For the last two weeks, there has been considerable discussion in Melbourne's Age comparing the success and role of independent and Catholic schools versus state schools. The discussion began on July 26, with the release of the "On Track" survey.
"On Track" surveyed all Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) graduates from 2003 about what they were doing one year later. It showed that almost twice the proportion of independent-school graduates were enrolled in university as the proportion of state school graduates (67% as compared to 34%). The report's author, Professor Richard Teese, laid the blame for the discrepancy squarely with the federal government's funding of private schools. Liberal government policy, Teese argued, was increasing the social divide, not reducing it.
On August 2, the Age ran a story on "research" that it insisted demonstrated that parents were increasingly "choosing" to send their children to independent and Catholic schools in preference to state schools, because they offered more "values-centred" education. The reality of this "choice" was borne out the next day however, when the paper admitted, "independent-school parents have the biggest incomes, higher levels of education and are more likely to be Coalition supporters".
The figures showed that independent-school parents often earned in excess of $100,000, while state-school parents typically earned $25,000-59,000 per annum. Catholic-school parents earned between $60,000 and $99,999 per annum. So much for choice, your children get the education that you can afford.
The wealthier are choosing independent schools, while the well-off are looking at the Catholic sector. Poorer families are left with the "choice" of sending their children to state schools. And why wouldn't the wealthy make such a choice? With government funding to private schools reaching $4.4 billion in 2003-04, some of these schools receive almost twice the federal government funding per student as state schools. The taxes of the poor directly subsidise the education of the wealthy.
The Labor Party's solution, as advocated by their members in the senate committee into Commonwealth funding of schools, is, according to the August 12 Age, to "oblige non-government schools to recognise their community service obligations". Labor would force non-government schools to account for their taxpayer funding, and would require non-government schools to report to parliament on the numbers of children they educated from disadvantaged backgrounds. Labor would also alter funding provisions in an undisclosed way, to give more help to less-wealthy non-government schools.
The Socialist Alliance has a far clearer, and more equitable policy. We advocate the absolute cessation of all government funding to non-government schools, Catholic, Protestant or whatever. We are not against choice. Let the wealthy choose independent schools for their children. But why should the rest of us pay for it? We would not try to stop the teaching of religion. But why should the state pay for that also?
In their condemnation of the Howard government's funding formula for schools, Labor senators demanded that "[p]ublic schools should not carry alone the burden of being schools of last resort: the place of refuge or incarceration for the non-conforming and the rejected students from non-government schools". While these are fine words that we can all agree with, if $4.4 billion continues to be poured into the grand halls and sporting ovals of private schools, this inequity will not only continue, it will continue to worsen.
The situation is made even worse by the fiscal propriety with which (Labor) state governments attempt to frustrate teachers' unions' calls for decent wages and smaller class sizes. If the Labor state governments' actions are an indication of how a federal Labor government might act, there is little hope for radical change from that quarter.
If all school students are to be permitted to climb Latham's "ladder of opportunity", their school must first be given the funding to afford the ladder, let alone all of the rungs. A first step would be to end funding to private schools; in addition to ending government waste on follies like the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq.
Graham Matthews
[Graham Matthews is the Socialist Alliance candidate for Batman in Victoria for the forthcoming federal election].
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 25, 2004.
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