Demountables fear for pupils

That demountable buildings will be required to cater for students displaced by school closures is a disgrace (“Demountables fear for pupils”, July 28, p4). It shows the poor level of planning in the Government’s proposals.

From the Government’s projections, by 2010 one third of primary schools will be above 90% capacity with little or no spare room. These are 2010 figures. By the Governments own reckoning even more students need to be accomodated in 2007, 2008 and 2009. By design, then, there will be overcrowding in one third of Canberra’s primary schools.

The Government’s own population projections assume a steadily decreasing fertility rate and yet we know that fertility has increased for the last four years in the ACT. Under the Towards 2020 proposal, displaced students have been “assigned” to other schools to conveniently round out capacity figures with no thought to where parents will actually want to send their children.

We have a recipe for overcrowding in our public primary schools. High irony, except for the affected kids and their parents, who, it should be noted, are eligible to vote.

Private schools result of history and affluence

Jack Waterford talks of “parents voting with their feet” in the drift to the private system (Canberra Times, “Lessons in learning”, July 22, Panorama, p2). This is not a reflection on the public education system in the ACT, but of the availability of private education and Canberra’s relative affluence.

The ACT has the highest proportion of non-government schools in the country. The non-government primary sector in the ACT is dominated by Catholic schools which comprise 22% of all primary schools. This is also the highest percentage in the country and has been for more than 20 years. Other religious schools make up 9% of primary schools, and other independent primary schools are only 3%.

A national survey conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 2004, found that one third of Government school parents would send their children to a private school if they could afford it. The ACT is much wealthier than the rest of the country (average weekly earnings are 25% higher than the national figure).

The 2004 Sensis Consumer Report found that, for private school parents, the overwhelming reason for their choice of school was religion.

So, in the ACT almost a third of primary schools are religious, the population is wealthier and the most common reason for sending your child to a non-government school is religion. Closing Government schools will not change these underlying realities, so can we all stop pretending that school closures will boost the percentage of kids in Government schools?

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 25th July.

Barr responds to criticism with more spin

In response to criticism of the Government’s selective use of statistics (Canberra Times, “Schools costings ‘misleading’”, p1, July 17) Minister Barr told the ABC that the Government’s numbers are correct, and the cost per student for some small schools is more than $19,000. Not some, TWO.

Minister Barr also issued a press release with yet more misleading statements. He quoted the difference between the average cost of schools with less than 200 students and those with enrolments of 400 to 600, and stated the smaller schools were 40% more expensive. And yet one fifth of the primary schools slated for closure have enrolments greater than 200, and in the very same press release was a quote which stated an ideal size for primary schools of 300-400.

So why didn’t Minister Barr compare schools of less than 300 with schools of 300-400 (or even 300-600)? Because the figures don’t look nearly as bad for small schools. The average per student cost for schools of less than 300 is $10989, and for those between 300-600 it is $8783. So the smaller schools are, on average, 20% more expensive. Half the figure Minister Barr quotes. Now can we start having a rational debate based on real figures?

Updat: Published in the Canberra Times, 19th July.

Schools costings ‘misleading’

The Canberra Times article (“Schools costings ‘misleading’”, p1, July 17) spells out what has been clear for some time. The Government has attempted to portray small schools in as bad a light as possible in order to push their agenda for closing schools.

The costings and savings documents recently released by the Government show they only plan to make savings on some salary related costs and Schools Based Management costs. If just the salary and management costs per student are used to rank the 69 Government primary schools (1=cheapest, 69=most expensive) some of the schools to be closed are in the top 50% of cheapest schools (Isabella Plains (25), Gilmore (33)). Others such as Higgins (39), Giralang (41), Mt Rogers (42) and Cook (44) are cheaper than sixteen other schools which are not being closed.

Can someone else explain this as the Government aren’t willing, or perhaps able, to.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, July 18th.

Ranking schools by Salary and Management Costs

When the Stanhope Government first released their Towards 2020 plan they used misleading statistics to paint small schools in as bad a light as possible. Their per-pupil costs included costs like depreciation. When fixed costs such as depreciation are calculated the cost per pupil for smaller schools will always look worse than larger ones.

