AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Press Release 980
HAS ACTIVISM PAID OFF FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
IN NSW?
WHO IS PRU CAR?
12 May 2023
On May 5 there was great excitement in NSW, most particularly at a State School Principals Conference. The State Minister for Education Prue Car and the federal education minister Jason Clare signed a pledge to commit to funding public schools to meet the minimum funding required for the educational needs of students, witnessed by principal members of the union.
State Minister Prue Car and federal counterpart Jason Clare signed the oversized “deed of trust” during Federation’s annual Principals’ Conference, where the MPs addressed attendees from across the state.
The document states: “We are committed to ensuring every NSW public school is on a path to reach 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard – the fair funding level.”
The Schooling Resource Standard – a funding benchmark to meet students’ needs – was recommended in the Gonski Inquiry report back in 2011. However, Coalition governments shifted away from the direction of the original National School Reform Agreement (NSRA), the funding agreement between the federal and NSW governments, and slowed the pace of public schools reaching the 100 per cent benchmark. The shortfall should never have been an issue but for the Coalition’s policy.
Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos said: “We’ve been around for a while and seen a few these (NSRAs) and they haven’t gone the way they should have gone,” he said. “I think both of you should sign this in front of our principals as witness to this commitment by the state and federal minister to finally get the job done to give our schools, our kids, the funding they need, the funding they deserve.”
Jason Clare has shown his commitment to public education before and is in fact a graduate of the NSW State system. But who is Pru Car?
According to Wikipedia Prudence Ann Car MP (née Guillaume) is an Australian politician serving as the 20th and current deputy premier of New South Wales since March 2023. She has served as theLabormember for Londonderry in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly since 2015. She previously served as the deputy leader of the NSW Opposition, Shadow Minister for Education and Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Learning.
Car was a Penrith City Councillor and national communications manager at MS Australia when she was elected. She had previously been an advisor to Premier Bob Carr from 2003 to 2005 and campaign co-ordinator of the Labor Party from 2005 to 2007.
Car was born and raised in Western Sydney In New South Wales.She has Indian and French heritage with a grandfather who was French and her father from Durgapur, West Bengal, India.Car is married with one son. In 2022, she took leave from parliament to undergo treatment for kidney cancer.
So Pru has been a career politician from an early age. And she is listening to the public school voters who put her into power.
But where did she go to school. And where does she send her son to school?
The following quote from an article by Lucy Carrol in the Sydney Morning Herald of May 6, gives a clue to her own schooling in the Catholic system:
When a teenage Prue Car was nearing the end of high school some two decades ago, she gave her English teacher a framed photograph of Paul Keating.xxx
For Car – then a 17-year-old pupil at a western Sydney Catholic school – the formidable Labor figure who was never afraid of a challenge “struck a chord ... because he was a boy from Bankstown”.
Now – six weeks in as deputy premier and the state’s newest education minster – Car is confronting seismic policy challenges of her own: how to turn around tumbling student results, how to rebuild confidence in NSW’s public education system and how to plug chronic teacher shortages.
“It’s the right of every student to attend their local school,” she told the Herald. “I’m going to be a champion of public education. We need to be talking up our system ... and we need to build confidence in the system, so we can encourage more to enrol in our public schools and encourage the next generation of teachers to teach in public schools.”
And a clue to the somewhat cynical view of her promises based in part of where she sends her son to school is found in several comments on the Lucy Carrol article:
Farmer, Gun, Rabbit, Field
Oh come on .. Her name is ''Prue'' and she is a career politician...''meet the new boss, same as the old boss, won't get fooled again.''
used tupperware salesperson
This is a great example of why we end up with political solutions rather than best strategies. Car is a person with no experience except of politics. No company would ever take the risk of appointing a CEO without experience. Just look at this weeks Qantas appointment . A seasoned and proven performer. Car on the other hand has no proven history in top management. Running a few errands for bob carr is not the experience required and then she only has the help of the new department head, a former school teacher. God help NSW education. The drift to private schools will become a stampede
Sisyphus
Her appointment is very surprising. She talks up her plans, but then sends her son to a private school? She needs to lead by example, move to a place where her child can get public school education, and enjoy the results. How can she have any credibility otherwise
Until she sends him to a public school how can she have any credibility ? The parents who can afford private schools will follow her example
Nor has Pru Car left her commitment to her faith – and Catholic voters behind.
Not long before the State election, the following article appeared in the Catholic Weekly of December 22, 2022, a
Despite it being one of Prue Car’s favourite times of the year, her Christmas break will be short lived, as she heads back to work early to contest the March State Election.
But the time she does have away from the office will be spent with family and friends reflecting on the blessings she has received throughout 2022.
In a year of highs and lows, the NSW deputy opposition leader confesses she has much to be grateful for.
In July she had an aggressive tumour successfully removed from her kidney and in October got engaged to long-time partner Brad.
Through it all, the mother of one is in no doubt God has been walking the path alongside her.
She said the many blessings she has received has reminded her how important her faith is.
“Every Christmas we try and get our family together. It’s such an important time of year for reflecting on what we can all be thankful for – particularly our family and friends,” she told The Catholic Weekly recently.
“However, it will be a very short Christmas break for me this year, with the March election now close at hand. My hope for the New Year is my family and friends are happy and healthy – anything beyond that is a bonus.
“Although I must say what I have been through with my health over the past six months has taken me back to the real faith of my childhood.
“You really must believe in something bigger and doing something for the greater good.
DOGS hope that Pru Car’s doing something ‘bigger and for the greater good’ wins out over the self interest of the private school system.
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