A new study says that government schools are the clear “losers” from government funding of private schools over the past four decades.

It shows that government funding of private schools in Australia has increased socio-economic segregation between government and private schools and allowed private schools to improve school quality rather than reduce their fees.

Government funding of private schools has led to much higher concentrations of lower SES students in government schools.

This has widened the achievement gap between government and private schools and imposed much higher cost burdens on government schools.

As a result, the study says, government schools should receive higher funding per student than private schools.

The study also says that private schools will continue to use government funding to improve school quality by reducing student/teacher ratios and attract higher SES students away from government schools unless their funding is made conditional on regulation of fees and selection of students.

The study is published in the latest issue of the Australian Journal of Education. The authors are Dr. Louise Watson from the University of Canberra and Dr. Chris Ryan from the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University.

The study shows that government recurrent funding for private schools increased in real terms (that is, adjusted for inflation) from about $500 per Catholic secondary school student in the early 1970s to over $6000 in 2007 and from less than $1000 per Independent secondary student to about $5000 in 2007.

It demonstrates that private schools have used increased government funding to increase school quality by reducing student/teacher ratios rather than to reduce fees and open up their schools to students from low socio-economic status (SES) families.

School fees have continued to increase in real terms: Catholic school fees increased by 160% from the early 1970s to 2002 in real terms while Independent school fees increased by 70%.

These increases far exceeded increases in real income over the same period: per capital real household disposable income increased by 46% between 1972 and 2002 while real male average weekly earnings increased by 26%.

The additional resources available for private schools from increased government funding and fees allowed them to significantly improve student/teacher ratios.

In the early 1970s, there were about 23-24 students to every teacher in Catholic secondary schools; by 2007, it was less than 13 per teacher. The ratio for Independent secondary schools fell from over 14 to 10.5 students per teacher. The student/teacher ratio in government schools fell from 15 to just over 12 over the same period.

The improvement in student/teacher ratios in private schools has been much greater than in government schools.

The student/teacher ratio in Catholic secondary schools as a proportion of the government school student/teacher ratio fell from about 1.4 to 1.0 in 2008. The Independent school proportion relative to government schools fell from 1.1 to less than 0.9.

The study shows a strong relationship between the relative improvement in private school student/teacher ratios relative to government schools and their increasing share of total enrolments.

Improving student/teacher ratios enabled by government funding and fee increases has been a factor in the shift in enrolments to private schools since the early 1980s.

The study also shows that increasing school fees have ensured that it is mainly higher SES families that have been able to take advantage of the improvement in private school quality.

The students who transferred from government to private schools between 1975 and 2006 tended to be from the middle to the top SES families. About 60% of the decline in government school enrolments over the period was from the top half of the SES distribution.

Those who transferred were from above-average SES families relative to the 1975 government school population, but below the average SES of the 1975 private school population.

This meant that while the average SES of students in government schools fell between 1975 and 2006, the average SES of private school students also fell by more than for government schools.

However, the average SES of both Catholic and Independent schools remained significantly higher than that of government schools in 2006.

The transfer of higher SES students to private schools has significantly changed the socio-economic composition of government secondary schools.

In contrast to 1975, the majority of students in government secondary schools in 2006 attended schools whose SES is below average. Moreover, the proportion of government secondary schools with concentrations of low SES students increased between 1975 and 2006.

In 1975, there were two more common types of government secondary schools: one with students from SES backgrounds well below the average of the community and one with students whose SES was above average. In 2006, government schools with above average SES were less common. Indeed, the average SES of the ‘high’ SES-type government schools was below the average SES of the community.

The study draws two significant implications for education policy from its findings.

First, a widening of student achievement between government and private schools can be expected because of the lower average SES of students in the government sector.

It is a well-established research finding that student SES has a significant impact on educational attainment. As lower SES students now make up a higher proportion of government school enrolments average achievement levels in government schools can be expected to be lower than in private schools.

Further, the higher concentrations of low SES students in government schools can be expected add more downward pressure on student achievement.

A second implication is that this trend can be expected to increase costs per student in the government sector. It means that the cost of educating a government school student to an agreed standard will always be higher than in a private school.

Government school systems also bear the additional costs of taking all students regardless of background and supporting small schools in rural areas.

As result, the study recommends that government schools should be funded at a higher level per student than private schools.

