By Chris Breen
Public education is in an unacknowledged crisis. Public schools educated 77% of all students in 1966, it is now just 56% in NSW and falling. Two thirds of the growth in student numbers since the year 2000 has gone to private schools. Ex-Coalition Prime Minister John Howard once attacked public schools claiming they should just be a “safety net”. Tragically this is the direction in which we are headed. When a shrinking public system takes the most disadvantaged students, and students with complex needs, that private schools refuse to enrol, it is inevitable that public school teachers face worsening student behaviour problems.
The crisis of public education is fundamentally a product of funding inequality. The crisis has been made worse by neoliberal teaching fads and ‘fixes’ like NAPLAN, which try to make schools compete and blame teachers for the subsequent mess. This has led to unsustainable workloads, the undermining of teachers’ professional judgement of how to teach in the classroom, and the constant devaluing of the teaching profession.
The Albanese Labor government claims its school funding plan will deliver smaller classes, but it hasn’t and won’t this election cycle, nor the one after. As occurred with the promised Gonski program, an incoming Coalition government might scrap any anticipated funding plan.
Australian schools are currently funded under the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) model, which includes a base amount per student and then loadings for students with additional needs. In 2024 NSW public schools were only funded at 88.7% of their SRS. The Minns NSW Labor government promised to lift its funding share from 68.7 % of SRS to 75% in 2025, but this still falls short of its benchmark of 80%. Meanwhile, it still overfunds private schools.
Albanese has promised NSW an extra $4.8 billion, increasing the Commonwealth contribution from 20 to 25%. But this deal is backloaded and full SRS funding has been put off until 2034. Meanwhile the workload increase of tied phonics and numeracy checks are mandated immediately.
Albanese promised $16.5 billion for all Australian public schools, but the federal budget for the next four years has just $400 million of new money. That comes to about $25 million per year extra for NSW public schools – that doesn’t even make up for the $148 million the Minns Labor government cut from the system. If the current rate of new money is maintained it would take 160 years to reach full funding.
Compare this to things Labor really cares about. Labor has given $1.6 billion of new money to Trump this year for the AUKUS nuclear submarines, and will soon hand over another billion. That’s 26 times the amount of new money they have found for public schools this year. That money could fund smaller classes, workload relief, resources to deal with student behaviour issues or higher pay for teachers.
Public education is at a crossroads, governments can continue to undermine it and we can end up with a school system like the US, with charter schools, and profiteering educompanies. Or we could rebuild public education and aim for a system more like Finland where around 97 percent of schools are public. Perversely for those who champion education as competition, rather than for the intrinsic joy and value of learning, it is the more equal Finish system that produces better results. To rebuild public education we need to fund public schools fairly now, not in 2034.
I am currently running for president of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, because our union needs to take action to campaign for immediate full funding of public education. Electoral campaigns with billboards claiming “Albanese School Funding Plan Will Deliver Smaller Classes” are not enough. If we can’t get full SRS funding (which is already inadequate) under a second term Labor government that claims that public education is in its DNA, when will we?
Chris Breen is a high school Maths and Science teacher running for president on the ACTION ticket in the NSWTF elections.
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One could be forgiven for thinking Albanese is full of shit,tell me it isn’t so.That funding promise will be in a secure warehouse somewhere ,with all the other broken promises.What’s new?
Another Labor fail. Not that many of us thought he’d honour that one.
Many schools have smaller classes.
ps godwin’s law losers refer to hitler but the concept is the same for any education losers who refer to ‘finland’.
Private and religious schools are not superior, no matter how much parents pay. Their teachers are trained in the same universities. The curriculum is identical. My limited experience of private schools shows that the difficult and challenging students are quietly asked to leave, while generous scholarships are offered to talented students, luring them away from state schools where they were doing fine, so as to improve the academic levels of the private schools. Likewise with students with high levels of sporting or musical prowess.
Studies have shown that students from state schools do better at university as well. For example:
https://theconversation.com/state-school-kids-do-better-at-uni-29155
Albanese promised smaller classes for public schools. Where are they?
Ooooh! Recognising that state/public schools are the province of the states and not the Commonwealth, you could anticipate a state rebellion if not civil war if the Commonwealth tried to dictate the size of classes for public schools, a Trumpian move if ever there was one.