Everyone committed to achieving fair funding for public schools has been urged by Federation President Maurie Mulheron to sign up to the Fair Funding Now campaign.
“Sign up at FairFundingNow.org.au and encourage your colleagues, friends, relatives and members of your local school community to do the same,” Mr Mulheron said.
The new campaign was launched in Canberra last month, with Australian Education Union (AEU) Federal President Correna Haythorpe declaring: “Malcolm Turnbull may have thought he settled the school funding issue, but he has started a new funding war and we’ll be fighting for our public schools right up until the election.
“We will be active in every school community across Australia making the case for Fair Funding Now and we won’t back down until every child is given a fair go.”
Mr Mulheron said: “2018 should have been a year of celebration for our schools with the biggest investment in schools in decades, but the Turnbull Government tore up the NSW Gonski funding agreement, which will result in a cut of $856 million from NSW public schools over the next two years alone.
“The Federal Government will provide 80 per cent funding to private schools to meet the Schooling Resource Standard but only provide 20 per cent of funding to public schools.”
The Turnbull Government’s school funding changes mean all NSW public schools will remain under-resourced to 2023, as measured against the agreed Schooling Resource Standard — a standard created by the original Gonski panel as an objective measure to indicate how much funding each school required to meet the needs of all of its students.
Ms Haythorpe said: “If our leaders can’t commit to ensuring every school is at 100 per cent of the resourcing standard, then they should look at every parent and teacher in the eye and explain to them why their children aren’t a priority.”
Key federal election issue
The overwhelming majority of voters in 18 key marginal electorates believe federal funding for public school is too low and that funding should be increased straight away, a poll conducted by QDOS Research for the AEU has revealed.
The results were published as the AEU launched the Fair Funding Now campaign.
Results of the poll show school funding will be a key federal election vote decider, with 83 per cent of respondents stating that public school funding is very important or fairly important to how they will vote.
The poll revealed:
- 83 per cent of voters say funding public schools is important in deciding who they will vote for in the next federal election.
- Only 24 per cent of voters think Malcolm Turnbull is focused on ensuring public schools are in good shape.
72 per cent of voters think federal funding for public schools is too low.
79 per cent of voters think increasing public school funding is better for Australia than cutting company tax rates.
81 per cent of soft voters have no confidence in Malcolm Turnbull to provide funds for public schools in the future.
The poll revealed school funding is more important to voters than cutting company tax rates, with 79 per cent of respondents stating that increasing public school funding to the national Schooling Resource Standard is better for Australia’s future than cutting company tax rates.
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