The real class war: Gillard Government and school funding reforms

image courtesy of The Age

Over the weekend the Labor Gillard Government announced its much heralded school education funding reforms. Prime Minister Gillard claimed that the plan would mean “better resourcing and better schools” resulting in “a stronger, smarter and fairer Australia for the future.

As Richard Teese in the Age and David Zyngier in The Conversation point out the plan simply entrenches and intensifies the growing divide between public schools and private independent schools.

In this country over the last four decades there has been an exponential growth in government funding going to middle class and wealthy private schools. This has been at at the expense of impoverished and disadvantaged public schools.

David Zyngier writes:

Gillard’s announcement of new school spending for primary school students of A$9,271 and for secondary students is A$12,193 is to be welcomed, but needs to be seen in the context of where the money both comes from and where it will go.

Because of her previous commitments that no school will lose a dollar in funding many over-resourced independent and Catholic schools will continue to maintain their advantage at the expense of poorer resourced public schools. At the same time public schools in middle class suburbs also stand to benefit.

As Teese and Zyngier point out the Gillard Plan entrenches disadvantage because it gives significant funding increases to private and independent schools despite 1000 of those schools already being over-funded.

 Richard Teese writes in the Melbourne Age:

Non-government schools will emerge as the big winners from the Council of Australian Governments meeting on national funding reform, to be held in Canberra on April 19. Which is ironic, seeing that the greatest need is in the public system. Few schools serving the poorest communities in Australia are non-government. About 80 per cent of all disadvantaged children attend government schools. Yet despite this, state and federal governments are set to give all non-government schools real increases in funds over the next three, and possibly six years. This includes the 1000 schools currently overfunded – schools that are "funding maintained".

The Gillard government has made private and Catholic schools a political priority. As most public funding for these schools comes from the Commonwealth, getting them on side will enable Canberra to pressure the states to boost funding for government schools – by at least 3 per cent.

Even if the states agree, this will not end the large funding gap between public and private. The federal government has had the chance to intervene massively in the funding of government schools, but it will have to finance its political debt with non-government schools through more public debt. It will have little to spare for government schools. These have been thrown back on the fiscal mercies of state governments.

We risk emerging from the most thorough review of national school funding with an architecture of advantage and disadvantage that is even stronger than when we began.

This owes much to the states, not just Canberra. They have used states’ rights to advantage non-government schooling, while cutting funds to government schools. The Australian constitution has become a wall behind which conservative ministers roam freely in their ideological dreaming. The funding review promised to pull down jurisdictional walls and to put children, not governments, first. Instead, taxpayers must find ever more money for private schools and for non-government systems to carve out ever more space in a feudal delusion that ignores one basic fact. Public schools are the schools of our nation. Their needs must not come second to private advantage or sectional interest.

The risks of school chaplains in public schools

image courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

The revelation that a chaplain at a prestigious Perth girls school has been charged with possession of child pornography raises questions about the role of chaplains in secondary schools. 

This comes on top of concerns about the National Schools Chaplaincy program (NSCP), a Federal program in which public funding is provided to public schools  to employ "chaplains". Over $430 million has been allocated to the program since 2007, allowing 2700 Chaplains to be placed in public schools throughout Australia.

The NSCP was introduced by the Howard Government in 2006 (with funding of $165 million over three years) and continued by the Rudd Government until 2011, at an additional cost of $42.8 million. Following a meeting with the powerful Australian Christian Lobby during the 2010 election campaign, Prime Minister Gillard announced another three years funding for the program worth another $220 million. The influential and powerful Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has actively supported the NSCP, partly because it delivers public funding for religious organizations and ministries affiliated with the ACL.

Many concerns have been raised about the National Schools Chaplaincy Program, but the power of the Christian lobby and the desire of Governments of both persuasions to pander to the Christian vote has meant this program, which has contested benefits, has escaped critical independent analysis. It continues to receive substantial public funding, while student services programs in schools and mental health programs for young people remain grossly underfunded.

The funding for NSCP comes at the expense of more worthwhile and much needed school counseling and mental health services provided by qualified and supervised staff. Rather than address the chronic underfunding of public schools, the Federal Government has thrown nearly $500 million dollars at a program that has dubious benefits and relies on untrained and unsupervised Christian chaplains. Rather than fund and employ tertiary trained youth workers, social workers and psychologists,to support young people, the program employs untrained religious workers.

Serious questions have been raised by many groups, including parent groups, about the fact that this program  provides church groups (some with extreme views) with direct access to young people in public schools and allows them to proselytize and promote religion within public schools. The program operates under a Christian umbrella and has direct links with influential Christian groups who see their role to proselytize and promote their religious beliefs. Even though public schools require Chaplains to work in secular ways, the Christian agenda dominates.

This concern has led to a High Court challenge to the program, on the basis that it creates a non-secular, pro-Christian culture in public schools

Another concern is that chaplain's lack the capacity to assist students with matters that contradict the chaplain and the church's moral stance, such as homosexuality, contraception and sexual behavior.

In a damming submission, the Australian Psychological Association highlighted serious concerns about the Program, accusing Federal and State Governments of allowing chaplains to engage in unsafe practices. The APS argues that Governments should not allow chaplains, whose primary concern is "to make the news of God known to children", to counsel students on mental health matters.

The APS documents a series of concerns including:

• Chaplains are operating as unregistered and unqualified quasi-counsellors and mental health workers
• Chaplains are engaged in activities for which they are not qualified
• Chaplains are proselytizing on religious and spiritual matters
• Chaplains are providing mental health related counseling services, although they lack the qualifications and expertise
• Chaplains are failing to refer young people to appropriate services
• Chaplains are working outside their boundaries and guidelines as spiritual and religious personnel and Church organizations and ministries are supporting them to do so. 
• The Chaplains program is not consistent with the evidence base about what is in the best interests of young people.

The APS Report notes that:

".. the risks to both students and schools are immense and will ultimately result in significant costs both financial and human"

The Greens have commited to replace the NSCP with a Schools’ Community Fund of $125 million a year for counsellors and community workers.