Inequalities in Australian Schooling

On Saturday 22nd October Chris Bonnor spoke to the Teachers Federation's State Council about the structural inequalities in Australian schooling. Chris is a retired public school principal and ex-president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council. These inequalities are largely caused by the Federal Government's schools funding formula which transfers 70% of education dollars to discriminatory private schools.

Naplan data demonstrates a very strong correlation between a child's SES status and performance on standardised tests. Unfortunately Prime Minister Gillard was wrong when she claimed that "demography is not destiny".

Chris reported on research and OECD data showing that 70% of a student's performance is determined by factors outside of the school. In other words, teachers and schools cannot overcome disadvantage on their own. Instead, governments must address poverty before children can reach their learning potential.

Interestingly, when comparing public, independent and catholic schools with similar SES and educational backgrounds, their is no significant difference in the performance of students. In other words, the largess shown by the Federal Government to private schools is a waste of money as they perform no differently to public schools serving the same students.

Chris spoke about the impact of middle class flight from public schools. The result is a lowering of the learning of poorer students as they lose positive role models as peers. OECD data shows that Australia has the worst performance when it comes to the negative effect of a school's disadvantage. In the NSW Department of Education's submission to the schools funding review, it was shown that the SES status of the school peers of a child can has a large impact on their learning. The difference between poor children in poor schools and poor children in rich schools is 60 points on Naplan tests. In Australia 60% of disadvantaged students attend disadvantaged schools. In NSW public schools the ratio of low income students compared to high income students has double in the past three decades.

Putting all of this data together demonstrates that the current Federal schools funding model is a monumental failure, being itself a cause of educational disadvantage. It is critical that the Gonski Review addresses these issues and that both sides of politics commit to ensuring that "demography is not destiny."

Garrett's School Chaplains

Peter Garrett's School Chaplaincy program will be expanded to an additional 1000 schools next year at an additional cost of $222 million. These school chaplains require no qualifications in education or psychology. Instead, they have to be endorsed by a religious organisation.

The debate about the separation of church and state, reports of proselytising and the distribution of homophobic publications to students have been reported many times in the press.

On top of this is the degree of waste of limited education funding. School chaplains have no ability to support schools in meeting their core goal - education students. They are not teachers, they cannot assess learning disorders, they have no qualifications in developing Aboriginal Education programs and they have no commitment to public education.

Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson recommended that every NSW high school with at least 500 students should have a school counsellor after a student's suicide. At the moment there is one school counsellor for every 1000 high school students (and one per 1500 primary students). Rural schools share school counsellors and receive no additional school counsellor time to compensate for time lost to travel between schools.

If Peter Garrett and Federal Labor were truly committed to their so-called 'Education Revolution', the first step would be to redirect School Chaplaincy funding to programs that make a real difference to children's learning, such as qualified school counsellors. 

The O'Farrell Government's Attack on Public Education

The NSW O'Farrell Coalition Government has launched a concerted attack on public education aiming to reduce it to a residualised 'safety-net'. O'Farrell's goal is to offload the government's responsibility for providing high-quality public education to all citizens. Instead, each child will be expected to compete in the 'free-market' for their education. The obvious result will be the entrenching of poverty for generations in NSW.

O'Farrell is attempting to achieve these goals through:

1. Budget cuts to the Department of Education;
2. The introduction of fees in public preschools;
3. School devolution;
4. The privatisation of vocational education; and
5. Cuts to public school and TAFE teacher working conditions.

The O'Farrell government is cutting 1.5% per year from the Department of Education stripping $150 million from public schools. Hypocritically this comes as the O'Farrell government is demanding the federal government to spend an extra $10 billion on school education. The result of O'Farrell's education cuts will be a transfer of administrative burdens onto schools and a reduction in welfare and equity programs for struggling students.

I have previously commented on the introduction of preschool fees. It has since been revealed that the fees will go to consolidated revenue. Not one cent will be used to benefit the children in the preschools. Instead, the most disadvantaged communities in NSW will be expected to expand government coffers. 

Rural Education

The failure of state and federal governments to adequately fund rural public education has led to a social train wreck in country towns. Over the last thirty years, all levels of government from both sides of politics have withdrawn services from isolated areas, allowed rural economies to decline and attempted to address environmental problems without ensuring workers and their families are not trapped in unemployment in impoverished communities.

Because of the failure of governments, rural students do not have access to the same educational opportunities as their peers in metropolitan areas.

NSW rural public schools are funded and managed by the department as if they were located in metropolitan Sydney. Whilst the Department has a Rural Education policy, there is no real funding, policy or administrative support to ensure our schools can begin to ameliorate rural disadvantage.

NAPLAN data and its reports have highlighted the relationship between student learning and geographical location. Simply, the further you are from Sydney, the lower are student average scores. Over half of the variation in HSC performance in rural towns can be explained by their location and poverty.

Department welfare statistics also highlight the disparity between rural and metropolitan students. The highest long suspension rates are not in southwestern Sydney. They are higher in the New England, Western Region, the Hunter, the North Coast, the Riverina and the Illawarra. As well, the worst attendance rates are in the regions outside of Sydney.

Specific issues that rural schools face are difficulties filling vacancies, lack of access to casual and temporary teachers, concentrations of beginning teachers and inexperienced executive teachers, little access to professional development, inadequate provision of consultants and school counsellors, inappropriate staffing and facility standards in central schools, the costs of travel to excursions and professional learning, lack of access to diagnostic and treatment services, lack of access to cultural and social institutions and poor curriculum choices in small schools. 

With the highest rates of youth suicide, unemployment, alcohol abuse and poor health rural populations have little or no access to mental health services. Children in Finley have to wait three months for a mental health assessment through community health which is 60km away in Deniliquin. To receive ongoing treatment, they must travel 150km to Albury to see a private developmental psychologist. The cost of private treatment ensures many families miss out on essential care.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has publicly stated that he wants to close the gap between rural and metropolitan schools. Now is the time that he delivers on this hope.

Preschool Fees

The NSW O'Farrell Government is introducing fees ($40 per day per child) for public preschool students from next year as part of its budget savings. These preschools were established in low SES communities to prepare children for primary school. Their goal has been to help these children catch up to their middle SES peers in school readiness and pre-literacy skills. The state government has argued that the social profile of some of these communities have changed and now enrol middle income children. Families will now be expected to pay fees if the government deems them as middle-income.

While low-income families may be excluded from these fees, the administrative burden it will place on them will result in many families simply not enrolling their children, compounding the disadvantage they face.

This user-pays approach is setting two damaging precedents for public education. Firstly, it reduces low income families to the recipients of charity through public education, instead of being citizens who have a right to public services.

Worse still, it seeks to establish a 'consumer-pays culture' within the provision of public education. It will be interesting to see whether these fees will add to the Department of Education's budget or go back to treasury.

The solution to this problem is to provide free public preschools to all children in NSW. This would be a major leap forward in education in NSW by ensuring that every child is ready for school. Both Western Australia and the ACT provide free public preschools which over 90% of children attend.

The NSW Coalition has an opportunity to leave a legacy by creating the best public education system in Australia. The first step would be investing in universal public preschools accessible to all children.