Exciting momentum was generated by the Gonski Report on the funding of schools, but now the matter is wallowing in troubled waters. The impetus for the proper funding of schools is in danger of being lost. Like a new toy without a battery, Australian educators are now left with a handful of promises.
An unholy trinity of factors has blocked the Gonski reforms. They are money, money and money. The Federal Government will be flat out trying to fulfil the Federal Treasurer’s promise of a budget surplus in 2013 and most State Governments are unable or unwilling to fund the Gonski suggestions. Adding to Government inaction are the escalating costs of the funding recommendations. If implemented in 2014, they will cost more than double the $5 billion Gonski asked for this year. There are also some grumbles from State and Territory Governments, the Catholic education sector and a number of schools who have calculated they may get less funding in real terms.
So what can be done? The great temptation is not much – except whinge a bit and wait for a change in Federal Government. However, a change in government will not solve the problem. Whatever government is returned must make the proper funding of Australian schools a priority – particularly of under-sourced schools. Someone has to work out where Australia can find some serious extra money. Who?
The anti-independent school lobby, i.e. the Greens and the Labor Left, will suggest what they always suggest – take more money from well-resourced schools. This is the politics of division and will not work. Just ask Mark Latham whose ‘hit list’ of schools in 2004 was a political disaster. If the fiscal raid on well-resourced schools was reduced to a politically acceptable level, the initiative would probably yield a fraction of the funding needed by poorly resourced schools. No, this option won’t work. We need to find a new source of funding. Where?
A few ideas come to mind. Let’s stop fighting expensive wars in the northern hemisphere. (Big tick for the Government for bringing our troops home early). A tax on our miners might be a good idea. The hugely expensive off-shore processing of asylum seekers could be worth revising, as would a more economical version of the NBN. I’ll leave the carbon tax off the agenda for the moment, only because it deserves more space than is available.
In order to decide where some of this extra money might come from, it is useful to return to basic principles. Those that pay should be those that use. In this case, it is the parents who have a child in an Australian school. Any school. Expostulations about education needing to be free are now inappropriate. Our education is not free – and has never been. Someone always pays.
The presumption of free medical cover was removed with the introduction of the Medicare Levy by the Fraser Government in 1976. This evolved into the Medicare Levy Surcharge on those with income over $70,000 in 2008. The presumption of free education must also be removed.
To propose a further tax is to invite eradication from most Christmas Card lists, but it is time for an Educare Levy on the parents of school students, particularly on those who are better off. 61 of the 100 wealthiest school communities, as shown on the 2009 ‘My School’ website, were State schools. Most children in selective schools are from higher earning families.
Richer parents should pay more towards the schooling of their children, poorer parents should pay nothing. The Educare Levy should be paid by parents, irrespective of whether they sent their children to a State, Catholic or Independent school. The fee would be paid per child and be payable only when a family had a child at an Australian school. Australian taxpayers begrudge paying any tax, but if there is sympathy for anything soaking up their taxpayer dollars, its education.
In closing, it needs to be acknowledged that money alone will not solve the educational ills of Australian schools. Greater autonomy for school principals, less bureaucracy, more professional development of teachers and increased accountability are also needed.
In recognition that educational performance is predicated on the quality of the teacher, long-service leave for teachers should be turned into study leave. Long service leave can be useful in refreshing a teacher, but will be even more useful, if instead of being used for an extended holiday, a secondary teaching job or just hoarded as a bit of extra superannuation, it was used to update teaching skills. Re-training gives a teacher a genuine break from the classroom, but also gives them extra skills. In this way, we might be able to have real impact on teaching effectiveness.
Oh … and we must pay teachers more as well.
OK – so you may not like all these ideas. Fine. But let’s keep thinking. Let’s keep looking for answers to problems that will not go away if we look for solutions in the same barren places we have looked before. We need to stop wallowing.
