In early April 2009 Julia Gillard announced a National School Pride Program. According to one of her 5 April News Releases:

...the $1.3 billion National School Pride Program 'will deliver much-needed funding for school maintenance and importantly, support local jobs by creating demand for tradespeople in communities across the State. Under this program every Australian school will receive up to $200,000.00 based on the size of the school for maintenance and minor building works.

Readers should note that the distribution of this money for schools was based upon a school making an application. No school was forced to apply for a grant of up to $200,000.00, and it seems that it was first in best dressed. It also seems that first in was already best dressed.

DOGS are amused to find that the Australian media - with the notable exception of The Age - are prepared to reveal the hypocrisy of Julia Gillard's claim that she was delivering 'Much Needed Funding for maintenance to Schools'.

DOGS are even more amused that all they need to do in this News Release is reiterate what the media have already written.

The Sydney Morning Herald:

On April 6, 2009, this newspaper had a front page heading entitled : Big Payday for Top Private Schools in Cash Hand-Out .

Reporter Deborah Snow wrote in part :

Some of Sydney's wealthiest private schools will receive handouts of up to $200,000.00 each to refurbish already lavish sporting and art facilities...The upper North Shore boys' school Knox Grammar, for instance, receives $200,000 to refurbish its junior sporting grounds even though its website suggests that the preparatory school has excellent sporting facilities. This include two large ovals, four tennis/basketball courts with cricket, football, rugby and track facilities a five minute stroll away.

Five minutes further...and junior boys reach the senior school campus, whose facilities include a twenty five metre indoor swimming pool, diving pool with three  metre board, gymnasium with two basketball courts, two additional outdoor basketball courts, an extensive equipped weights room, four squash courts and tennis courts both at school and in close proximity. Four large ovals provide excellent cricket and rugby facilities.

The exclusive girls school F'rensham, near Mittagong is another unlikely recipient. It receives $125,000 for its Arts centre and sporting facility even though the school boasts extensive playing fields, basket ball and tennis courts, gymnasium with squash courts, aerobic facilities and and indoor court for tennis, basketball or netball and a world class synthetic hockey field.

Deborah Snow goes further to note that:

'the inclusion of well-equipped private schools on the list will raise questions about equity in the government's rush to stimulate the economy. In relation to this charge, a spokewoman for Ms Gillard said yesterday that ín the across -the-board sweep of the educational revolution we are not discriminating against school sectors. Our aim is to ensure that every school is a great school'.'

DOGS WONDER: WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF MUCH NEEDED FINANCE?

Even in Melbourne the Herald Sun twigged that all was not quite fair in the educational funding stakes. The front page on April 6 had a prominent heading: Class Wars: Wealthy School hit jackpot as needy miss out. DOGS quote from the Herald Sun report:

Wealthy schools including Scots College, Geelong Grammar, Methodist Ladies College, Camberwell Grammar and Sacre Coeur have each been given $200,000 for maintenance and minor building work. But several government schools which the Herald Sun last month revealed needed urgent upgrades missed out on the funding package announced yesterday by the Education Minister, Julia Gillard.

Geelong Grammar will use the money for shade structure. The Scotch to-do list includes reclaiming water and landscaping projects while Sacre Coeur plans to upgrade its stairwells...

But several government schools identified by a State Education Department audit in 2006 as needing urgent repairs and maintenance missed out altogether, including Kyneton Primary, Parkdale Secondary College, Bacchus Marsh College and Southvale Primary in Noble Park.

 Even Rupert Murdoch's Australian recognised the Government's reluctance, if not inability to control the pursuit of taxpayer's dollar by the church school interest. Their reporter, Lex Hall, wrote:

Dozens of the nation's wealthiest private schools have been awarded handouts of up to $200,000 each in the Rudd Government's stimulus funding package for schools with work on thousands of improvement projects to start within weeks....

Included in the initial round are some of the nation's most expensive schools, including Sydney's King's School, which will receive $200,000 to construct outdoor sporting facilities and student amenities. Sydney Grammar gets $200,000 for a new library, ...Melbourne Grammar will use its $200,000 for a 'sustainable building comfort project'. Brisbane Grammar won $200,000 for 'new change-rooms and related work', while Adelaide's St. Peter's College receives $200,000 to convert an old gymnasium into a drama and performance centre.

Miserable Report in the Age

In The Age, April 6, 2009, the relevant article was unemotionally entitled Cash Flows for Tanks, Play Areas in Schools. The fact that wealthy religious schools participated in the funding bonanza was not mentioned. Most of the report was about another maintenance grant.

Gillard's response

On the ABC Gillard attempted to hose down outrage at the obvious inequities in the School Pride funding. She played down the concerns that the stimulus money was being directed towards schools that did not need assistance. She claimed that 'every  school deserves funding'. So Ms Gillard adheres to the biblical saying that to him who has more shall be given''. Or perhaps she believes that State school children should only receive the crumbs from the tables of the chosen people - those provided with the first class ticket to heaven and/or the good job. Perhaps the problem is that, like many of her religious consultants she has not looked behind the meaning of the biblical sayings to their spiritual implications. Once again, like her current Australian religious consultants she can't see past the dollar note signs.

