Thanks for alerting us to these facts and issues. A big thank you for the links to the sources we can visit and analyse.
Loved the Donnelly- Canute analogy.
My only concern is that we're too late to save the public school system. The process of framing the public school system as 'failing' has been going on since David Kemp and Brendan Nelson began their fabricated campaigns to convince the electorate we had a 'literacy crisis'

The education system has become so politicized between the bureaucrats in state and Federal government and the unions that the children and their parents never get a look in. Parents send their children to private schools not only because they perceive a better education experience for their child but that the parents have a say in the way the school is run. The parents can have a fumbling headmaster or teacher sacked. Try that in the public school system – they are transferred to another school if things get too hot.

I don’t know if there are any private school teachers that are unionized but I have not heard of any private schools forced to close because the teachers have decided to participate in a labor or political rally. And you have to ask, why is it that the private schools never seem to have the problems attracting teachers that the public system has even though the private schools don’t pay as much. Could it be that the working interaction between parents and faculty in a situation with common goals and aspirations leads to a mutually agreeable education environment?

As demonstrated many times over the education union's goals are for job security and the improvement of pay and benefits of the teachers. The gov't goals are to be re-elected and not cause too many waves. In both cases the appearance of doing something for the children is paramount while the actual delivery of anything substantial is anathema.

It would seem that an unsavory mix of politics and unions is leading to the demise of our public school system.

Parents are to be reminded, schools are for learning and not rearing children.

To answer Bruce's question, there are many reasons that some teachers prefer to work in private schools (e.g. religious beliefs, their own schooling experience etc).

However, I can vouch for the fact that probably the most important reason is the fact that they are teaching a select group of kids who are easier to deal with, and who, if they play up, will be expelled (which in effect means a transfer to a state school).

In other words, private schools have the luxury of teaching whom they choose. State schools do not. The obvious conclusion is that State schools need more resources to deal with full range of students.

"...teaching a select groups of kids."

My brother, a science teacher, was under that impression also - at least until he decided to take a position at a select private school last year.

His impression of the private school students, however, was that many were arrogant toads who weren't anymore interested in the subject than some in the state system - but had an "attitude" to compound their odium. The upshot being that he was glad he tried it but he'd much rather teach at state schools.

The Review of Funding for Schooling provided a golden opportunity for a better system. Sadly, the federal AEU and other public education advocates completely misread the signals and made off-the-point submissions. The Victorian Labor government introduced a conceptually rational, though financially inadequate, system for school funding in 2005 (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/srp/). I expect the Gonski Review to recommend something similar nationally. The key issues are the amount set for the student learning entitlement and the need for an adequate and explicit staffing ratio behind that SLE. If the amount is too low or there is no explicit staffing formula, the federal AEU can take the blame.

Based on 2011 Victorian teacher salaries, the marginal recurrent cost per mainstream student of a properly staffed, high quality education system is $6,993 for years 3 to 6 and $8,320 for all other levels. That would provide staffing ratios of 18:1 and 15:1 respectively, sufficient to restore both primary and secondary teaching loads to past levels and to maintain small classes. This is in addition to a base amount of around $1,000,000 per secondary school (eight teachers plus other costs) and around $250,000 per primary school (two teachers plus other costs).

If the federal AEU had seen the writing on the wall, it would have made a submission along the same lines, but it seems trapped in the 1950s and failed to specify any figure or any staffing formula.

My Funding Review Submissions:

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris_Attachment_1.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris_Attachment_2.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubEip/AtoF/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubResearch/AtoM/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

Chris Curtis

Parents are to be reminded, schools are for learning and not rearing children.
579,
Well said.
I'd like to add that Teachers need to be reminded that schools are for teaching the young & not a benefit & Superannuation gravy train.

Chris, you are kidding about Gillard and her pet drone Garrett having the courage to reset the machinery, aren't you?

Her record so far is abysmal.

