AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Press Release 990
THE AUSTRALIAN PRESS AND
THE EDUCATIONAL FUNDING ISSUE
Supporters of public education around Australia have been doing a great deal of hard data collecting and research to expose the gross unfairness in the education funding system.
Ray Nilsen from the DOGS did this for many years in the period 1964-2009. But there was no coverage in the mainstream Press and the DOGS had to put full page Advertisements in the mainstream papers, at their own expense, to expose the shenanigans of the private sector.
Times have changed and the plight of the public system and the educational future of the vast majority of Australian children are exposed on the international front. Trevor Cobbold from Save Our Schools has taken up the data collection and analysis baton and done a marvellous job in the last decade.
And finally, the Fairfax Press, Guardian Australia and The Saturday Paper are exposing the effect of State Aid to the private sector on our public systems.
In recent weeks there has been a series in Guardian Australia: firstly on funding, then on school choice and its impacts. The next is ‘Where is the accountability?’: Indigenous children bear the brunt of Australia’s unequal education system' . The final is 'The Gonski dream: how can governments restore funding – and trust – to public education?' A podcast comes with this series.
On Monday 24 July TheGuardian Australia produced an article entitled 'Australian public school funding falls behind private schools as states fail to meet targets' and on the weekend of 22 July in 'Class warfare,' The Saturday Paper editorialised about schools and funding.
All of these articles expose the quite shocking shortfall in funding of basic resources for the public sector, while the private sector runs laughing to the bank with taxpayer funds.
Yet the federal Labor government is putting off making any definite decisions or committing any substantial funding for public education with yet another enquiry.
Nothing substantial will happen until late 2024, or even 2028.
There is continuing reluctance to confront the greedy private religious school sector and its representatives.
And the public school supporters like Greenwell and Bonner who have done all this marvellous fact finding, research and lobbying are looking for a compromise with the private sector – namely open enrolment policies.
DOGS maintain that no compromise is possible with the private sector. In the last half century they have proved again and again that they cannot be trusted with public money and that their greed knows no bounds.
The time has come to confront them and take over the schools which are more than fully funded to resources standard by taxpayers and make them into public schools.
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