2012 will be a critical year in NSW public education. The three leading issues are the federal government's Review of Schools Funding (Gonski Review), federal and state government school devolution agendas and the NSW government's industrial relations laws.
The Gonski Review reported its findings to the Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett. The government is now considering its response which is expected to be released in March. The current federal funding model of private schools is both economically unsustainable and socially unfair. The result has been the residualisation of comprehensive public schools and a growing disparity between the achievements of high and low income students. Ironically, with the billions of dollars being poured into middle-class private schools, the latest NAPLAN results reveal that the performance of the top students has been declining. It is critical that supporters of public education hold the federal government to account and demand that it restores the preeminence of public education.
Devolving administration and accountability from government to local public schools is the agenda of both the federal and state governments. While OECD data demonstrates that local control over curriculum has a positive benefit on student learning, there is no evidence to support the transferral of paperwork onto principals. The result would be a massive increase in the administrative duties of principals and teachers, the freezing of school funding levels and the scapegoating of schools for the failures of government to address poverty and educational disadvantage. In NSW the agenda includes the abolition of incentives to work in hard to staff schools, an increase in casual teacher contracts, cutting teacher tenure and converting principals into business managers. The biggest losers will be marginalised and special needs students as schools are given one-line budgets and accountabilities for spending on at-risk students are removed in the name of flexibility.
The NSW O'Farrell government's industrial relations laws have stripped the public sector of employment safeguards enjoyed by every other worker in the country. The new laws remove the Industrial Relations Commission's independence by requiring it to comply with the employer's wages policy. The result has been a below-inflation salary increase for public school teachers in NSW (and for all other public servants). Premier Barry O'Farrell has argued that public servants must have their wages restrained to allow the government to fund infrastructure projects. This means that public servants must pay taxes like every other citizen, but then bear the additional burden of having their wages cut in real terms. A fairer policy would be for government to spread the burden for infrastructure costs and increase taxes on all citizens.
The consequence for NSW public schools will be a drift of teachers to the private sector and interstate where higher salaries can be earned. The NSW Department of Education has had difficulty in the last three years attracting graduates into the public system. With massive numbers of baby-boomer teachers retiring it is short-sighted policy to devalue the work of public school teachers. Many rural and low-SES metropolitan high schools already have to cover science and mathematics classes with teachers qualified in other subjects. This will worsen as public teacher salaries fall further behind the private sector.