His record? 4 dead, 100 houses burned to the ground and a few dozen broken and bankrupt companies.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, he also changed the NSCP into the NSCSWP, an even more toxic brew of evangelical Christianity being pumped into public schools by our Baptist PM and fundie xtian DEEWR minister.

It's doubtful that Gonski will upset the comfy situation for any private school but if he did, Gillard lacks the balls to pick up on any of his suggestions to lift public schools from the mire she and every state-territory premier has pushed them in to over the last 20 or so years.

And the union, the AEU?

A toothless tabby cat with no idea how to politicise its own membership, who in turn deserve everything they cop in the form of criticism for the state of their workplaces, which sadly are also our children's schools.

The school principals are a mob of no-hopers, demanding the power to hire and fire but totally without any management skills to run these large and complex institutions. When Gillard grants these powers, introduces the vouchers Gonski will probably suggest, and introduces 'community schools', which will soon turn into pretend faith schools, the old idea of a free and secular egalitarian public school will have been wiped from our history.

Oh, nearly forgot the parents bodies. Apart from the NSW P&C Association, they all support chaplains, school fees, increased religion, and they all long for the 'freedom' of the UK style community schools.

In short, they failed to do their jobs, and they sold out to neo-liberal thinking and evangelical Christendom.

I've taught in both the state and Catholic systems here in Queensland. I currently teach in a Catholic school, and have no intention of returning to my old employer.

Interestingly, we sit somewhere between the public and private schools. We're not as selective as the private schools: our students are the next door neighbours, co-workers and football teammates of the students at my last school. They play together, work together and party together. While it is made clear at the beginning of each and every school year that our mission is not to raise good little 'soldiers of Christ' as it was in the old days, we do educate students in a value-laden environment and it shows. It's not the students we select who keep us coming back - it's what we do with those students.

We're also not as well-funded as the state schools - MySchool data shows a shortfall of about $700 per student when compared to the local state high school. We do, however, push our dollars further - perhaps in part because the red tape is much thinner and we aren't restricted to government providers when buying supplies and building new facilities.

It is, I think, these layers of bureaucracy that are slowly suffocating our state schools. There are so many people sitting in offices down in Brisbane trying desperately to justify their salary that 'new initiatives' (read: recycled and onerous procedures and paper trails) pop up left, right and centre. It's sad. Many - I'd even venture so far as to say most - of my former colleagues are bright, enthusiastic, well-trained and well-equipped to do their jobs. Unfortunately, they are shackled by hollow processes and demands.

Additionally, while some parents don't care about their kids' schooling, most do. They want their kids to learn, to do well, to grow and to prosper. I think at times the potential for a genuine partnership is muted by the edu-babble and uninviting nature that abound in too many schools.

Otokonoko, I'd support some of your statements.

The Mary Street brigade offer not one jot of improvement to schools. They are a dead weight, a cost beyond any utility that might drip from their 6 hour days and expensive and endless 'meetings' with each other.

Like so, the regional office staff offer absolutely not a single increase in the educational journey of our children.

Hang on, those drones who compute wages and pay bills are of value, all the rest have got jobs that really do not exist.

Why do I say this?

Because the endless policy Mary Street churns out is never read, never understood and never applied within schools. Its sole purpose is to provide Mary Street with a role in life, and high wages.

Hang on again. I know an EQ employee who teaches principals and staff who have, essentially, failed at their jobs, how to retrieve their dignity and do the job we pay them to do.

I regard that as important work, but I'd have to say that these people should not exist in the first place but they do because school principals have no, or too few, skills in managing staff and an organisation.

It shows a systemic failure of policy and practice, a failure of senior management at the top, all the way down to principal level.

As for Catholic schools, they barely contain Catholics any more. Their role is to provide the lazy non-Catholic parent with an ability to pretend their children are better served by attending a 'private school'.

If those parents were the least bit interested in education they would be down at the state school demanding the principal comes out of their bunker and does some work.

The state should not, and should have never, funded faith schools a single cracker and but for Whitlams grovelling to the DLP we would not be now.

