Isn’t it great when you hear grown-ups talking about the issues of the day and making sense? It’s something you don’t hear too often in our media, which is full of simplified slogan shouting in 10-second soundbites.

So this is what I was thinking about listening to the Auckland Grammar school headmaster, Tim O’Connor, talking on Newstalk ZB this morning. He is part of a group called the Community Schools Alliance made up of principals from 42 schools around the country.

The group is opposing proposals made by the Tomorrow's Schools Review taskforce, which has recommended a system of hubs to oversee groups of schools and take over many of the responsibilities of school trustees.

This centralisation of school management has been described as ideologically driven by the current government and therefore a bad idea.

What I liked about Tim O’Connor is that he didn’t get into Government or Working Group bashing at all, despite being pushed to do so. While he admitted the hub plan was ideologically driven, he didn’t dismiss it completely saying all he wanted was flexibility and choice.

As Tim points out, there are 2500 schools in our country. Most are very well run by their community and they want to stay that way. A lot of our schools these days are very big operations indeed, with student numbers in some cases exceeding 3000. Add all the grounds, the staff and the contingencies and they’re complex beasts that are best run with the eyes close to the game and not some distant bureaucracy with multiple other operations in play.

But particularly in the primary sector, there are many schools with rolls as low as 100. With a limited community pool of governance skills and funds, a lot of them are crying out for a bit of help. And there’s also a number of schools that for one reason or another have lost the plot. These are schools that would benefit from the centralising hub model.

He wants schools to have the choice and I agree with him. The schools that are experiencing governance trouble are the minority in this country, so why change what ain’t broke for the majority. As Tim points out one size fits all is the wrong model.

So well done Tim O’Connor for looking at the idea on its merits and advocating flexibility. Maybe flexibility is his New Years resolution because nearly two weeks ago Grammar quietly abandoned its long-standing ban on afros after a criticism that it was institutional racism. Which it was, a kid can’t help his hair.

But Bali Haque, the architect of the centralised hub model, seems the inflexible one. He’s travelling the country consulting with schools on the proposed changes but according to the Community Schools Alliance, when confronted by people who think the idea isn’t that great he becomes quite defensive and confrontational himself.

I would have thought the Working Group’s brief is to consult not to confront and to give principals what they need rather than what his political masters want.