Letters to the editor - May 19

May 19 2017 - 4:00pm
Letters to the Editor – May 19
Letters to the Editor – May 19

School funding full picture

I wish to express my disappointment with the article “Row Over School Funds” (The Standard, May 13) which fails to provide the full picture on funding and by doing so misleads readers about this complex issue. It is the figures that aren’t included that provide the more complete picture. While the story acknowledges state schools receive the bulk of their funding from the state government, readers who only looked at the table may be under the mistaken impression that Emmanuel College receives vastly more funding than Warrnambool’s government colleges. When you look at the total of funding from both levels of government it is clear Emmanuel College does not receive more than its government school equivalents and fees are necessary to make up the shortfall.  To acknowledge that government schools receive the bulk of their funding from the State Government only after making an unfortunate comparison between Emmanuel and Warrnambool Colleges is misleading. Comparisons like these in the absence of robust and complete information misinform the public and create an artificial “them and us”, or worse, “them versus us” landscape. That is certainly not my experience of working with my principal colleagues in Warrnambool, all of whom strive incredibly hard to provide quality schools and learning. The story states that schools were contacted for comment, but they “did not want to comment on the new funding model until they received more information”. As a school principal I do not comprehensively know what impact the “Gonski 2.0” funding model will have upon my school. I wait, a little less patient each day, to know the precise outcome and I suspect my colleagues feel the same. That information may yet be some time away with the passage of legislation through parliament required before anything is finalised. I am committed to quality education for all young people irrespective of the school or system their family chooses. In this region we are well aware of the low school retention rates, the lowest in Victoria, and the need to reverse this trend. But I am saddened that the majority of political discussion and media coverage of education in Australia is either funding-related or a dubious comparison of Australian student achievements with international test results. Where is the discussion about quality learning, learning for both the present and the future in a globalised, competitive and rapidly changing world?  For the sake of our young people we need to get the funding of Australian schools right. But we won’t achieve this goal by pitting school against school or system against system. Let’s not allow governments the opportunity to make education a political football anymore than it already is, and let’s make sure the information provided through the media to the public stands up to scrutiny. If The Standard wants to provide readers with details of school funding then it needs to provide a complete picture of the allocations from all sources, state and federal. The least I would expect to see is a table outlining state government funding to state schools, and in the case of my school, acknowledging we are a fee-paying school and the reality that fees are necessary to fund the difference between what we receive from both levels of government and the real cost of running a school in 2017.

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