I recall the principal of a Cape York State School telling me in the 1980's that I should come back in 20 years time see how much progress will have been made in return for the substantial public funding that went into his college.
Thus far to my knowledge not a single tradesman or successful entrepreneur or other to the public beneficial individual has emerged from that college. I'd more than happy to be corrected. Not many things would please me more.
I'd dearly like to speak with that principal again & hear what he's got to say.
I know many of these former students & let me tell you some are very switched on but Qld Government policies made up on account of consultation with academic experts have pulled the fuse in the circuit of these peoples' aspirations. I point the finger at the silly curriculum & selection criteria gobledeegook. Also a major player is this silly notion of "you can't force them to do anything they don't want to do'. No wonder their attitudes towards responsibility are shot to pieces. Last but not least many teachers really shouldn't stand in front of a class. The mentality simply just isn't there in a 22 year old to positively influence someone only 6 years younger.
We can achieve that though via a much more effective education, a National Service. 19 years old into National Service & out at 21 as an adult then & only then into a class room.
I guarantee a positive result in just after two years.

Quite so individual, national service.

A BONZA IDEA.

But what about a little war to go with it?

You know, for a real sense of purpose to be developed, a national pride to be engendered, patriotism to be fostered.

A deep love of The Flag, and all.

It worked so well for all those lucky lads who went to Vitenam on behalf of the nation, didn't it?

And Korea, Malaysia, WW2, Gallipoli?

But, hang on, isn't national service a bit, well, collective, for someone called 'individual'?

A bit, dare I suggest this, a bit SOCIALIST, a little bit Stalinist, a tad Maoist?

But if you were serious about this, then you'd be promoting far longer than two years.

Take 'em up to age 25, when brain development allows car insurances to drop in price, surely a good pointer to having 'grown up' a little?

TBC'
?? I'm having serious difficulty in working out the gist in your post.
Forgive me if I've got it wrong. I should have said like I've said so many times now that I advocate No-Military national Service.
I have no intention of sending untrained kids into a battlefield. My intention is to ready them for life with a sense of responsibility, something that has gone wayside since Whitlam.

A non-military form of national gung-ho?

My, impressive stuff indie.

What, pray tell, might this involve?

Being a chaplain in a school?

Delivery groceries for Granny Scroggins on a push bike?

Polishing police cars?

Guarding villains instead of paying prison guards?

I know, digging by hand the much awaited Bradfield Scheme?

But an improved one, from the Kimberley via Alice to Melbourne, with an off shoot to green the Nullabor and people it with refugess from Palestine? That way we get to keep all the camels out there too.

GOOD IDEA Indie, good idea.

I suggest you get straight onto Tony Abbott and offer to gift him your splendid Vision Splendid.

And I think I can contribute to this Idea Stream too. To Hell with the Pacific Highway and all that wasted energy.

A hundred years of National Service could see a canal from Melb to Cairns, with sailing barges carrying the national output hither and thither, not sail sailing barges but Green Energy sailing barges, powered by the sun, with back-up Nat Servo rowers.

Just think, no more Lay Down Sally moments in our Olympic rowing teams with this sort of training on tap

TBC what have you been smoking today ?

A 3 month service commitment would not go astray. It could consist of life skills, early morning rises polished boots, made beds, shower and shave in 4 minutes, Just plain discipline and respect, What kids are badly lacking.

579,
by extending it to 6 months they might acquire the mentality to say thank you for a meal.
I maintain 2 years is the optimum, it's been proven in other countries. Youth violence for example ceases to translate into adult violence in a National Service environment.

TBC,

I’m not kidding at all.

It is unfair of you to call Peter Garrett a “pet drone” of Julia Gillard. He seems to be to me a decent person, who was scapegoated over the insulation issue.

