O'Farrell: Less Money for Schools

NSW Teachers' Federation

The changes are being made under a policy called Local Schools, Local Decisions. The Government wants you to believe that your child will be better off if more decisions are made locally.

That may seem OK on face value, but please don’t be fooled. The Local Schools, Local Decisions policy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It’s not about improving education; it’s all about cutting education funding, and shifting blame away from the government. It’s a failed strategy that’s been imported from America and it truly spells disaster for our local schools.

Wherever these changes have been made overseas and interstate like in Victoria, governments spend less on public schools – which means fewer teachers, bigger class sizes and less individual support for students.

Students will lose

Currently the Education Department staffs schools with a guarantee that a school with a certain number of students will receive a certain number of class teachers, executive teachers, specialist teachers and administrative and support staff.

It’s a government guarantee that all students will receive a fair go wherever they attend a public school – from the bush school out west to the school in the centre of Sydney. No guarantee with a local budget

By getting rid of a staffing guarantee and giving schools a local budget instead, what will determine the number of teachers at a school, will be the amount of money in the staffing budget, not the number of students. Once this change is in place, politicians then can cut the budget over time and blame the local principal for not being able to make it stretch to meet student needs.

This is really why the O’Farrell government is pushing these changes – to spend less on your child’s education. So please don’t be fooled. Support your school’s teachers when they take action to stop these changes. When governments do the wrong thing, teachers will stand up for students’ rights to a well funded, good quality public school education.