Fighting for Equity in Education
Author: Trevor Cobbold
//Whatever Government is in power next year, we can expect to be treated to an annual public hunt for the worst schools in Australia.
The Federal ALP has joined forces with the Howard Government’s plan for a ‘crime and punishment’ approach to school improvement. The Shadow Minister for Education, Stephen Smith, says that a Federal Labor Government will ensure that state governments publish school literacy and numeracy results. Continue reading “Labor Backs School League Tables”
//The Minister for Territories and Municipal Services, John Hargreaves, has announced a two-stage community consultation process on the future use of schools and pre-schools closed at the end of last year.
Primary schools in Flynn, Hall, Chifley (Melrose), Mt. Neighbour, Rivett, Tharwa and Weston closed at the end of 2006. Also included in the consultation process are two former primary school sites in Downer and North Curtin. Continue reading “Consultations on Future Uses of Closed School Sites”
//The decision of the Stanhope Government to close 12 primary schools and partially close four others has major implications for the future of public education in the ACT.
While the reprieve for 4 schools is welcome, the announcement is the most devastating attack on a public education system since the Kennett Government in Victoria in the 1990s. Continue reading “School Closures Undermine Public Education”
//Government claims that the neighbourhood school is obsolete and that most students do not attend their local school are refuted by the Government’s own enrolment data. Continue reading “Most Children Attend Their Neighbourhood School”
//The Save Our Schools submission on Towards 2020 rejects the Government’s plan to close schools. It shows that the Government has failed to substantiate its case on educational, financial or demographic grounds.
Towards 2020 constitutes a major threat to the future of public education in the ACT. It will remove easy geographical access to public education for a large number of families. Low income and Indigenous families will bear much of the burden of school closures. It threatens greater inequity in education rather than improved equity as the Government claims.
The submission says there is an alternative to school closures. Excess space in schools should be seen as an opportunity to develop a community school model that will improve education and other services for those most in need. Continue reading “Govt. Has Failed to Substantiate the Case for School Closures”
//The majority of merged schools deliver lower exam results in the first three years according to new UK research.
A study by the Hay Group, an international management consultancy firm, shows that 55% of merged schools in the UK had a sustained decline in student performance in the three years after the merger than the average for the separate schools in the three years before. Continue reading “Most school mergers lead to lower student achievement”
//ACT Department of Education documents obtained under Freedom of Information legislation confirm Save Our Schools research that the least-well off communities in Canberra will be hardest hit by school closures. Continue reading “FOI documents Show that School Closures will hit least-well-off Communities”
//The ACT Government has failed to do a cost-benefit study of the Towards 2020 Plan despite its own policy in support of such analyses of major policy initiatives and despite the requirement of the Education Act to assess the impact of school closures proposals.
Continue reading “Why No Cost-Benefit Study of Towards 2020?”//A report prepared by an independent expert for the ACT P&C Council shows that the ACT Government has failed to sustain a case for its plan to close 39 schools and partially close 5 others. The Government has failed to undertake a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the impact of Towards 2020 and major impacts of the plan have not been properly considered. Continue reading “Independent Report Shows that the Govt. has Failed to Sustain a Case for School Closures”
//The ACT Government has failed to do a cost-benefit study of the Towards 2020 Plan despite its own policy in support of such analyses of major policy initiatives and despite the requirement of the Education Act to assess the impact of school closures proposals. Continue reading “Why No Cost-Benefit Study of Towards 2020?”