He raised the problems at the time.
(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/garrett-the-fall-guy-in-rudds-roofing-fiasco/story-e6frg6zo-1225857626035

The rate of insulation-related house fires actually fell under his watch. (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2010/10/21/did-peter-garrett-get-it-right-after-all/)

Employers have to take responsibility when they break the law. In one case, the employer pleaded guilty.
(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/employers-in-batts-case-plead-guilty/story-e6frg6nf-1225922985498)

The extension of the chaplaincy program to include secular welfare workers can hardly be characterised as increasing the amount of Christianity in schools. I don’t believe the federal government should be funding chaplains, but I do not object to their presence in schools any more than I object to their presence in the military, hospitals or prisons.

The Victorian parent bodies do not support chaplains or school fees.

The weakness of the AEU is just the weakness of the members, who once fought for education but who now roll over all the time. Principals too are less able than 30 years ago when they were perfectly competent to run their schools without the power to hire and fire.

The point of review of funding for schooling is not to “upset” private schools but to propose a rational funding model for schooling. That’s why the title includes “schooling”, not “schools” – an obvious point missed by most commentators.

It’s not too late for the AEU to wake up and lobby for the case it should have made a year ago.

Let's disagree on the drone status of Garrett.

His contribution to government has been nil, which is why he was given DEEWR to mismanage.

I doubt house fires fell as a result of Garrett having dodgy installers work the lofts, that is just wishful thinking.

Ministers are 'responsible' for the wins and losses in their portfolios.

Garrett sidestepped his losses, and has no wins.

We agree on the failure of the AEU though. I do recognise that 'power' comes to the AEU via membership, and that the membership is asleep at the wheel, which rather strangles the AEU ability to do anything at all, but then again, why do unions elect leadership teams if not to lead?

The AEU leads its members into defeat after defeat, like the SDA leads its membership into ever lower pay and conditions.

The AEU has lost the ability, if it ever had it, to 'organise' and 'politicise' its own members, and is hamstrung when representing classroom teachers and school principals at the same time- a recipe for disaster for the classroom teachers.

It's a shame the review is not into how to provide for educating students, instead of schooling them, which is a not-very-impressive exercise.

The most rational model is to fund government schools and not fund private schools at all.

If you are happy with living in a soft theocracy I suppose that is up to you, but there is really no role whatsoever for the state to fund any religious activities at all, be that via tax free status for all religions, or paying for military chaplains, or for school chaplains.

"The extension of the chaplaincy program to include secular welfare workers can hardly be characterised as increasing the amount of Christianity in schools", but Chris, mate, these are not 'secular' workers at all.

It's the exact same job as the chaplains do, including conducting religious rites, prayers and Bible clubs, not to mention the ability to conduct religious instruction too.

How can it be a secular job when groups like 'Campus Crusade for Christ' are trying to supply the 'secular' workers?

A follow up thought Chris.

If the Victorian P&C group oppose chaplains how come they do absolutely nothing to demonstrate that?

Did they contribute to that fellow Williams and his High Court challenge?

Are they helping to fund FIRIS in a grassroots parent battle to see off ACCESS MInistries, plonked into schools with the caring touch of the Vic ALP?

I'd be shocked if they did anything for either effort to curb religiosity in public schools.

TBC,

I gave a link to the discussion of house fire statistics, so if you don’t want to believe them, you don’t have to.

If the membership of the AEU is unhappy with its leadership, it is free to elect another. Surely, among 200,000 teachers there would be an alternative leadership team of some standing.

You say that the SDA has led its members into “ever lower pay and conditions”. Do you have any facts and figures to back that up? In the case of the AEU, I do -http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/449991.aspx?PageIndex=31. However, I do not blame the leadership.

I believe that the AEU should represent both principals and teachers. It is destructive of the teaching profession to accept principals as being separate. It is better for principals and teachers to see themselves as members of the same profession, with one group having a different role but not that group being a different class of being.

I’m not living in a soft theocracy. Religion has never been as powerless in our society as it is today.

I have never heard of a secular welfare worker conducting religious rites in a public school. Feel free to give chapter and verse.

