Education

Private schools should be accountable for public funding

jfield — 2010-08-26T05:01:50Z

Read John's comments in the Sydney Morning Herald: 'Private schools stay quiet on cash bonanza', SMH page 1, 23 August.

Dr Kaye said: "It should not have to be up to journalists pouring through the financial returns to the corporate regulator to expose the wealthiest private schools surpluses and the way public funds contribute to their very healthy balance sheets.

"With $432 million of federal funding each year for the 161 most exclusive institutions, they should be fully accountable in how they spend their money.

"Instead they hide behind highly opaque annual school reports that reveal very little about the real state of their finances.

"No other institutions receiving this amount of public funding gets away with such a poor level of accountability.

"The public should be able to find at a click of a mouse button a full account of how their money is being spent.

"It is hardly surprising that the representatives of some of the wealthiest private schools are trying to stop their accounts being exposed to public view.

"Many of them are rolling in money yet receive generous tax payer-funded subsidies.

"The figures are a huge embarrassment to schools like Cranbrook and Ascham.

"They show that the public purse is being used to bolster very healthy bottom lines.

"The Gillard government gave the nation's 161 wealthiest private schools $432 million this year.

"Analysis of the financial returns proves just how inefficient and unfair those subsidies are," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Keneally government fails overcrowded public schools

jfield — 2010-08-27T01:12:56Z

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: "Public schools should not be the victims
of their own success.

“Students are forced to learn in inappropriate and crowded spaces like
internet cafes and former storage rooms.

"NSW Education Minister Verity Firth is sitting back and allowing the
attractiveness of these schools to diminish as more students are forced
to learn in unacceptable conditions.

"The Minister is relying on market forces to cap enrolment numbers at
these highly successful public schools rather than intervening to
protect the students and teachers from overcrowding.

"She is punishing students, staff and parents by shoehorning yet more
kids into spaces designed for a much smaller enrolment.

"The Keneally government has no vision for schools like Killara and
Arthur Phillip.

“These are the beacon comprehensive schools whose teachers are
delivering the quality parents want.

“Instead of drowning them in students, Verity Firth should be using
their success as a guide to the future of all public schools," Dr Kaye
said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Orgill damns NSW BER management

jfield — 2010-08-26T06:28:34Z

Dr Kaye said: "The comparison with costs in the state's Catholic system is both valid and stark. The state government's per square metre costs were 38.2 percent higher.

"Across the $3.1 billion program, the Department's poor management squandered $856 million which could have been spent on more school infrastructure and greater quality outcomes.

"If the NSW government had been able to match the Catholic system's value for money, public schools would have received 38.2 percent more libraries, school halls and classrooms.

"It is hardly surprising that NSW was the source of 56 percent of the complaints despite having only 30 percent of the projects.

"Public school parents and school communities have been deeply offended by the poor value for money.

"Brad Orgill has provided the hard data that justifies the anger they felt when they looked across the road and saw the Catholic and Independent schools getting much better outcomes for the same money.

"The NSW government and the Department richly deserve the adverse attention they received in the Orgill report and its recommendations.

"The comparison with the state's Catholic schools shows just how much better the BER could have been managed in NSW public schools if the bureaucrats had trusted the principals, teachers and parents and worked in partnership with them.

"Instead school communities were treated with contempt and the price has been paid.

"Education Minister Verity Firth and her department cannot slide out of this by saying NSW is more expensive. The Catholic system faced the same geographic challenges and building costs. They put the Department to shame by handling them better.

"Education Minister Verity Firth and her Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter are now in the firing line. If they cannot adequately explain what happened to the $856 million, then the Premier should consider their future," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Spin won't help rural kids read

jfield — 2010-08-03T22:22:19Z

'Specialist reading services renewed', SMH p 5, 4 August

Dr Kaye said: "While parents extracted some remarkable concessions from the Keneally government, the panel's findings give Education Minister Verity Firth cover to slash the residential service and push much of the assessment off to Westmead Hospital.

"This might reduce per student costs but it is bad news for the young people who desperately need a supportive environment like Dalwood and the intensive four weeks of targeted remedial education.

"The report creates greater barriers to entry to the program, including more restrictive geographic criteria and the need for a medical certificate.

