Article by Denis Fitzgerald, Federal President and Roy Martin, Federal Research Officer, Australian Education Union for the Education Review, Volume 5, No. 1 (February/March 2001 issue - appearing on page 8)

On 7 December last year, The States Grants Bill was passed by the Senate without amendment. It will thus officially become The States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000. However, for those supporters of public education who struggled to introduce some degree of fairness and reason into this extremely contentious issue, it will forever be known as The Private Schools Act.

No legislation in the history of Australian schooling has been so biased in favour of private schools, so generous to the already privileged, or has so ignored the real disadvantage of those in our school system most in need of the assistance from those entrusted with government.

The many examples of both the inequity and iniquity of this legislation are passing into political legend as the crass acts of a government convinced it can "sell" anything as long as it appeals to the pockets of Galbraith's "Affluent Society", or as Mr Howard re-named them, "Aspiring Australians".

The 62 former Category 1 schools (Category 1 were formerly those schools assessed as the most resource-rich schools) together will gain more than $50 million per year. Many wealthy schools will receive increases of over $1 million a year, whilst government schools get at most an average of $4000. On a standard enrolment of 800 students, that equates to an extra $5 per year for a public school child.

The fact that many of these private schools have facilities that the average public school can only dream of; that they are already operating at per-student expenditure levels more than twice that of public schools, and that their students are predominantly from socio-economic backgrounds which suggest they are amongst those well-placed to succeed educationally, was dismissed by the government as irrelevant and "the politics of greed".

The level of resources a school can offer its students is no longer to be a consideration in allocating government subsidy. What counts in the new order is the socio-economic background of the general neighbourhood of the students' parents. Schools such as Geelong Grammar or The King's School, with many students from rural vicinities are especially in favour.

Thus, the concept of "needs" in schooling has been re-defined. It no longer applies to schools which are operating on resource levels below an agreed standard, or schools that have large numbers of disadvantaged students and need extra resources. The new "needy" are not schools operating below reasonable resource levels, but parents opting out of government schools.

At the same time, the fundamental principle behind Commonwealth funding of schools has been changed from one which theoretically sought to bring all Australian schools up to a common or community standard, to one which now subsidises individual parents who want to opt out of the public system and provide something "separate" for their children. Buying privilege in schooling is now government-sanctioned and taxpayer-subsidised.

The government sought to polarise the issue as being the new "SES model " versus the old "ERI model". This, of course, was a smokescreen. The real issue is not how private schools are funded, but how much they are funded, and how this relates to public school funding. The new model not only increases the amount of money going to private schools, it also vastly decreases the proportion of Commonwealth funding going to public schools.

What began as support for all schools, with a roughly proportionate share going to each sector has become a mechanism for funding private education so that it can undermine public education. By 2004, private schools, with about 30 percent of the students, will receive over two-thirds of the taxpayers' money the Commonwealth spends on schooling. Many of them will operate at recurrent resource levels between two and three times that of average public schools. When the state or territory contribution is added in, many are going to receive more government money than public schools.

This increase has taken place with no increase in accountability. The new model, unlike any other government program in these "outcomes-focused" times, has no strings attached. There is no attempt to require them to accept all sections of the Australian community.

We were told that the increases were to make private schools more accessible by reducing fees. (The absurdity of a putative $200 reduction on a $12, 000 fee opening up the private academies was transparent from the outset).

In fact, many have already announced fee increases reminiscent of days when inflation was in double figures. We have no idea how this massive amount of public money is to be spent. We never will. Some no doubt, will use it to increase scholarships so they can cream off the best from the public system, others appear to be using it to cost shift other resources into capital works, like additional swimming pools, sandstone gates, and more rifle ranges. Much of it will go on yet glossier marketing and the salaries of promotions officers so that they can increase their "market share" of the "right" kind of child.

It is clear that the government can only achieve its policy objective of continued expansion of the private system by increasing the financial edge they have over public schools.

That the government can attempt this in the land of the "fair go" is a sad commentary on the current state of egalitarianism in Australia, and shows the triumph of self-interest amongst educational elites. For a Prime Minister and an Education Minister to be able to assert, as they did on many occasions, that their major responsibility in schooling is to private schools shows how self-absorbed, patrician and short-sighted politicians and their acolytes can be.

Foremost amongst the culpable are some elements of the private schools lobby. This is a formidable group of power brokers, who, like the National Rifle Association in USA, have become so good at pursuing their own personal interest to the exclusion of any others, that they are now able to determine Commonwealth funding policy without having any regard for the majority of Australian children.

The new funding mechanisms were developed beyond the light of public scrutiny with certain politicians, bureaucrats and private school lobbyists huddled together. Major public systems and public education supporters were not admitted.

When the political heat started rising from this handiwork, they dutifully responded to Dr. Kemp's call for public support, despite the fact that many of them were handling outrage from their own members, who recognised that only some of them, generally the better off, were advantaged by the legislation. It is ironic that at the same time we were being told that the landscape of private schools is becoming less exclusive and that the legislation will make them more available to everyone, it became clear that the private schools lobby had been captured by the elite end.

The Catholic school system looked after itself. Having done a deal which put it outside the new model, it appeared to restrain those in its ranks who wished to bring a social justice perspective to the debate. It remained largely silent in this important and fundamental debate which was not just about schooling but the nature of Australian society. Self interest clearly won over social conscience.

The Churches generally also played on the team lobbying for privilege and failed to speak up on behalf of the disadvantaged. Whilst they express a social conscience in many areas of social policy, in schooling they were prepared to support social elitism and privatisation. They seemed more than happy to go along with a policy of handing back schooling to the churches, and see government subsidy of religious schooling as a key platform from which to fortify their influence in a society. This may come, of course, at some considerable cost to their moral and spiritual authority.

The ALP entered the debate believing they could ride the wave of reaction to the Bill. However, they were seen by some as having underestimated the real support for public education and the outrage at the principles that underlay the new model. Whilst they did much to highlight the extreme bias in the model they did not sufficiently express their opposition to the intentions of the legislation. It can only be hoped they will learn from the experience and develop policy thoroughly supportive of public education going into the election.

There were, of course, some truly worthy figures on the public side such as the student from Wesley College in Melbourne who wrote to The Age indicating that her school did not need any more public money, the Bishops of Bathurst and Grafton who spoke out publicly, and The Synod of the Uniting Church in Victoria who wrote to David Kemp expressing their concerns. One or two of the state governments, notably NSW and Queensland, actually stood up for the public schools.

If we can thank David Kemp for anything, it is for producing something so radical and so biased that he has triggered a public understanding that government schools are not a given, and that if those who value them do not fight to maintain them, they will be swamped by private interests. Across the country, parents were inspired to activate their communities, to call meetings, to produce fact sheets, and to stimulate debate and thought.

This resurrection of community action around support for public schools is a very encouraging sign. Polling is showing that education is an extremely important issue in the forthcoming election, and that Australians will support political parties prepared to ensure that public schools are given the resources to continue to play the important educative, social, and equity role they have played in the history of Australia to date.

The majority of Australians do not want a schooling system increasingly divided by wealth, religion and ethnic background. They are proud of our multicultural heritage and our quest for egalitarianism. They are religiously tolerant, but do not want religious control of society's institutions.

They recognise that much of Australia's maturity in these areas is due to what has taken place in public schools. They remain convinced that a truly successful Australia should be based on a common schooling which allows us to share and understand our differences, capacities and qualities.

This year gives us all the opportunity to show what kind of values we wish to see flourish.