The Post-Primary Teachers Association and NZ Education Institute are strongly opposed to them and view them as a dangerous experiment which has failed overseas. But what are 'charter schools?' Charter schools were first developed in the United States and allow private interests like businesses, human resource management corporates, universities and churches to buy into public school funding and curricula, creating a situation where these interests determine the employment of teachers and content of educational material. However, they have been strongly criticised within the United States. One would hope that the Key administration imposes some statutory restrictions on proposed charter schools, such as compliance with the Human Rights Act when it comes to discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual students and staff. One is reminded of the case when fundamentalist Middleton Grange School in Christchurch, a private institution, engaged in the unfair dismissal of a gay male girl's netball coach, which led to reparations from the school on the basis of sexual orientation discrimination. Granted, that was a private school, but what happens if similar sectarian interests buy into the charter school programme and try to fire existing LGBT teachers or expell LGBT pupils or suppress LGBT students groups? Although I've focused primarily on fundamentalist Christian churches in this article, there may be lesser threats from human resource management corporations in this context, although one would hope that such overseas corporations legal offices would have informed their New Zealand subsidiaries about the current status of New Zealand antidiscrimination laws. For that matter, I do have some reservations about businesses in this context. One hopes that any curricular changes would be even-handed when it comes to critical inquiry and content related to the role of trade un unions within New Zealand society, for instance. When it comes to the track record of charter schools, it seems that the merits of this particular model of public/private school hybrid have been overstated in examples from the United States. Local interests from impoverished or financially marginalised areas of that country have found themselves forced to declare bankruptcy, with no educational institutions left to provide access to primary and secondary education for children caught in the middle of school failure. And understandably, disability rights activists have been infuriated at the possibility that such institutions could potentially discriminate against students with cognitive, behavioural or intellectual disabilities. Is there any chance that the charter school proposals could act in our interests? Most LGBT organisations are voluntary institutions and do not have the avaulable discretionary income to provide LGBT-centred institutions, unlike the United States and its more affluent LGBT communities and economies of scale. Therefore, especially under ACT MP and religious social conservative John Banks, there is a very real danger that fundamentalist churches could get their hands on such money and operational control of schools, with harmful effects on the educational retention and future employment opportunities of LGBT students in those contexts. LGBT communities should and must oppose this unwelcome possibility and declare solidarity with PPTA, NZEI and other organisations opposed to charter schools. Recommended: Post-Primary Teachers Association: http://www.ppta.org.nz New Zealand Educational Institute: http://www.nzei.org.nz Craig Young - 5th April 2012