"Aboriginal children will be particularly disadvantaged by the changes.

"Without any scientific basis, the panel is slashing the four week live-in program down to five days. The opportunity to lay a firm foundation for addressing literacy learning needs will be denied to many students with intensive support needs.

"Westmead Hospital can be a busy and intimidating environment for a vulnerable young person from the bush.

"Dalwood and Palm Avenue provided children with a more supportive and calm atmosphere where their needs could catered to.

"Two new regional assessment centres and a three tiered approach to treatment are a step towards acknowledging the extent of literacy learning needs in rural and regional NSW. However, without a massive injection of funding, the panel's recommendations will become an excuse to slash quality services.

"Education Minister Verity Firth is busy welcoming the report, but she is remarkably silent on the loss of the four week residential service and the move to Westmead hospital. This remains a victory for the bureaucrats who were always hostile to Dalwood and Palm Avenue," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

NSW govt fails to manage asbestos risk in schools

jfield — 2010-08-03T00:10:14Z

See the Sydney Morning Herald story: 'Revealed: students exposed to asbestos'
3 August, page 1

Dr Kaye said: "Each of these events could have resulted in the exposure of students, teachers and parents with potentially disastrous consequences.

"The Department of Education’s Asbestos Register is supposed to record where materials containing the fibre are located. Contractors are then supposed to be informed so they can implement appropriate handling procedures.

"The Register and the protocols around it are clearly not working. If they were, then contractors would have been warned off before they disturbed the dangerous fibres.

"The Keneally government can no longer hide behind its Asbestos Register.

"It is not working. If it were, then there would be far fewer interventions by Work Cover and exposure of students, teachers and community members would be very rare.

"The NSW Department of Education should drop the spin about the Register and get on with fixing the gaps in the record of the location of asbestos materials.

"Minister got Education Verity Firth must ensure that every contractor working on public school grounds knows where the dangerous fibres are and what needs to be done to avoid exposure," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

School heater report shows need for immediate action from Firth

jfield — 2010-07-27T06:04:11Z

Dr Kaye said: "The Woolcock report confirms what the NSW health department was telling private schools years ago.

"Unflued gas heaters are unsafe for kids whether they are standard or low NOx models.

"The report confirms that low NOx is a marketing term, not a scientific description.

"This report should spell the end of unflued gas heaters in the state's public schools.

"The Keneally government has taken the first tentative step towards bringing NSW into line with other states.

"Successive Labor governments have deliberately frustrated the campaign by parents to protect the health of their children

"Students across NSW have suffered four years of unnecessary exposure to toxic fumes.

"Without a timetable and a budget for the replacement of unflued gas heaters the health impacts are set to continue.

"The unequivocal evidence of the Woolcock report shows that any further delay on replacing gas heaters will happen at the expense of students' health.

"After years of frustrating the campaign against unflued gas heaters, the minister has finally been forced to admit the scientific reality that they are inflicting an unacceptable health toll on students

"The challenge is with the minister to respond by finding the money and timetable to eradicate these dangerous heaters before the beginning of next winter.

"Premier Keneally can't handpass this problem to the next government. The Woolcock inquiry demands that action is taken now.

"NSW Education Minister Verity Firth must bring forward the release of the timetable so the public can have confidence that this problem will be fixed," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Inquiry condemns inadequate funding for students with disabilities

jfield — 2010-07-21T04:50:33Z

The Standing Committee's report is available HERE.

Dr Kaye said: "Both the Keneally and Gillard governments have failed in their duty to provide the resources needed to provide quality education for children who struggle with intellectual and physical disabilities, autism, mental illness and learning difficulties.

"The Committee heard from hundreds of hard working teachers and desperate parents who were at their wits end trying to compensate for a lack of places and appalling levels of funding support for children with special needs in mainstream classrooms.

"The recommendations are a clear agenda for the federal and state elections.

"The Keneally government's proposed reorganisation of special needs funding came in for stinging criticism from teachers. The Committee was warned that the loss of funding and specialist teachers would make an already difficult situation much worse.

"The Inquiry found that the trial of the so-called School Learning Support program should be independently evaluated. This will inevitably expose a shabby attempt by the NSW government to cut costs on services for some of the state's most vulnerable children.

