A lesson on schools?

Peter Brassington (A lesson on schools, June 30) sends his kids to a private school and doesn’t want to hear from those of us opposing the Governments current plan. He would do well to think on this quote from a non-government school website: “If a fee account remains unpaid after the third week of term the school reserves the right to ask a family to make arrangements for their children’s education elsewhere”. Elsewhere? Can he imagine circumstances whereby he could no longer afford to send his kids to a private school? If he can, can he then imagine how grateful he would be that some of us have stood up and defended the public system?

Barr has head in sand

At the school closure consultation meeting for Tuggeranong Minister Barr admitted that the capacity figures for Gilmore and Isabella Plains were inflated by the presence of temporary buildings. He refused to conduct an audit to correct the Department’s figures, stating that the Principal of the school can request an audit of school capacity. The Minister has stated he wants a rational debate. How can we have a rational debate without the correct figures? Should we put this down to incompetence, laziness or deceit?

Dodgy accounting on school closures

According to the Canberra Times report of the South Canberra consultative meeting we now know that the Government costings per student include building depreciation and departmental overheads that are roughly proportional to the student numbers at the school.

Minister Barr has publicly stated that no school buildings will be sold as a result of closures. So building depreciation costs will continue, and the maintenance costs will still be borne by the Government. The departmental overheads will remain the same. So just what will be saved as a result of these schools closing?

Facts in education debate

Anthony Mannering calls for factual debate (Canberra Times, “Learning lessons the hard way”, June 26). Excellent idea. Mannering says “it can cost twice as much per student to run a small school than a large one”. Yes it can, but only in a few of cases of very small (Tharwa) or special needs (Rivett) schools. Some of the schools to be closed cost only 10% more than average, and Many of them have some special needs students, so their per-student cost is higher, but the Government have not provided figures which account for this.

Mannering uses Gilmore Primary as an example of cost blowout by 2010. Currently the cost to educate a child at Gilmore Primary is $9261, which is about average in the ACT ($9248). He assumes this figure will rise by 2010 based solely on the “fact” that it will be at 28% capacity. This assumption relies on a capacity of 625 from the 2020 document – this figure is incorrect as it includes demountables.

Mannering doubts the educational benefits of small schools without backing this up. How about these assessments “Studies show all else being equal, students in small schools score higher on tests, pass more courses and go on to college more frequently than those in larger ones” and “Good schools are small. The evidence is clear, in fact it is overwhelming: small schools improve attendance, achievement, climate, safety, graduation and college attendance rates, staff satisfaction, and parent involvement”. These are both from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is actively supporting small schools in the USA. The value of small schools is backed up by the study of Cotton (1996) that is referenced on the 2020 website.

We need more facts in this debate, parents are clamouring for them. They were conspicuously absent from Anthony Mannering’s contribution.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 29th June.

Open, honest and informed debate on school closures

At the consultation meeting for South East Belconnen region the chief executive of the ACT Education Department, Dr Michele Bruniges, was asked to release the data the Department provided to the Costello Strategic Review. Dr Bruniges claimed this data was cabinet in confidence. Rubbish. Release the data so we can have an open, honest and informed debate.

Childhood obesity

The news of yet another campaign against rising levels of obesity (Canberra Times, “Weight of a nation still taking its toll”, June 22) is timely. This is a major health problem for the Australian community, particularly the alarming rise in childhood obesity. Not the time to be forcing even more kids to travel by car to school.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 26th June.

Debate on schools must be widened

Your call for the debate on schools to be widened (Canberra Times Editorial, June 19) is welcome. The current shape of the debate is a direct result of the methods the Government have chosen to pursue “reform”. Parents and concerned citizens have no other outlet but “special pleading”, this role has been forced on them. Parents who have chosen their local school have, by definition, had this choice taken from them. Who wouldn’t be angry under the same circumstances? This whole mess should be scrapped and a real consultation process enacted, as soon as possible.

Do not mistake the current muscular political posturing for good policy. The proposed changes are riddled with inconsistencies and have been very poorly explained. Large schools are the ideal now, it seems, with little justification. This is at odds with programs in the US where they are spending large amounts with the specific aim of smaller schools. Who is right? Who knows? But we are to supposed to rely on paternalistic assertions from the Minister? Forgive me, I’m feeling cynical. The ideal of neighbourhood schools, for some areas at least, has simply been discarded. It lies, forlorn, in a puddle of bathwater no doubt.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 24th June.

Value for how much?

Michael Fokerd (Canberra Times letters, June 14) has been taken in by the Government’s propaganda when he states that students at Giralang Primary cost $20,000 a year to eductate or double the cost of other ACT schools. This is certainly not the case for Giralang (Figures like these are true for only one or two extremely small schools and do not apply to most of the schools facing closure.)

The Department of Education are yet to reply to my request for the real figures, but my reading of the ACT Government’s own graph gives a per student cost at Giralang of between $10,000 and $13,000 per annum compared to an average across ACT schools of around $10,500.

The statements in Minister Barr’s full page ad in the Canberra Times (page 14, June 10) that costs are “as high as $18,000 per student” and that students in small schools “are costing the Canberra community as much as $10,000 extra for every student” were probably intended to evoke responses like Fokerd’s. But they are far from useful for the rational debate that Minister Barr is calling for.