AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PRESS RELEASE 347
1 January 2010
WHY IS GILLARD FAILING TO INCLUDE TOTAL
PUBLIC/PRIVATE FUNDING
AND RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO SCHOOLS IN
PERFORMANCE DATA?
The
media are prepared to question the expenditure of money spent on public school
halls through the Rudd stimulus package (Sydney Morning Herald editorial
31.12.2009) and the Education Union
and Save our Schools Canberra are
quite rightly concerned that the Rudd government is embracing the ‘market’
ideology in education. As Trevor Cobbold from SOS writes in Dissent Summer 2009/10 p. 14
As far as education policy is
concerned, the Rudd Government has given John Howard and David Kemp another
term in office. It is completing Kemp’s vision to subject education to the rule
of market forces. This is the real revolution in Labor’s education policy…
The Prime Minister’s ultimate market
discipline is to subject schools to a form of bankruptcy proceeding. He says
that schools that fail to improve will be subject to ‘tough action’, including
firing principals and senior staff and closing schools. This is something that
Kemp could only dream of…
and
at p. 19
Publication of tables of school
results represents a critical sage in the introduction of a market in education
in
Until now, public education has
managed to hold its own as federal and state governments have chipped away
remorselessly at its democratic task for over a decade now. Its resilience in
the face of a multi-pronged attack is due in no small part of the overall
quality of teaching in government schools, the commitment of most families to
their local school and to the egalitarian values of most Australians.
Trevor
Cobbold is correct to ring alarm bells for public education, but he is mistaken
if he thinks that the undermining of public education commenced only a decade
ago. He is a well qualified economist and provides the economic interpretation
of deep-seated problems of inequity in Australian education. He presents
research that indicates that if the Rudd/Gillard social inclusion and
disadvantaged rhetoric were to mean anything the level of funding required for
low-income students is 20-30 times which the Government has on offer. This, he
believes is why the Government has shifted the goalposts.
Cobbold’s
economic interpretation is fine as far as it goes. It also has the advantage of
appearing to deal with ‘neutral’ figures rather than confront the cancer in the
body politic, the religious bureaucracies grown fat on taxpayer funding.
The
dangers to public education did not commence with Howard’s market
fundamentalism of the 1990s. There was never any Whitlamesque ‘golden age’ that
left religious sectarianism behind for a ‘Needs’ policy.
The
Needs policy was always a sham, a way for the camel to enter the tent and
eventually run away with the tent. The Schools Commission was always a method
for quietening the public school opponents of State Aid to religious schools
within the pressure groups by including them within the ‘joke’. When Van Davy
reacted against the obvious inequities in federal funding in 1984, the Schools
Commission’s days were numbered.
The
religious school lobby is now so powerful that the government no longer even
feels the need to offer public school representatives a place on relevant
boards or even consult them.
The
way forward is to call Gillard’s accountability rhetoric for what it is.
There
should be no testing in public schools or publication of any league tables
unless and until she performs her obligation to taxpayers and publishes tables
indicating the full funding resources available to the private schools which
are in receipt of $26.2 billion in the next four years in direct funding from
the federal Treasury alone. The Sydney
Morning Herald Dec 26-27 in an
Article by Heath Gilmore entitled ‘New Light on Where Money Goes’ indicates
that even private school parents asked to pay fees in excess of $20,000 per
annum, an amount considerably more than that expended on a public school child
are merely passive recipient of a commodity. However, we are told that under
new federal requirements, private and public school will be forced to open
their books and reveal funding figures in 2010. But don’t hold your breath.
These figures will not be published alongside the results of Gillard’s school
performance data. They will certainly not be data on the quality of the Gillard
performance.
Private
school funding figures should all include:
1.
Direct per capita funding from the
federal government for each school
2.
Direct per capita funding from State
governments for each school
3.
Direct capital funding from federal
government for each school
4.
Subsidisation of interest payments
for each school
5.
Endowments for each school
6.
Income from fees for each school
7.
Amounts provided for the running of
central bureaucracies and lobby groups
8.
Taxation expenditures in the form of
i.
Federal Taxation exemptions for GST,
income tax, fringe benefits tax, capital gains tax.
ii.
State Taxation exemptions for stamp
duty, land tax and payroll tax
iii.
Local Council Taxation exemptions for
rates
iv.
Etc.
The
provision of these figures represents a basic Ministerial responsibility. Yet
to date no such data is readily available to the public. Church hierarchies are
very secretive about their total equity in real estate and the share market. In
the Catholic Church this rests with the Archbishop sole. The Sydney Anglican
diocese’s losses on the share market surfaced in late 2009 but the capital and
income available to other religious groups remains a closed book.
Yet
citizen taxpayers and Australian electors cannot make informed decisions about
the public/private debate unless and until these figures are made available.
Yet
Gillard is jibbing, shying away, unable to provide these figures. Her answer is
to say that the public/private debate is sterile.
The
simple reason is because she cannot fulfil her basic ministerial
responsibilities and provide the figures. This is because the church school
hierarchy has her bluffed politically, reducing her to motherhood statements
like
“We want every school to be a great school”
See
‘Gillard Silent on Effect of New Private School Funding’ in The Catholic News
of August 25, 2009 at www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=15974.
Public
school supporters in
This
is really code for saying that
DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION AND STOP STATE AID
TO PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS.
Listen to the DOGS program
3CR, 855 on the A.M. dial
12 Noon Saturdays