Later we found out that their projected savings were only calculated on some salary savings and schools based management (SBM) costs. I’ll have something to say about the SBM later, but if we take them at their word and just rank primary schools by salary and schools based management costs we get the following list (* = closing school):

Where are the whole of Government costings?

The ACT Government has finally released a breakdown of costs by school and an analysis of projected savings. It is a pity that this was not done before the public consultation meetings so that parents could be as well informed as the Government, and so have a more useful discussion.

At the consultation meeting for South East Belconnen Minister Barr assured us the Government would take a whole of Government approach to the cost of school closures. This has not be done, or if it has, it has not been released. When can we expect the costs associated with increasing childhood obesity, loss of community amenities, loss of social capital, increased road traffic and associated measures to protect commuting children to be deducted from their projected savings?

Minister Barr and Dr Bruniges (CEO of ACT Education Department) also acknowledged that risk assessments had not been done for the children forced to travel when their local school is closed. Dr Bruniges admitted that such assessments were required by law. When can we expect the results of these assessments to be published?

Projected enrolment for Turner incorrect

The projected enrolment at 2010 for Turner Primary under the Towards 2020 proposal is listed as the capacity (350), rather than unchanged from the 2010 status quo projections (275).

Tuggeranong Figures a Shambles

The projected enrolments in Tuggeranong under the Towards 2020 plan do not match those quoted for the status quo.There are five hundred more students under the Towards 2020 proposal.

Two glaring errors are obvious:

School plan based on no data

The importance of “decision grade” information to support decision-makers was stressed in Steve Neilsen’s column (Canberra Times, Public Sector Informant, July 4). One wonders if any information was used to decide school closures, let alone “decision grade”. The projected enrolments in Tuggeranong under the Towards 2020 plan have 500 more students than the projected enrolments under the current system. This is largely because the figures for Chilsholm and Wanniassa P-10 schools have been inflated by 320 and 200 pupils respectively. As well the projected enrolment for Wanniassa Hills Primary has been swapped with Wanniassa Primary. The projected enrolment for Theodore Primary has been mistakenly listed as the current enrolment.

Apart from the absolutely shambolic nature of the document, what are we to make of this? My interpretation is that these figures were not calculated as part of a comprehensive plan, but cobbled together after the decisions had already been made. On what basis, only the Minister can tell us. My bet is it will turn out to be Cabinet-in-confidence.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 11th July.

College system not broken

Colleges in the ACT are a success story (“Closures alone won’t work: expert”, June 5) as 63% of yr 11 and 12 students attend Government schools in the ACT. This is above the nation-wide average of 60% whereas public schooling rates in high schools and primary schools in the ACT are generally below the national average. The ACT College system is not broken, so please don’t try and fix it Mr Barr!

Barr dodges again

Minister Barr again dodged the question of incorrect capacity figures at the North Canberra consultative meeting (Canberra Times, July 4) by repeating his mantra that the Principal can request an audit of capacity at any time. Isn’t it a bit late for that?

Minister Barr has admitted that in some cases the capacity figures are wrong. He has admitted that the cost per student includes those with special needs. He has admitted that the cost per student is inflated by fixed building costs that will not be saved if the school is closed. The total number of students in the projected figures do not agree between the status quo and under their proposals. The data used for making the decisions in the Towards2020 document have been shown to be flawed, so the proposals cannot be regarded as sound. There has been no external review of their proposals to examine their educational or financial merit.

Now we find out from the Education Department that in some cases demountables may have to be used if some schools have a large influx of displaced students. Now there is some irony!

It is time for the Government to scrap Towards2020 and start again from scratch. Let us hope they are brave enough to take this step.

Update: Published in the Canberra Times, July 5th.

Public school system chaos

The rush to close schools will have massive repercussions over the entire education system, public and private as outlined in your article (Public school system chaos, July 3). This is an important message for parents whose children attend schools not listed for closure. They must ask hard questions of the Government about the dodgy capacity figures, and how their schools will be affected with large influxes of kids from other schools. Parents of out of area children currently enrolled in affected schools (Miles Franklin, Evatt, Kaleen, Maribyrnong, Aranda, Weetangera, Bonython, Calwell, Chisholm, Monash) need to know if their children will be given lower priority than displaced kids, or if the Government plans to house any overflow in demountables.