As tigtog observed, it’s a discussion people seem to want to take part in. But what annoys me about the reception of Rudd’s non-announcement is the way education policy is being discussed purely in political terms.
Over at Polemica, Guy justifies the decision as an attempt to increase “the size of the education pie, rather than playing politics with the scraps”. He writes:
Now, really. Clearly it all depends on the detail. Here we have a situation where Labor has signalled its attention to adopt an approach that is not intentionally malicious towards non-government schools, and the NSW Teachers’ Federation has immediately felt as though it needs to put something out against it, without knowing the detail of the policy. The Whitlam Government also tried to adopt a “needs-based” funding model for schools, and was probably the most loved government of all time for the education unions. Figure that one out.
Well, is it malicious? Perhaps that’s a reading that people have based on Latho’s whole insiders/outsiders thing which did justify some sort of narrative of class payback. But Latho, as this announcement demonstrates, is long gone. I don’t at all see the logic of effectively freezing the current arrangements in place for ever and a day to avoid any such claim being revived. Is the current system effective and fair? If not, then why does it make policy sense to enshrine it as a template for anything further just to avoid political trouble? It’s simply fact that the great majority of federal spending goes to private schools. It’s also a fact that this is to some degree counter-balanced by state funding to public schools. But aren’t we seeing something far short of both political courage and rationality when the current Howard policy has to be accepted, lest some claim of “envy” be raised? I think so, and I don’t think, as Guy says, it’s a matter of ignoring “sectoral interests”. As a core value of Labor, equal opportunity for all suggests that funding should be targeted where it’s most needed, not carved up to put out political firestorms. I don’t see what’s “old school Bolshie” about that.
There’s nothing Bolshie about it, it just misses the unstated point about what education policy has slowly become: a revolting fight over “values education” (which is code for the increased religious content of schooling). All this despite the leaps and bounds of progress that the secular world has delivered. As there is no detail announced as part of this policy, we should assume only that it is a method of cleaning house of any possible Liberal attacks based on Latham policies.
Should we have something to be suspicious about, given Kevin Rudds oft avowed christianity? Andrew Norton seems to think the whole private school/values debate is about long standing but submerged sectarian issues of the old school protestant vs. catholic variety (see his blog here ).
I don’t agree (I think it’s just a nasty bit of US Republican wedging that Rudd has fallen for) – but I’m going to keep an open mind on Labor education policy until I see some concrete details.
While education debates continue to focus on funding and a national curriculum we can all keep shifting responsibility for the development of our children elsewhere.
At the grassroots level the key debate has been had, and is almost over, childrena nd young people need to be taught to be active learners, rather than passive. And, as this continues to occur to a greater extent we will see students become more invloved in school boards and curriculum committees We will see greater advocacy for education from students themselves and they will argue for what is best.
Interestingly, on JJJ’s youth current affairs show HACK today they took the issue of funding up with students at Melbourne’s prestigious (but not most prestigious) Wesley College. (prestigious enought to have blanket wi-fi on the school grounds for students lap tops)
Nearly all students that got airtime were arguing that their shcool didn’t need the money. They didn’t see the justice in it. So, you want to talk values…there you go.
Of course, it could be ABC bias…but I have a strange feeling you’d be surprised what most young people think.
Fair? It depends whether one argues from a child’s or a parent’s perspective.
How is it fair that a government gives the same ‘grant/assistance’ to a child already in receipt of X amount of resources as it gives to a child in receipt of 4X amount of resources?
Surely government should not treat unequals as equals.
Teachers like nurses/doctors provide assistance on the basis of need.
I stress again, I am talking about kids’ rights not parents’ rights.
That’s my point, really, wpd. You can make a good case that accepting the logic of the current system entrenches unfairness.
Rudd is playing clever appeasement politics. The word “fair” can mean anything the listener thinks it means according to their bias. To the privileged, “fair” means having their privilege maintained.
Why hasn’t anyone approached Mark Latham over this? Surely he has an opinion?
Class – lets review
On Industrial relations policy the Federal Alternative Liberal Party leadership is quite happy to present their bottoms to be sacked without one seconds notice.
On education policy they are quite happy to shovel taxpayers money out the door to schools in disadvantaged areas…such as near Geelong grammer.
On your vital and inalienable human and civil rights they are prepared to sit idly by while various state Gruppenfuhrers treat prisoners like so many David Hicks’.
On the Governor -generalate in general they favour calling the present system where the Nationals get about 1 million votes and a swag of seats a
‘ democracy’ despite the Greens getting almost the same number zero seats.
They insult your intelligence create a wasteland and call it ‘peace’.
Their ‘roosters’ contrast with the present front bench is the striking difference between Coke and Pepsi. They are leading us back to the religious dark ages where the thirty years war alone killed around six million people. If you want a pre-treaty of Westphalia, pre Magna Carta monarchy VOTE RUDD.
But at this stage, Kim, isn’t that the approach that Labor seems to be taking? Rudd is talking about needs-based funding. That is not the Howard approach. He is not talking about an ever-increasing amount of funding for non-government schools in proportional terms; the message is clearly one of needs-based funding. In other words, schools which are the most needy are the ones that Labor’s approach should (hopefully) favourably bias – which I believe is how it should be.
I would therefore assume that the current funding arrangements would be remade to fit the needs-based funding approach that Rudd describes – so my interpretation of the quite scant information we have at the moment is that the current funding arrangements will not be freezed under a Rudd Labor Government as you seem to imply.
More broadly, I think most people are talking about the politics of Rudd’s approach at the moment because there is not a great deal of meat to the announcement as yet. There is only really a policy direction on the table, not any numbers to back it up with.
