It's been a passionate fight, a head to head clash drawn along ideological battle lines. But the writing appears to be etching onto the wall for charter schools.

The Education Minister issued a statement yesterday that all 12 of New Zealand's existing charter schools have now submitted their applications to become state schools. Ten of them have applied to sign up to be 'designated character schools' while two are hoping to become integrated state schools.

These applications will now be reviewed by the Ministry of Education, and Chris Hipkins will decide their fate some time in July. In his statement Hipkins thanked the charter school sponsors for their efforts in getting these applications in, as if they really had much of a choice. When breathing down their neck is a bill making its way through parliament that would ban any future charter schools - and when you have a minister saying that his preference would be for the existing schools' contracts to not be continued.

When you have Labour Ministers like Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis, who swore he would resign if the schools in his area closed, seemingly changing the song sheet and agreeing that, actually, designated character schools will do the trick.

But the fight did not yet seem to be out of National's Nikki Kaye. She was physically seething as she walked out of the House to speak to reporters about Hipkins' press statement. She lambasted him for trumpeting the fact these schools have submitted their applications as some kind of victory, or a sign that they've actually submitted to the Government's policy. She said they were at the whim of the Minister who has essentially threatened them with termination if they don't take the option before them.

The Government has repeatedly said that for the most part, students at these schools won't notice the difference once they've transitioned from the new model but that is about being committed to a quality, PUBLIC education system. And Charter Schools don't fit the mould.

But the Charter School's championing David Seymour says the Government doesn't know what it's talking about. He says that charter schools were given flexibility of governance, of funding, and they could employ brilliant outside the box educators. And that without that, the thing that made them so effective for kids will be lost.

David Seymour says the quality public education system Labour is committed to is rubbish, and failing so many of New Zealand's children.But when you have two sides fighting with such opposing ideologies as ammunition, you're never going to find a middle ground. And it seems these charter schools have had little choice but to surrender.