…when governments set funding benchmarks for all schools, they should expect private schools to operate effectively at a lower level of resources per student than private schools. This is a reasonable assumption as long as private schools enrol a smaller proportion of low SES students than public schools and are free of any expectations regarding universal provision. [p.104]

The study also suggests that strong government regulation of fees and enrolments in private schools should be minimum requirements in any funding system aiming to expand educational opportunities by supporting private school choice.

Trevor Cobbold National Convenor
26 July 2010

The publication details of the study are as follows:

Watson, L. & Ryan, C 2010. Choosers and Losers: The Impact of Government Subsidies on Australian Secondary Schools. Australian Journal of Education, 54 (1): 86-107.

SOS – Fighting for Equity in Education

http://www.saveourschools.com.au

Your rights at work

Workplace safety on Australian waterfronts must be overhauled to stem the mounting death toll among stevedoring workers.

Three deaths and a spate of serious injuries and near misses in a little over six months is not good enough and suggests that waterfront deregulation has reduced safety, said ACTU President Ged Kearney.

At memorial services today, unions around Australia are joining their colleagues in the Maritime Union of Australia in remembering the waterside workers who have been killed on the job in recent years.

The most recent death is that of Stephen Piper, who was killed in a work accident on Melbourne’s Appleton Dock on 14 July. His funeral service is being held today.

Ms Kearney said the waterfront remained one of the most dangerous workplaces in Australia, despite major productivity improvements.

“The growing death toll among stevedoring workers – eight in the past seven years – has to be stopped,” Ms Kearney said.

Australia’s wharves are busier than ever yet there are weaknesses in the underlying safety culture of the industry that stem in part from the deregulation of stevedoring that occurred during the Howard Government years.

“Deregulation and casualisation of the stevedoring workforce has had an impact on skill levels and training, competency standards, and the way work is structured.

“Maritime workers report that there is also inconsistency of approaches to safety management and safety practice.”

Ms Kearney said the ACTU backed the MUA’s call for an urgent and high-level national stevedoring safety task force to investigate what needs to be done to improve waterfront safety.

“Every worker should be able to go to work at the beginning of the day secure in the knowledge that they will return to their family unscathed,” Ms Kearney said.

“We need to lift workplace health and safety standards for all workers, not reduce them.”

Also:

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally today expressed deep sorrow over the death of wharfie Stephen Piper and the awful statistic of 3 deaths on Australian wharves in 5 months.

Speaking before nearly 400 maritime workers, their families, friends and dignitaries, Ms Keneally, also pledged her support – and the NSW Government’s – to the Maritime Union’s campaign to achieve consistent safety guidelines and regulations right across the country.

The Premier was visibly moved as Mich-Elle Myers read the email written by Fremantle wharfie Ash Huish, the message encapsulated in

“No family should sit and wait at the end of the working day for a loved one who never returns”.

Ash’s words were recited at every service around the country.

Unions leant their support headed by Unions NSW’s Secretary Mark Lennon.

Wharfies and their families held up banners with the faces of 8 workers killed on the wharves in less than 10 years.

One of those bore the smiling face of Nick Fanos, crushed to death at Port Botany in April. Nick’s sister Maria bravely held up his banner.

Later Sister Mary Leahy of Apostleship of the Sea offered comfort for those grieving.

The Sydney service was repeated across the country, lead by the highly emotional and dignified funeral in the Boyd Chapel, Springvale in Melbourne.

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said that the church service was a celebration of the wonderful life of a loving dad and husband.

“It was about family and friends from the wharves and all walks of life. They paid homage to the joyful and generous character that was Steven Piper”, said Crumlin.

A full service could not hold some 200 wharfies who gathered outside the church.

The mourners included ACTU President Ged Kearney and former National Secretary John Coombs, arm in arm with his wife Gwen.

Kearney subsequently sent out a press release calling for “workplace safety on Australian waterfronts to be overhauled to stem the mounting death toll among stevedoring workers”.

Close to 1000 workers attended the Fremantle service led by a number of politicians including the leader of the opposition Eric Ripper, ALP Canning candidate, Alannah McTiernan and Fremantle Federal MP Melissa Page, as well as reassuring words from Father Patrick Moore of the Stella Maris Seafarers Centre.

“There was a lot of sorrow and just as much anger from workers. There was a feeling that everyone has had enough, that we can’t wait for this to happen again”, said West Australian Branch Secretary Chris Cain.

