School Trustees Association president Lorraine Kerr says trustees are taking to heart a call to do something about how Maori are treated by the education system.
Ministry of Education deputy secretary for Maori education, Apryll Parata, told the association's annual conference on the weekend there would be widespread outrage if half of all Pakeha children were failed by the system.
Ms Kerr, from Ngati Awa and Tuwharetoa, says trustees have been talking for years about under-achievers.
She told Waatea News:
"The bulk of them are Maori and they won't go away. They can't be put in the corner, because they come out of the other end, in terms of prisons."
