targets and provides for disadvantaged groups, and the teaching profession will effectively be ''deregulated'' by not requiring registered teachers, as in state and private schools.
They claim businesses and interest groups will profit at the expense of taxpayers. There are also claims the first schools are earmarked for the site of Christchurch state schools closed by the ministry, which Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said would be ''an insult to children and teachers who have fought hard to keep their schools open''.
And accountability has also been questioned given the schools' taxpayer funding as, unlike state schools, they will not be subject to the Official Information Act, or the scrutiny of the Ombudsman or Auditor-general.
Certainly, the lack of accountability to those bodies appears to make a mockery of the idea of ''partnership'' between taxpayer and operator.
Whether the sponsors' accountability to the ministry through their contract, and the oversight provided by advisory group, and the Educational Review Office, are robust enough remains to be seen.
There is much pressure on the Government - and Education Minister Hekia Parata - to get this right. In the wake of the findings in the ministerial inquiry into Novopay report released last week,
teachers said it would take years to restore confidence in the ministry. And Christchurch pupils, parents, teachers and board members who have lost their schools will be watching developments warily.
The ministry has already received about 35 proposals from organisations wanting to set up a partnership school.
Mr Banks said last year expressions of interest had come from groups including the Destiny Church, Maharishi Foundation of NZ, Christian groups, Pacific-focused groups, Victoria University and two United States organisations.
The operators of the first schools will be confirmed by August and they will be opened from the beginning of next year.
The results from then will determine whether they get a pass or fail from the public. Given all the controversy, a black mark could well signal end of term for the Government.