Even on a public holiday in Darwin 60 wharfies attended a service that ended in a wreath floating in the sea off Stokes Hill wharf.

In Brisbane the ALP candidate for Wright Andrew Ramsay was among the mourners. We will add more stories on the Brisbane and other services as they come to hand.

Read more
http://www.mua.org.au/

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Socialist Project

The massive police presence in Toronto over this week has been officially
justified on the basis of protecting the leaders of the G8 and G20 countries meeting in Huntsville and Toronto.

We were told that the creation of the fenced-in fortress, the massive mobilization of police (estimates ranging from 10-20,000) from across Canada, and even the passing of a
secret law on policing (by the executive of the Ontario government without
reference to the Legislative Assembly and the opposition parties) that made it a crime to appear within five metres of the security fence would protect our right to protest as well.

This is not what has unfolded in Toronto over the weekend.

Thousands of protesters marched peacefully on Friday, challenging the purpose and agenda of the G20, although completely hemmed on all sides by
thousands of heavily armed police over the entire march (and severely hampering the freedom of assembly).

On Saturday, in the midst of a larger
demonstration (estimated at between 10-25,000), organized by the labour, anti-privatization and peace movements, a series of unwarranted acts of
vandalism by a small number of protesters against stores, vehicles and buildings, was used as an excuse for a massive unleashing of repression and attacks by police against the democratic rights of both protestors, and
Torontonians as a whole.

(Like what happened at the Montebello Summit of
North American leaders in August 2007, it will come out over the next weeks
how widely the police had infiltrated some of the key groups — especially the so-called Black Bloc, knew the planning and participated as agent
provocateurs.)

Click here to continue reading:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/377.php#continue

joe hill

http://leftfocus.blogspot.com/2010/06/legacy-rudd-labor-and-challenge.html

first join a union

At the rally they were very powerful, passionate speakers in defence of political prisoners and those who the law won’t protect.

Remember the Birmingham Six? “They all said what happened to us would never happen again”

Johnny Walker – A terrible injustice
from Irish Republican News, Nov 23, 2009

Thirty five years ago, six Irishmen were jailed for crimes they did not commit, and spent 16 years in jail before their convictions were quashed.

As blows rained down on Johnny Walker’s stomach during a brutal beating at the hands of the police, he realised that in saying almost nothing, he had still said too much. “They were beating me up and my shirt came open and I told them I had stomach ulcers, so all the punches went down there… I should have shut my big mouth,” he says, his voice quavering.

Even now – 35 years after he was wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings – the trauma he endured has left raw mental scars to go with the physical marks left by torture and beatings at the hands of the police and prison officers. “I still got parts of my body that is not right… they knocked all my teeth out… I’ll carry these scars to my grave.”

Walker was one of six men – with Richard McIlkenny, Paddy Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Billy Power and Gerry Hunter – wrongly jailed for killing 21 people and injuring 182 others 35 years ago on 21 November 1974. Once the police and prison guards got their hands on him, they inflicted violent vengeance before the courts could even begin to consider justice.

He shakes at the memory of what happened to him: “I’m paying the price now [for] what they done to me…” According to the doctor who visited him all those years ago, his body was covered in cuts and bruises. But physical trauma paled compared to the mental assault. In a statement made to his solicitors at the time, he told of becoming “completely deranged” as a result of the repeated beatings and psychological torture of mock executions, where he was made to believe he would be shot in the head.

Then he spent more than 16 years in prison in what was later described as one of “the greatest disasters to have shaken British justice in my time” by the late Lord Devlin, a former law lord and Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal. It cost Walker his wife, children, home, health, almost his sanity.

Speaking at his home in a remote corner of Donegal, where the 74-year-old lives with his second wife, Paivi, 50, and son Martti, 15, he said: “I can remember it all from yesterday. I can tell you, from the day it happened, what happened that day, to the day I die. It’s planted in your mind – you never forget that.”

He added: “I’m standing here shaking like a leaf, so I am, oh aye, yes… it brings it all back. That’s why I try and keep it out. I don’t like talking about it too much, it all comes back to you… “ He slumps, bowed under the weight of every one of his 74 years. “… just like yesterday.”

When, finally, he was freed, he withdrew from mankind and stayed withdrawn. He lives a quiet life in a tiny village on the north-west coast of Ireland. “I don’t trust anybody any more. It’s a sad thing to say. When you meet people for the first time, you’re always a wee bit wary about them.”

