AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE
DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PRESS RELEASE 355
RUDD SENSITIVE TO
SHORTCOMINGS OF
MY SCHOOL WEBSITE
1 FEBRUARY 2010
The glaring faults in the
data provided by the government’s League Tables in the My School Website has
drawn further promises from a government sensitive to concerns of public school
parents and teachers in election year.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
has reacted by saying that a re-elected Labor government would expand the range
of data on the website by publishing surveys of parents and breakdowns of
funding for each school. (‘Better website if re-elected’ Financial Review, 1 February 2010)
Citizens and taxpayers
should keep him to his promise of the breakdown of funding for each school
before the election. It is a national scandal that accountability for public funding and transparency concerning the total
resources available to the so-called independent and Catholic sector have never
been produced. Nor is there any certainty that direct funding based upon
enrolment figures are correct. The auditor general has
pointed to glaring holes in the accountability procedures of the federal
educational bureaucracy.
It is more than time that the taxation
expenditures in the form of exemptions (most particularly exemptions from
payroll tax) were added to the total public propping up of the private sector.
These should be placed alongside real estate, investments and endowments of the
various religious establishments which own and control private schools.
If Kevin Rudd cannot impose proper regulation and accountability
on the private educational sector and make their total resources a matter of
public knowledge, then the ownership, control and accountability for private
religious schools should be taken over by the government and their resources
made accessible to all children. In other words, publicly funded educational institutions
should be public in every way.
DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION AND STOP STATE AID TO PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS.
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