The federal chaplaincy program has nothing to do with religious instruction, which is a totally separate issue under the control of state governments.

Chris C

Union members only get to vote for those who stand, as we do with our politicians. Most people do not want to stand, so they have a limited choice and get what is dished up. Sort of a Hobson's Choice.

SDA? Look at their wages and conditions, impressive, eh?

"I believe that the AEU should represent both principals and teachers. It is destructive of the teaching profession to accept principals as being separate." But they are, listen to them blaming classroom teachers for all the ills principals are unable to manage in the schools they run. That's why principals are eager to sack staff, and employ-promote their chosen ones. They know not how to manage, administer or organise a school.

"I’m not living in a soft theocracy," we all are.

"Religion has never been as powerless in our society as it is today", you must be an ACL supporter.

"I have never heard of a secular welfare worker conducting religious rites in a public school. Feel free to give chapter and verse." Read the DEEWR policy on their new welfare workers, with identical PDs to chaplains. DEEWR have yet to finalise the welfare worker suppliers, so there are none employed as yet, hard to find a working one for you, apart from those chaplains who were there last year who have simply swapped their titles.

"The federal chaplaincy program has nothing to do with religious instruction, which is a totally separate issue under the control of state governments," not quite true.

Chaplains and welfare workers are allowed to deliver RI to students. They also work with the Bible Society to hand out Bibles through the RI systems.

You need to read more this issue Chris C.

Whilst agreeing with most of Teese's observations (and the rightness of attention to equity issues) methinks it is not so simple on the ground. I find it alienating, for instance, to see the following as a justification of comprehensive education:

"Public schools must help [children who start at a disadvantage] to go forward, both cognitively and socially, including by enabling stronger students to lead and assist weaker ones.

"Funding arrangements should not support social segregation, but encourage the pooling of both financial and cultural resources. This is an argument, not from social cohesion, important as this is, but from pedagogical effectiveness, without which neither cognitive growth nor social cohesion can be produced."

While it may be pedagogically effective for the weaker students to have access to the sociocultural resource that is the stronger ones, I'm not aware of evidence that it is pedagogically effective for those stronger ones.

The reason many parents opt for schools with a selective intake (private or public) is the tendency for the comprehensive system (in the main) to fail to cater well for "stronger students" (at best) and at worst to value them primarily as a low-cost resource for weaker students or overstretched teachers.

Maybe if the public system provided ALL kids with an education that met them where they were (cognitively) fewer of the abler would feel the need to seek out a more conducive environment for their own educational progress?

But that's a more difficult challenge, isn't it?

TBC,

Union members have the right to stand in the first place. If among the 150,000-200,000 members of the AEU, no one chooses to, collectively the membership has indicated its acceptance of the current leadership and must take responsibility for the state of the union.

Your initial statement was that the SDA had led its members into “ever lower pay and conditions”. I asked you for facts and figures to back that up. You reply with, “SDA? Look at their wages and conditions, impressive, eh?” That’s not an answer. You said that wages had fallen and that conditions had got worse. If this is so, you would be able to quote specific wage rates for different years and condition declines, but you do not do so. If you want to argue that the wages and conditions of shop and warehouse employees are unimpressive, that is a different point, but your initial claim was that they had got worse. So, have you got any specific facts or figures to back that up?

There has been a decline in the ability of principals in Victoria since the Coalition was elected in 1992. Pushing them out of the AEU would do nothing to reverse that decline, but would reinforce it by making them even more likely to think of themselves as higher beings. Besides, there are some very good principals who are AEU members and who ought to be encouraged to maintain their professional connection with other teachers.

There is no logic in the claim that because I say religion has never been a powerless in our society as it is today I must be an ACL (Australian Christian Lobby?) supporter. I am not now nor have I ever been a supporter of the ACL, but, if I were, it would not make any difference to the truth of my statement.

Chaplains may be allowed to deliver RI, but whether or not it can be delivered at all is the responsibility of the state governments.