So, it is not surprising to find her rushing to visit a Christian Brothers' College in Western Australia with the Federal Member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke to view plans for the proposed site for a covered outdoor assembly area which will cost the taxpayer $199,000. Yet, DOGS wonder whether some of the Christian Brothers activities in the past would have met the Mark Latham 'failed schools' test ( See Press Release 292 at www.adogs.info/pr292.htm )

Wayne Swan's Response

In  Christian Kerr's Australian blog of April 7, The Treasurer Wayne Swan got involved. The  heading was: Treasurer Defends Posh School Grants. He said:

We don't apologise for this program being universal. We don't apologise for that for one minute. We dont apologise for that at all.

When the Treasurer was asked how he would define 'responsible spending'' he replied:

'That's entirely up to Australians.

This of course, leads to the question: Which Australians? The haves or the have-nots? The educational funding policies of the Federal Government mean that we are now two nations: the haves and the have-nots: the greedy and the needy.

Reaction of Church School Representatives

Michele Green, the Victorian chief executive of the Association of Independent Schools said that anyone who criticised independent schools qualifying for funding was 'particularly mean-spirited'. She thought that the government should be congratulated for putting out this money out this way. They put this money out quickly. They didn't put fences around the money other than to say that every school in Australia should benefit. She also said that the money would make sure that all the schools get the money they need, not necessarily to one school over another. She went further to say that there are needy schools in every sector, including the private sector and every school has had a chance to apply for the funding under the same guidelines.

Meanwhile, Catch the Fire Ministries' was emailing friends and families in Christ, encouraging them to involve themselves in a voteline at the Herald Sun against the report which placed certain church school ín a bad light'. The question readers were asked to vote on was:

'Do private schools deserve the same funding as government schools?'

Religious school representatives  refrained from reminding their friends and families in Christ of the biblical story of the rewards for Lazarus the beggar at the Rich Man's gate. If they followed Christ's gospel they might discover that the pursuit of taxpayer dollars and the first class ticket to the good job do not necessarily give people the first class ticket to heaven as well.

How could a Christian vote online for Geelong Grammar getting $200,000.00 while an impoverished State school received a lot less or nothing at all ?

Somebody agreed with the Catch the Fire Ministries position because the Yes vote scraped in on the Herald Sun voteline by a few votes.

Reaction of Angelo Gavrielatos of the Australian Education Union

Both the ABC and the Herald Sun  featured the reaction of Angelo Gavrielatos. He pointed out that the federal Government should have targeted the money. Some needy State schools had missed while wealthier school had benefitted. He said that it beggared belief that schools with lavish buildings, lavish facilities would be on the top of the list when other schools with greater need weren't on the list. He said that more money should have gone to public schools in dire need.

Reaction of a Prominent Liberal

Christian Kerr -  an erstwhile Liberal party staffer to a string of federal Liberals and a premier  is still well-connected to the Liberal Party. He describes himself as a 'weird liberal - an economic dry who needed the social dimension'. He was gobsmacked at the 'posh school grants'. On April 7, in his House Rules Blog in The Australian he expressed astonishment at Treasurer Swann's refusal to apologise for the 'universal 'nature of the program, namely the universality of the rich getting richer. His most revealing statement was Kerr's analysis of the political reasoning behind the National School Pride program. He wrote:

The truth is of course, that the Labor has been afraid of doing anything that might be seen as beating up on private schools since the dramas of the Latham 'hit-list'. The Liberals are quiet as they don't want to offend a key constituency.

Evidence of Overwhelming Grasping after Taxpayers' Money of Church Schools

DOGS would have thought that, as Christian schools the wealthy religious schools would have foregone the opportunity to obtain the $200,000 and exhibited a Christian - spirited response and said: We do not need this money: give it to the poor. We believe that the rich should consider the poor!' thus embarrassing the unchristian, unfair treatment meted out to poor public schools by the Rudd-Gillard-Swan team.

Yet their determination to chase after this cream on the top of their already munificent endowment by both taxpayers and private donors is exhibited by the following statistical analysis. In the current National School Pride funding round for Victoria, 1,441 schools are promised $194.9 million This averages out at $135,253 per school. However, the twenty three  schools defined as the richest, namely equal to 120 or more on the SES  scale, receive an average of $177,174.00  each. Meanwhile there are other schools that fall outside the richest SES category in contrast to  Advertising material appealing to the imagination of wealthy parents. For example t at least five  schools: Haileybury College; Penleigh and  Essendon Grammar;  Presbyterian Ladies College; Caulfield Grammar; and Geelong College, have each been allocated $200,000.00. If these five schools are included with the former 23 schools, the average they receive is $181,250.00.

Another way of looking  at this School Pride program is that 70% of the richest schools in Victoria alone applied for the $200,000.00

 DOGS WANT TO KNOW :

AT WHAT POINT DOES SELF-INTEREST BEGIN AND END FOR A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL?

GENUINE CHRISTIANS

EXPECT

  SCHOOLS THAT CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTAN TO AT LEAST EXERCISE MODERATION

WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR.

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