It must be ‘scare the parent’ time of year.

Not only do they have to pay for new or replacement uniforms for their children, hang out for the end of the holidays and fork out for books and everything else their children are required to have, they are also bombarded by billion dollar bull.

Stuff: ‘Free’ education cost set to mount to more than $1 billion

The price of a free school education will soar to record heights this year.

Official figures show “voluntary donations” from parents and others will this year have collectively provided more than $1 billion to bankroll schools since 2000.

The article doesn’t actually say what the figure was for last year nor what it is expected to be this year, instead quoting a debatable (* According to the Education Ministry, income and expenditure items may not have been categorised consistently between schools or within the same school over time) total covering fifteen years, which is pretty much meaningless.

Commentators have described that as a watershed figure with some arguing New Zealand’s “free education” system is broken.

Commentators?

Patrick Walsh of the Principals Association of New Zealand and principal of John Paul College said the notion of a free education should be abandoned.

“I think the basic principle is you undertake a study … of what it costs to actually run a school, all the operational costs including staffing, and you either fund it to the level it actually costs, or you say the pie isn’t big enough to support that and we will now allow schools to charge parents for some of the services.”

This would legitimise what is currently happening, as the donations were essential to give students a high quality of education, he said.

Principals want more more, so they are lobbyists rather than commentators.

Labour leader Andrew Little wants voluntary donations scrapped altogether, with the government prioritising education to meet any shortfall.

The gradual shift to schools depending on parents paying donations was “not right”, he said.

Labour is a party with close associations with educator groups.

But David Seymour, ACT Party leader and education under-secretary, said while some were frustrated at the current funding system, looking at the alternatives showed it was actually a good system.

An alternative political view.

Labour’s idea to scrap parent funding made no sense, he said.

“They haven’t thought through the practicalities for one moment. What they’re talking about is effectively a ban on parents giving extra money to their school to do extra activities.”

A Ministerial/political view.

Education Minister Hekia Parata said school fundraising and donations were voluntary and there were no plans to change that.

No sign of ‘commentators’. It looks like an early year political play.

Then, possibly in response to criticism of the Stuff article, came the Herald with Parents paid $161m for children’s ‘free education’.

Parents paid $161.6 million towards their children’s “free education” in 2014. Of that, $61.4m was spent in Auckland.

New numbers obtained by the Herald on Sunday reveal mums and dads are giving more and more money to schools every year.

Voluntary donations are expected to top the $1 billion mark when school goes back in a few weeks’ time.

There’s that $1 billion number again. Where has that come from?

Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins today branded “free” education a joke.

“Parents and other donors are propping up our schools to the tune of $1 billion with the country’s wealthiest schools receiving the bulk of the money.”

Mr Hipkins said when schools couldn’t deliver the basics without donations it was time to sit up and take note.

No explanation here that the $1 billion is a 15 year accumulative total. Has Hipkins promoted the $1 billion bull to media?

PPTA president Angela Roberts, says she is “gobsmacked” by the sheer amounts some schools are receiving and the situation shows Kiwi kids are not on a level playing field when it comes to the right to a free education. It must be addressed in an upcoming ministry funding review, Roberts said.

“Some of those schools’ numbers are hard to comprehend. There is such inequality depending on where in the country a student is or how much money their parents make,” Roberts said.

“Is it a level playing field? Of course not. You only have to look at the resources some high decile schools have access to and a lot of it’s for bells and whistles – maybe a trip to Argentina for the polo team.

“Meanwhile, some students are going to school without breakfast and are from very vulnerable families. They’re the ones who need more funding but the way the system works, it’s only exacerbating problems like this.”

So does the PPTA want to ‘level the playing field’ by banning donations?

Of course they want more money given to all schools. Lower decile schools already get extra funding.

“The review is considering all aspects of school resourcing,” said Andrea Schollmann, head of education system policy at the Ministry of Education.

Schollmann also said lower-decile schools benefit from substantial extra government funding to help overcome “barriers faced by students from lower socio-economic communities, with the ministry providing lower-decile schools extra funding of $115m per year”.

But never enough for the PPTA or for Labour (when they are in Opposition).

But Roberts said that’s not enough.

“It’s not going to fix the imbalance when some families are living out of a car,” she said. “There is no way their children can still get access to richer opportunities, the bells and whistles that some schools enjoy.”

What do they want to do? Heavily tax donations to ‘rich’ schools and redistribute that to poorer schools?

Or ban donations so parents can’t improve their children’s education, and get the Government to give more funds to poor schools? It’s not clear. This sounds like a general political play.

There is one multi-billion dollar total given:

The Government was set to invest $10.8 billion in early childhood, primary and secondary education, more than the combined budget for police, defence, roads and foreign affairs.

That’s a lot – per year – but never enough.

At the same time the education funding system was under a far-reaching review that was examining all types of funding, including grants, staffing and property.

Is that what Hipkins and the PPTA and the Principals Association of New Zealand are lobbying for?

All most parents will be concerned about at this time of year is getting uniforms sorted for their kids and getting them back to school as the holidays wear them down.

The billion dollars is just meaningless bull.