Catholic schools have reportedly declared war against the Turnbull Government’s revamped $18.6 billion “Gonski 2.0” needs-based school funding plan because it promises to reduce the growth in funding to some Catholic schools. From The Australian:
The Catholic education system has declared war on the Turnbull government with plans for a nationwide mining tax-style campaign against the Gonski 2 education reforms, which it claims will rip funds from the most in-need primary schools and force closures.
The Weekend Australian has confirmed that members of the National Catholic Education Commission voted on Wednesday night to approve a campaign that would involve a grassroots, social and main-media blitz across the country.
It is believed Catholic officials have also approached several Liberal Party research companies and pollsters, including Crosby Textor, as part of a bid process for the focus group and campaign research that would guide the campaign against the government.
It is understood the campaign would also focus on marginal Liberal seats, with parent forums to be held across nearly every diocese in the country.
An NCEC source confirmed that the campaign would be the largest ever undertaken by the sector, claiming that the integrity of the entire Catholic school system was under threat…
Former education minister, Christopher Pyne, has hit back, accusing the Catholic Schools of mounting a “dishonest” campaign. From The Canberra Times:
The new funding arrangements would be fairer for all schools and students across the country, Mr Pyne said. The Catholic schools were simply “pretending that they have been dudded”, he said.
“The Turnbull-Birmingham method of dealing with this has fixed it and has fixed it fairly,” he said.
“The Catholic education system really is running a very dishonest campaign. They’re getting an extra $1 billion out of this agreement (over four years).
“If the Catholic church actually does start putting up school fees and closing schools it’s not because they’re getting less money. And that’s why their campaign isn’t taking off and won’t take off.”
Catholic schools were more concerned about how the system would make school funding more transparent, he said.
Dr Peter Gross from The Grattan Institute has backed the Coalition, claiming that the schools which the National Catholic Education Commission has used to claim it is being dudded are schools in high income areas which the Catholic school system has chosen to subsidise at the expense of other schools. From The AFR:
Peter Goss said that Catholic schools appeared to be “using self-serving arguments with cherry-picked data”.
Dr Goss said he had compared eight schools in “leafy green” areas of Melbourne – which were named by the Catholic school campaign as being forced to raise fees – to a group of Catholic schools in Melbourne’s less privileged Broadmeadows area.
His analysis showed that total net recurrent funding for the Broadmeadows schools was only 4 per cent higher per student in 2015 than in the leafy green schools which, he said, raised serious questions about how funds were allocated by the Catholic school systems.
He found that if Catholic schools were funded directly according to the Gonski needs-based distribution formula then the “leafy green schools” would lose 42 per cent of their funding in nominal terms, while the Broadmeadows schools would gain 78 per cent.
“If there are genuinely representative Catholic systemic schools that are hard done by under Gonski 2.0 they should make that case,” Dr Goss said.
“If they keep using the types of examples they have used so far, any neutral observer should see their arguments as purely self-serving and judge them accordingly,” Dr Goss said.
I will also point out yet again that last year’s report, entitled Uneven Playing Field: The State of Australia’s Schools, projected that the original botched Gonski settings would have seen non-government school students – and those in Catholic schools in particular – receiving greater taxpayer funding than average public school students by 2020:
How the National Catholic Education Commission can support such an inequitable outcome beggars belief. The fact that Gonski 2.0 is seeking to remove some funding from privileged schools and redirect it into disadvantaged schools is entirely sensible, represents good policy, and should be supported.