The inside of his immaculate three-bed house – down the end of a dirt track overlooking the sea – gives no clue to his past. The nearest neighbour is a couple of minutes’ walk away. It is an isolated but beautiful setting, underpinned by calm and routine. Every morning, he takes his labrador cross, Mukka, for a walk along the beach before returning to his home.

But its walls and the idyllic surroundings are not enough to keep out savage, marauding memories. Terrifying flashbacks come regularly. He doesn’t want to give details: “You go to bed, you have these dreams. You wake up and you’re covered in sweat.”

Recalling this prompts bitterness at what was done to him and the insult added to injury when not a single police or prison officer was punished.

He has spent years escaping the notoriety of being one of the Birmingham Six. The only other member of the six he keeps in touch with is Gerry Hunter, and it has been 18 years since he last gave an interview to a national newspaper. “I haven’t spoken to anybody for years. This is my last interview… as we say, enough is enough. I’ve got to get on with life. I’m getting old now.

“I just want to walk into the pub, just be an individual. Go and have a drink with me friends and not people pointing you out and talking about you… I mean I think it would have stopped after all these years, but it’s still there.”

He was 39 and married with seven children when he was arrested on his way to the funeral of an IRA member, James McDade, on the night of the bombings. That the six were Irish and also knew McDade seemed to be all the evidence the police and courts needed. They were convicted in 1975 and sentenced to life.

By the time he finally got out, his family were strangers to him: he was divorced from his wife, Theresa, less than a year after being freed. “It was sad; two strangers living under the same roof.” He lost contact with most of his children – the worst thing of all, he says. His youngest daughter, Joanna, was two when he went to jail. He emerged to find her a grown woman: “I had seven children, but I didn’t know them.”

It was hard to adjust: “You would sit in a conversation where everybody’s laughing and joking, and you wouldn’t know what they were talking about… you’re not involved in it, you’re not a part of the family.”

He spent a year and a half drinking: at one point getting through two bottles of vodka a day. “If I was drunk, the whole world passed me by. I couldn’t handle life as I wasn’t part of that life.” Things began spiralling out of control. He told his sister he needed help. “They brought me down here to Donegal, in a wee house by the beach, kept me out of the pubs. Then, after six months, I met this second lady of mine, my wife now. She come over from Finland and looked after me.” That was 16 years ago.

These days “it all depends how you wake up in the morning… I’m like an Aborigine, I go walkabout for a couple of days in a world of my own sometimes… I’m not the nicest person sometimes to live with, but that’s not my fault; I can’t help it.

“Even now, talking about it, I do get a wee bit wired up… but I have got to bring it out now and again to get it out of my system.

“We’re getting older now and we’re getting sentimental. We look back at life and what we’ve lost… It’s hard enough to be locked away when you’ve done something… but if you’ve done nothing it’s very, very hard.”

The case is an indelible black mark on the British judicial system: confessions obtained by systematic beatings; statements doctored.

The convictions were finally quashed on appeal in 1991, but they had to wait another decade before getting compensation. Incredibly, money was deducted for their stay in prison.

No one has been brought to justice for the bombings and case will not be reopened “in a million years”, he says: “There’s too much scandal.

All I can say is that we never done it, the police know who done it – they knew from day one who done it, and still they put me in prison.”

He admits “hatred” for the British authorities: “Everybody’s a terrorist as far as they’re concerned now,” he adds, referring to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. “If you’re a coloured chap and you’re on a train and you’re carrying a bag, it’s ‘oh, like watch him, he’s a terrorist’… it’s awful.

“They all said what happened to us would never happen again… but the Pakistanis, the Indians, these different nationalities, they’re getting the backlash now. I don’t think there’s been much change, to be honest.”

The very notion of an apology from the Government fires him up further: “There’s no chance the British government is going to apologise to six Irish men, no chance! The justice we got was: after 16 and a half years they let us out of prison. They thought they were doing us a good turn. I don’t want their apology. I know I was right and they were wrong… that does me. We’ve got to bury the hatchet one day, and I think it is buried after tonight.”

His voice is quiet: “What happened to us should never happen again. We pray it never happens to anybody.”

The Best Hated Man in Australia
The Life and Death of Percy Brookfield 1875 – 1921
by Paul Robert Adams

They don’t make politicians like ‘Jack’ Brookfield anymore.