"The Greens are particularly concerned that the loss of specialist language classes will brutally disadvantage students who are experiencing delays in learning how to talk and comprehend.

"NSW Education Minister Verity Firth and Shadow Minister Adrian Piccoli must commit to deliver more funds for support classes, Schools of Specific Purposes and assistance for children in mainstream classrooms.

"The report offers a yardstick to measure both party's commitment to teachers, parents and students," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Evangelists allowed to establish beachhead in a public school

jktemp — 2010-07-13T23:30:20Z

('Churches fund high school classroom' Sydney Morning Herald, 14 July, page 3, http://bit.ly/smh100714).

Dr Kaye said: "A consortium of Baptist, Pentecostal and Assemblies of God Churches in the Lake Macquarie area have funded the development of a Special Religious Education (SRE) Centre at Warners Bay High School.

"The $30,000 centre is being constructed by enclosing a lunch shelter in the school grounds.

"The centre violates the spirit of the Education Act and its commitment to non-sectarian and secular education. "Education Minister Verity Firth has failed to protect the secular nature of public schools. "She has allowed a group of churches to occupy part of the school to peddle the creationist myth.

"Many parents chose public schools because they do not want their children proselytised by aggressive evangelists like the Globe Church.

"The Warners Bay Christian Education Association has effectively annexed land at the High School for a chapel. Students who are do not subscribe to the Association's religious views will be alienated from a space in their own school.

"The local Christian churches have been handed a beachhead in a public high school to launch a recruiting campaign. This is an insult to the parents and teachers who are committed to a secular space for students.

"The SRE centre acts as an implied endorsement of the churches that have sponsored it.

"The authority of teachers and the school is being used to promote a particular set of religions. That is counter to the Department's policy and guidelines and it is entirely inappropriate in a public education setting," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

Department keeps parents in the dark over asbestos risk

jktemp — 2010-07-07T00:08:10Z

('Parents not told of asbestos risk,' Sydney Morning Herald 7 July, http://bit.ly/smh100707)

Dr Kaye said: "The Department's register of asbestos failed to protect students, parents and teachers from potential asbestos exposure.

"Instead of being instantly open and honest with the school community, the Department kept parents and teachers in the dark. "Education Minister Verity Firth must step and in ensure that this never happens again.

"The Department's failure to warn parents that their children might have been exposed created a climate of even greater fear. "Teachers have every right to be angry with the Department and the Minister for failing to inform their community.

"A search of the Department's website reveals that they are more interested in what parents must not be told than in creating an environment of openness. "The Greens are calling on Minister Firth to find out where the cover up occurred within her Departmental structure and to change the policy so that parents and teachers are always notified when risk exposure occurs.

"The Minister should also apologise to the North Katoomba parents and teachers for the shabby way they have been treated.

"A review the asbestos register and the way it is being used is urgently needed to make sure that there is minimal risk of this occurring again," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

NSW Opposition must commit to ethics trial evaluation outcome

jktemp — 2010-07-05T00:39:57Z

('SA academic to assess school ethics trial' Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 2010, http://bit.ly/smh100705).

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: "We welcome the appointment of South Australian academic Sue Knight to report on the ethics trial.

"Barry O'Farrell's response will be a major test of his ability to lead a government that is not a captive of the religious right. "Many people will be watching to see if he is able to resist pressure from conservative Christian groups to cancel the program.

"Despite the vitriolic campaign run by the Sydney Anglican Church leadership, Catholic Archbishop Pell and some of his colleagues, the trial has been extremely popular with students and parents. "As the man most likely to be the next Premier, all eyes will be on Mr O'Farrell and his ability to resist the vicious attacks on this program.

"Many people are afraid of the influence of the hard rightwing faction of the Liberal party led by Upper House MP David Clarke. "Those fears will be justified if Mr O'Farrell fails to publicly commit to the future of ethics classes in NSW public schools should Dr Knight's evaluation be positive.

"Dr Knight is a well respect education expert with a wide range of expertise in teaching children to examine ways of thinking. "She is well qualified to make an informed evaluation of the trial outcomes," Dr Kaye said.

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455