NSW Teachers Federation: Education Online: November 2000: Countering the Government�s spin on the States Grants Bill

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Funding

Countering the Government�s spin on the States Grants Bill

By Sally Edsall

The Federal Government's defence of its proposed funding model based on census districts and socio economic status (the "postcode SES model") for private schools is dependent on a number of unsustainable propositions.

The Government has developed a series of "spins" around what is actually a crude handout of large increases in the subsidy going to wealthy schools. However, inherent in this "spin" but not openly admitted is redefinition of both the meaning of key terms and a number of the basic philosophies around private schools funding. The major changes include:

"Need" is being applied not to the needs of schools and their students, but to the need of parents to receive help to meet private school fees.

Commonwealth funding is no longer about achieving a community standard or "fair go" for all, but in subsidising a privatised education in which the level of resources for each child is determined by what their parents can afford.

Helping the disadvantaged now means making it easier for a few of them to leave the public system rather than helping the vast majority who will remain in the public system.

The Commonwealth Government's role becomes to support and provide for private schools rather than be concerned with all Australian children. Whatever "spins" the Government puts on it, a funding model which increases the educational resources spent on those students (already the products of advantaged backgrounds and the recipients of superior per-student expenditure of those schools), while doing next to nothing for the majority of students in public schools, must be considered biased and unfair. To look into each Government "line", select and click below.

1. "The policy is about increasing choice, especially for poorer families."
2. "The policy is a "needs based" policy."
3. "Private schools cater to disadvantaged and less well off students too, so this an equity measure."
4. "The old funding system was 'broke' and the SES index is the fix."
5. "The Federal Government looks after private schools and the states and territories look after public schools."
6. "The Government is also increasing funding to government schools."
7. " The Category 1 to 3 schools did not receive any funding increase for 15 years."
8. "It is not the amount of the increase but the total funding level for a school that is important."
9. "The Bill is unanimously supported by private school authorities."
10. "All the talk about 'wealthy private schools' is the politics of envy."

Sally Edsall is a Research Officer.

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November 2000 contents

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