From mining underground in Broken Hill he ‘rose like a meteor in public life’ to be possibly the most extreme anti-politician ever to be elected in this country.

The Great War and the years that followed saw unprecedented
political turmoil in Australia, and Brookfield was in the thick of it.

By the time he was fatally shot at Riverton in South Australia, Brookfield held the balance of power in NSW and had played major roles in many of the era’s main political and industrial events: the Big Strike, the plot of the ‘IWW Twelve’ to burn down Sydney, and the bitter national conscription debate.

‘Percy Brookfield was a giant among labour leaders.

In life, as in the manner of death, he made personal sacrifice the measure of his political commitment.

Morally and physically fearless, his probity withstood parliament.

Paul Adams has given us a biography as thoroughly gripping as it is thoroughly researched. Inspiration floods from its pages’.
—Humphrey McQueen

‘Both the radical life and untimely death of Percy Brookfield are the stuff of Australian labour legend. Finally, we have a biography that, while stating the case for Brookfield, richly contextualises and analyses his brief but turbulent career in trade unionism and radical politics. In this fine book, Paul Robert
Adams has created a vivid portrait of a militant working-class leader who inspired both great hatred and deep affection. The author creates a richly detailed portrait of an extraordinary place, the great mining town of Broken Hill, during extraordinary times, the First World War, the gravest crisis the world had ever known’.
— Frank Bongiorno

‘It is an extraordinary oversight that this man, with such a crucial role in state, labour and local politics, should have been overlooked for so long’.
—Erik Eklund

‘This is a book that should be read by all Australians interested in their nation’s history’.
—David Day

Dr Paul Robert Adams was born in Broken Hill.
He holds a PhD from The University of Sydney and currently teaches media at The University of New England.

CoverBrookfield
Puncher & Wattmann
ABN 94 002 569 507
httw: / /www.puncherandwattmann.com

Rights on site campaigns to abolish the ABCC

26 June, 2010 | Media Release
Australian unions warmly congratulate ACTU President Sharan Burrow on her election as the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.

http://www.ituc-csi.org/second-ituc-world-congress.html

Ms Burrow was elected to head the global union body at its Congress in Vancouver overnight.

The Brussels-based ITUC is the world’s peak union body, working to advance and protect workers’ rights across the globe.

It directly represents 176 million workers from 156 countries and territories.

Ms Burrow, who has been President of the ITUC and its predecessor, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, since 2004, was elected unopposed to a four-year term.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said her election was a monumental achievement for Australian unions.

“Sharan has been a great advocate for working people in Australia throughout her career,” Mr Lawrence said.

“We will never forget the magnificent role she played during the Your Rights at Work campaign to ditch the Howard Government’s disastrous WorkChoices.

“It is fitting that one of Sharan’s final achievements in Australia was to see the national paid parental leave legislation passed by Parliament. This has been an issue she has campaigned tirelessly on for decades.

“It has been hard to see Sharan go, but this is an incredibly proud time for Australian unions to see a woman from regional New South Wales elected to such an important post.

“We look forward to seeing Sharan continue her passionate advocacy for workers around the world.”

Ms Burrow’s term as ACTU President will end on 30 June.

She has been President of the ACTU since May 2000.

Ged Kearney, outgoing Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, has been elected the next ACTU President from 1 July.

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‘Australian Unions congratulate Julia Gillard on becoming Australia’s first woman Prime Minister. We will work closely with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister and are united in preventing a return to the Coalition and its disastrous WorkChoices policy.

This election is important for working Australians and their families. If Tony Abbott and the Liberal party are elected they will return to the worst element of WorkChoices and cut services our members and their families rely on.

The ACTU is releasing factsheets on issues that matter for working Australians and their families. Please find attached the first of these on:
Resource Super Profits Tax
Superannuation
Minimum wage
Health

These factsheets are for you to use to for discussion with workers about issues that concern them this election. Please distribute them to other union officials, organisers, delegates, and members.

In the near future we intend to also have information sheets on the union agenda for:
Delegate rights
Bargaining
Job and income security
Economy and jobs
Supporting Australian industries
Work, family, and equal pay
Education and training

With the election set to be a close contest, we must stay focused and get the facts out to working people.

As many of you will be aware, we have commenced on-the-ground campaigns in every state. If you’re not already, I would encourage you to get involved.’
ACTU coordinators are in each state.
http://www.actu.org.au/

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