Labor didn’t say they’re freezing the current approach, they said “Federal Labor is now working on options for funding schools and its approach to the next four-year schools’ funding round between 2009 and 2012″.
And Rudd promised to consult with independent and Catholic schools bodies before making any final announcement.
While the elite private schools no doubt get more money than is fair, even if you took all their Government funding away, you wouldn’t have nearly enough money to solve funding problems for public schools.
The reason private schools get so much money (and the reason that Whitlam supported a needs-based approach, against the ALP Left at the time that was dead against State Aid to private schools) is that there are many small, non-elite, non-rich private schools, aligned with both Catholic and evangelical Protestant denominations. You couldn’t get more sterotypically ‘aspirational’ than the parents who send their children to these type of schools.
The trouble seems to be that attacking the elite private schools makes the smaller private schools nervous as well.
Yes David and the elite private school communities are very good in cultivating that fear. The rich always get the poor to do their fighting for them.
BTW, It is likely that on the basis of ‘need’ more assistance will be given to parish schools that state schools.
Rebekka and Guy, there’s no point repudiating Latham’s notion of redistributing funding unless the current allocation is effectively frozen til 2009. Perhaps, just perhaps, it won’t be declared as some sort of baseline from 2009, but if that’s the case, all that’s happening is the political fight gets delayed. I’d much rather them release a needs based policy framework now, rather than make symbolic political announcements which cavalierly entrench Howard government policy’s effects for at least two more years. The Beazer, you might recall, copped lots of flak for accepting the basis of the funding model in 2001, but obviously with Rudd, the dynamic is very different.
If funding is currently going to some schools in excess of a fair evaluation of need, it shouldn’t be.
Kim, the following statement is potentially misleading:
“It’s simply fact that the great majority of federal spending goes to private schools. It’s also a fact that this is to some degree counter-balanced by state funding to public schools.”
This statement makes it sound like private schools get more public funding than public schools do. As far as I am aware, private schools actually get less public funding than public schools. While they might get a larger share of federal funding than public schools, I think they get a lower share of state funding. Furthermore, I think the states provide more funds in total then the federal government. I could be wrong here. But if the situation is similar to the one that I have described, then your statement would have given a more accurate impression if it had been phrased as follows:
It’s simply fact that the great majority of state spending goes to public schools. It’s also a fact that this is to some degree counter-balanced by federal funding to private schools.
Damien, do you have the actual figures? They’re hard to track down. Happy to be corrected if so.
Why all this excusing of Latham? After all ‘The Kings School” porn queen herself is still drawing her Emily’s List pension each week (though thankfully on the back bench). I fear there are a lot more Miss MacKlin’s festering on the margins of ALP education policy making.
Kim,
The following document contains some charts that illustrate the comparison in terms of both absolute expenditure and on a per-student basis:
http://www.ais.vic.edu.au/independent/pubs/fundingdetails.pdf .
The charts are based on the 2003-2004 figures.
Please note that I am NOT accusing you of deliberately trying to mislead people. This is just a case of two similar, but not quite identical, statements suggesting different interpretations.
Note that I found the document that was linked in my previous comment through a web search. I was not involved in its production!!! Since I am making disclosures, I should point out that I attended catholic schools for my primary and secondary education.
Yes, point taken, Damien, but I’m wondering if there are more recent figures.
What the graphs need for completeness, in the context we’re talking about, is an indication of how much private funding both types of schools receive. Otherwise, it’s not an accurate picture, because government funding supplements private school funding, and that’s the nub of the issue. (And private fundraising for state schools creates inequities too).
Note also that the document that was linked in one of my earlier comments provides absolute expenditure information for both Australia and Victoria, but it only provides per student information for Victoria.
You would think that more recent information would be available. But the document lists the “Productivity Commission’s Steering Committee for the Review of Government
Services. Report on Government Services 2006″ as the source, so maybe it is not available. Disclosure: I used to work for the Productivity Commission.
Rather, the document lists the PC document as a source. It also lists other sources. Its one of thos nights i guess!!!
Kim, I suspect that private schools actually save the government money in a sense. At least, they do if you take the current objective of providing a publicly funded education for every child whose parents want them to recieve one as given. To see why, conduct the following thought experiment. What would happen if every single private school was to shut down? I suspect that it would cost much more expenditure on the part of the federal and state governments to extend public education to all of the students currently in private schools.
While I’m at it, let me note that there were only two sources listed in the document that was linked in an earlier document. I seem to be in pedantic mode tonight!!!
Kim
Once and for all could you please explain what you mean by “equity?” I thought equity was an ancient and arcane area of the common law. You seem to mean “equality of outcomes.” Your itegrity would improve if you said what you mean.
“Equity” has become another one of those trade union-interests Orwellian deceptions like “working families.” Whatever happened to the “working class?” It is these sorts of deceitful evasions that make folks extremely suspicious of the pomo Left.
John, in schooling people usually think in terms of equality of opportunity. It’s hard to argue against it.
derrida derider has an interesting statement at Andrew Norton’s place.
BTW I think there is something wierd about the current formula, but I’m not 100% sure that memory serves. I think the funding of private schools is not based on the socioeconomic position of the parents but the average wealth of the postcode in which they live. This has the effect of giving the wealthy schools a bit more than they would otherwise get.
It’s also worth noting that the cost of schooling varies according to size of school and geography. Hence a state like Queensland with a dispersed population has a lot of small schools and misses out on the economies of scale. More of the small schools are government schools.
Similarly it costs more to build and run schools in remote areas. Again more of the remote schools are government schools.
Ditto for special needs schools.
You need to be careful when comparing simple per student expenditures.
Brian, that’s right, and it was a deliberate shift in the formula in 2001.