AUSTRALIAN
COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PRESS
RELEASE 307
RUDD’S $26 BILLION FUNDING GIFT TO
PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS
The above
was a front page heading in the Sydney
Morning Herald of August 24, 2009.
The $26 billion referred to the inequitable
SES funding system introduced by the Hoard Government and continued by the Rudd
Government. The windfalls of public money provided to wealth6ty religious
schools in NSW are listed. But there is no front page heading like this, or
indeed any exposure of the billions of dollars of State Aid showered on
Victorian religious schools in The Age.
Even so, the Sydney Morning Herald only lists the direct recurrent grants from
the federal Treasury, leaving aside the direct grants from the States, and the
indirect grants provided by taxation exemptions to both private sector schools
and parents.
The Sydney paper’s education editor,
Anna Patty reports that the Rudd Government will delivered an estimated 32 per
cent increase in funding to private schools, raising their national windfall to
more than $26.2 billion over the next four years.
Despite a federal Department of
Education review which uncovered entrenched ‘inequities’ in the system Kevin
Rudd remains committed to maintaining the Howard Government’s controversial
funding arrangemen6ts for private schools until 2012.
This means that Labor will release
more than $2 billion in ‘overpayments’ during the next four years to schools
that receive more than their strict entitlements under the Commonwealth funding
system. This measure the socioeconomic status of each school community using
census data has long since been discredited by the Commonwealth Education
bureaucracy itself as well as the teacher unions.
How has this happened?
The previous (and now the Rudd)
government struck a ‘no losers’ pact with schools whose funding would have
fallen after the existing model was introduced in 2001. In this way, any
semblance of a ‘needs’ policy became a ‘greeds’ policy. The big winners? The
Roman Catholic schools system wanted to maintain their levels at any cost, and
they have maintained funding for even schools with wealthy parents
automatically.
The Greens
in NSW have estimated that already wealthy independent schools in Sydney,
including Trinity Grammar, The King’sSchool, Newington, Moriah and St Andrew’s
Cathedral School will receive funding increase of up to $5.3 million each over
four years. Their total State Aid for that period will
The Greens MP John Kaye has blown the
whistle on the extraordinary windfalls to wealthy private schools in NSW. His
research indicates that Sydney’s wealthiest schools make annual surpluses of up
to $3.6 million after generating as much as $28 million in tuition fees and $8
million in donations. Many have also been given $3 million from the Federal
Government’s $14.7 billion primary school building program.
What is the Rudd Governments answer
to this national education funding scandal?
Julia Gillard says the SES model would
be reviewed next year ‘in an open and transparent process’, adding that
‘funding for non-government schools reflects increased enrolments at those
schools’.
DOGS are waiting for Julia Gillard to
take note of the Auditor General’s Report on the Funding of Non-Government
Schools and offer not only an open and transparent process on the collection of
proper enrolment and financial data from religious schools, but also genuine
public accountability for the billions of taxpayer dollars poured into the private
sector.
DOGS also ask will our Greens Senators in Victoria follow the example of Dr.
John Kaye in New South Wales ?
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