Catherine Isaac Job for a mate.



NZ Expert on Charter Schools - Yeah-Yeah. 



John Banks asked John Key “if he could find a job for an old mate”; she was a business woman and ex-president of the Act party. Key asked what was she good at and Banks replied, “Well nothing really but she is a mate”. Right said Key, so he offered her the position of Chairwoman of the Charter Schools Working group. It was a perfect choice, she knows nothing about education, nothing about NZ education standards, nothing about the not for profit sector, not unlike the Minister of Education Hekia Parata, So he gave her the job and the hundreds of thousands of dollars that goes with the job…and that should keep wee John Banks out of my hair, he thought.

Catherine Isaac had a job at last, something to get her teeth into, and something she could build Act party policy into. She pictured the future and imagined some future school titles like; The New Market Coke-a-cola Intermediate Charter school, or The Merrill Lynch Charter school for girls or even the McDonalds Charter school for the overweight or possibly the Act Party school for budding whiz kids. She was simply overjoyed that at last the market could get to grips with getting education where it should be. She pictured the huge number of shares that Kiwi Moms and Dads would line up to buy…schools could even end up on the stock exchange, as they do in the United States.

Of course each attendee at these charter schools will be funded by the state purse and they can also take funding from organisations like wealthy business groups, corporate and finance companies by buying naming rights. Teachers can be paid at what rate the school decides but not less than $13.50 per hour, class sizes can be whatever they wish, and National Standards won’t apply to them.

It is rumored that Catherine’s first task will be to tour, at tax payers expense, the world and especially the United States so she can develop her zero knowledge about Charter Schools. This is rather strange because the US education system is already rated well below New Zealand and especially US Charter Schools.



Catherine Isaac, formerly Catherine Judd ^[1] (born c.1950), is a past president of the New Zealand political party ACT, and managing director of Awaroa Partners. She was formerly director of JM Communications. She married former Business Roundtable director Roger Kerr in 2010.