In the final days of the 2004 Commonwealth Parliament, the Schools Funding Bill, or, to give its full and propagandistic title the “Schools Assistance (Learning Together – Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Bill was passed. This sets the Australian Government funding to both public and private schools for the quadrennium 2005 to 2008.

In the Senate, the ALP, the Greens and the Democrats all initially moved amendments which would have benefited public schools. However, as expected they were rejected by the Government, and the ALP, as it had announced it would, allowed the Bill to pass rather than see schools enter next year without funding guaranteed.

The Bill does nothing to address the disproportionate amount of Australian Government funding going to the private sector. It provides for expenditure of $33 billion over the four years, the vast majority of which is directed to private schools. Public schools, with nearly 70% of the students, will receive only a little over 32 per cent of the total. There is an increase of $9.5 billion over the previous quadrennium, of which public schools receive only $2.9 billion.

This Bill is largely that which was introduced before the election. It entrenches the unfair and iniquitous funding system which was introduced by the Howard Government in 2001. Known as the “SES Model” this distributes money to schools on the basis of an SES index calculated not on the basis of the students who go to the school, but on the basis of the community from which they come. As one commentator has noted, this means that the funding a school receives is determined by the economic circumstances of the neighbours of the students at the school.

One change to this model in this Bill is the purported inclusion of Catholic systems into the SES model. Whereas previously they were all deemed to be at a particular level, they will now have their SES assessed. However, since the assessment only makes a difference if they are better off (otherwise they stay where they are,) and the money actually goes to the system who then distributes it as they see fit, it is yet another smoke and mirrors trick to give an illusion of consistency in a model which continues to be riddled with anomalies, inconsistencies and inequities. It also gives Catholic schools an extra $368 million. (For further information on the SES model see papers in the Schools Funding section of the AEU webpage).

The Bill includes the extra expenditure of one billion dollars for infrastructure promised in the election, which is uncharacteristically shared proportionately between the sectors. However, whilst that to private schools will be administered through existing processes, the public school share is to be channelled through new “Approved Government School Community Organisations”, thereby by-passing the states and territories and building a direct relationship between the Australian Government and individual schools. How this will be coordinated with state or territory expenditure and who will meet the costs of any resulting ongoing expenditure, such as electricity, remains to be seen.

The Bill also introduces a range of new accountability mechanisms designed to give the Minister a larger say in the running of schools. These include:

• A commitment to a common school starting age by 2010;
• Common testing standards;
• A set of guidelines for reporting to parents, including reporting how the child compares with others in his/her class;
• Ensuring that information is available to parents about a schools' performance;
• Greater autonomy to school principals.

The Minister is also given powers to lay down conditions on the funding without going through Parliament. It is under this Clause that flagpoles are to be mandatory.

These conditions have been introduced unilaterally, without agreement by the state and territory Ministers. Whilst some were on the way anyway, others will prove unworkable and are educationally undesirable.

This Bill sets in concrete for another four years the iniquitous and anti-public school agenda of the Howard Government. It delivers little to public schools and seeks to override the states and territories in matters that are constitutionally theirs by tying inadequate but needed funding to Nelson's ideological agenda through legislation.

Whilst schools and systems will have to learn to live with it, the AEU will continue to point out its flawed and biased nature and work for a better deal for public schools.