77 Human Rights Commission Until recently, the emphasis on Māori deficits in a Pākehā dominated policy process has silenced Māori. This monopoly also silences histories of settler-colonial violence, and the structural racism of the school system (MacDonald, 2018, p. v). Inequities for Māori education The cumulative impact of interpersonal and institutional racism (also see chapter 1 for an earlier discussion on these issues) is a principal cause of the inequities and inequalities Māori endure in education, for example: Māori do not remain at schooling as long as other students (Office of the Auditor-General in Berryman and Eley, 2018, p. 106). English-medium schooling returns lower achievements rates for Māori, particularly in numeracy, literacy, and science (Udahemuka 2016 in Berryman and Eley, 2018, p. 106; Ministry of Education, 2020, p. 5). As of 2019, schools continue to stand down, suspend, expel, and exclude Māori students at a greater rate than any other ethnic group (Education Counts, 2021), and at a rate estimated at 3.4 times higher than for Pākehā (Berryman and Eley, 2018, p. 106). Te Reo Māori and the Kaupapa Māori education revolution The eradication of te reo in the Native and Public School systems did not wholly defeat Māori. Some Native Schools with strong community support held out against the ban, particularly in the Waikato and Tūhoe. Most did not do so beyond the 1920s (Smith, 2021). Māori made other efforts to preserve the language. Most ran into a wall of racism. In the 1930s, the Director of Education refused a proposal to reintroduce te reo Māori into the curriculum, stating that “the natural abandonment of the native tongue involves no loss to the Māori” (Office of the Children’s Commissioner and New Zealand School Trustees Association, 2018, p. 16). After recognising the Māori effort during World War II, the Education Department did include te reo as a subject in School Certificate from 1945 onwards, but as a ‘foreign language like French’ (ACORD, 1986, p. 5). Considering te reo a ‘foreign’ language in the land that birthed it was a racist insult from a white society that considered itself superior and the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa abnormal and alien in their own land (Ngata, 2021). Māori took a te reo claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. The Tribunal found that the Crown had failed in duty under Te Tiriti to protect the language as a taonga to Māori and that the prioritising of English had done “great harm” to te reo and Māori people (Waitangi Tribunal, 1986, p. 1). They recommended te reo become an official New Zealand language which it did in 1987. The broader systemic failure of education in serving Māori, and the near-death of te reo Māori, saw the emergence of a revolution in Māori education during the 1980s (Smith, 2003, pp. 6–7). Led by Māori communities, buttressed by Māori philosophies, with curriculum delivery in te reo, Māori education pathways were established from Kōhanga to Kura Kaupapa and Wānanga (Calman, 2012c). The educational and schooling revolution that occurred in New Zealand in the 1980s developed out of Māori communities who were so concerned with the loss of Māori language, knowledge and culture that they took matters into their own hands and set up their learning institutions at pre-school, elementary school, secondary school and tertiary levels (Smith, 2003, pp. 6–7). Kaupapa Māori education is more successful for Māori students than mainstream English medium education: Māori school leavers in Māori medium education continue to have higher rates of attainment compared to the rates for Māori school leavers in English medium education. In 2018, the proportion of Māori school leavers in Māori medium education that attained NCEA Level 3 or above was 59% compared to 34% for Māori school leavers in English medium education and 54% for all school leavers (Ministry of Education, 2020).