Public School spending ahead of recommendations

someoneincanb: report is every classroom, in every school she has worked in.
Talking about 10 or 15 schools by now.. and no, they aren’t all in Central Canberra.

As I said, I’m only relaying information (and I do admit to some level of doubt myself to it being every room, every school)

EVERY classroom has a Smartboard?? She must be working in central canb. The only classrooms I’ve ever seen with Smartboards were closed by Stanhope (I acknowledge they didn’t actually wait for the school to close before they ripped out the Smartboard for some lucky school staying open). I’ve seen lots of glossy advertising distributed within open public schools about how Smartboards are coming… some time …
But Smartboards and capital works aren’t everything. Without quality teachers it is still the pits.

weighing in with someone else’s opinion, it does seem like the ACT D.Ed spends a whole heap of cash on public schools. My partner has started doing relief work in the ACT and says it’s a huge difference from NSW – every classroom here she has been in has a Smartboard in it… saying EVERY classroom.. who am i to argue, I haven’t seen them.

Anyway..those things aren’t cheap…

They also seem to have trouble actually getting teachers… she had 4 calls last night to work today. Has had several offers of contracts to the end of the year.

(I’m talking primary btw)

I should clarify that my observations are purely from the outside looking in, there may be state of the art facilities “in the back” that are not evident to a passerby. But I doubt it, otherwise all those kids wouldn’t be squeezing on to the old crappy basketball court at the front every day would they?

Has anybody driven past Red Hill Primary lately? There is often what looks like 2 (or more) full classes of kids squeezed onto a single basketball court with backboards that are too low and questionably well structured. In between the carpark and the main road is a hill with what was apparently once a netball court. The rings are still there, albeit bent and rusty looking. That school has high enrolments from a struggling demographic (the area behind Red Hill shops)and is so long overdue for funding it is dispicable. Those kids parents do not have the luxury of the choice of public v private.

The Government should be ashamed that any school should be without basic outdoor education facilities when they are commissioning bullshit art on the GDE.

As for attracting good teachers, how will the Government do that when the facilities are not comparable with other schools? If I was a sports teacher, I would prefer to teach the kids on the 2 brand spanking basketball/netball/tennis courts at the private school a few kilometres down the road than on a single cracked broken bit of asphalt with 30 kids packed onto it.

darylk, it’s an election year – they count the non-permanent staff to say ‘we have plenty of teachers’.

However, they’ll soon cry ‘foul’ when over 50% retire in the next 2 years.

I personally like to see the money spent on better tables, desks, text books, ICT requirements etc than chip wood, plants, decorative stones etc that some schools are so keen to purchase just in time for the enrolment period.

Mutton dressed as lamb.

The funding has increased due to a smaller number of ‘properties’ to care for. Shame that the only ones really getting anything are the ‘Lynehams’, ‘Amaroos’ and ‘Telopeas’ of the system.

Its a cheap trick and nothing more. How much money did the government stop spending when they closed all those schools? Are they spending more than that now? Has there actually been an increase, or is the increase only since they pulled the funding on the 30 or more schools CharlieBell mentioned?

Don’t get me wrong, im all for more spending on public education, in almost any form, but the government does not deserve kudos here, it really sounds like the figures have been seriously distorted.

Any government with half a brain (which is debateable with Stahope and Co) makes the hard decisions early in their term, so as to dole out the gravy when the election comes around.

And I have no problem with that, so long as the hard decisions are made, and the gravy goes to where it will actually do some good.

dalryk: You’ve got to admit that its nice when the numbers are so shiny on an election yeah though hey?

Oh, and also for spending money on facilities, not teachers, which are presumably so plentiful that we shouldn’t have closed any schools….

It must be a tough gig being a pollie some times: Close a bunch of schools so as to consolidate service delivery, increase spending on the remaining schools with the money saved, and then be criticised simultaneously for closing schools and for the ‘election stunt’ of increasing funding.

Not that I’m a fan of our government’s work generally, but I think I’m on their side on this one.

Oh i see what you mean *catches up* you are talking about comparing the public to private ratio, im talking about comparing the comparison. It does seem manipulatable.

Yet all we ever hear about is Lyneham!

Aidan, you are so right. It’s what goes on inside the buildings that counts! Eg, look at Calwell High – the building has never been marvellous, but the school has excelled in the Arts, on a national basis, due to its curriculum.

Excuse my cynicism, but please remember its election year in the ACT.

Last year we had 30 or so schools closed. This year the government is spending lots of money on building new schools. The result is an abnormal spike of ACT government expenditure on public school buildings – and a fuss being made about it by the education minister a few months before an election.

The non-government school systems don’t need to save up their expenditure for election years.

I would argue that there isn’t a great deal wrong with the public education system. There is this sense of crisis whipped up all the time, and yet the outcomes of the Australian education system are world class (as judged by the literacy/numeracy of our population).

I thought they were comparing percentage spending of capital works between public in the ACT and public elsewhere. I still do actually.

Why is it stupid? Becuase they are comparing percentages of capital works spending between private and public, not actual dollar value per student.

I’d wager that most of the captial works spending on Private education actually comes as a result of the exhorbitant fees they charge.

Jazz: What the ACT is spending on public education isn’t relevant to elsewhere is australia? Why is it stupid to make comparisons between public schools in the ACT and elsewhere?

All well and good about improving the quality and number of teachers, but to say it is pointless to refurbish schools in other ways seems a bit much.

Kramer: Or a slightly more disturbing (if fairly extreme) scenario, it will push people to the private system until you have nearly everyone in private and public education is deemed unworkable and unneeded and scrapped altogether.

The problem with reducing spending on public education is that it effectively pushes people to the private system. As less funding = less students = less funding = less students… Until you have nearly everyone in private education, and a small number of disadvantaged people in a clapped out public school system.

Well they’d want to be doing somthing to stem the flood of students to the private schools.

nope

I mean that to claim that ACT is leading a trend may be incorrect. If every other jurisiction is shifting its capital works spending into private education then ACT is not leading anything.

That there is any comparison at all is also stupid. just because the ACT is spending more on public education capital works is only relevant in this jurisdiction and only relevant to the expectation of what people in this town want from public and private education. The amount of spending is also all pointless if you dont also improve the quality and or number of teachers to go along with it.

20 pieces of silver is what this increased funding feels like – one of my children’s schools has received an increase because of the new amalgamation that we ‘had to have’ (and no one wants) – but it feels so wrong to get more money at the expense of the now-closed schools.

I think you may be suggesting that underfunding public schools is a positive thing that is expected to yield positive results in the future? Thats why the other states are doing it? And the ACT is behind on increasing its underfunding of public schools?

I meant that if every other state and territory has less spending that perhaps the ACT it may actually at the rear of a trend in spending despite the education unions recommendations (who know’s what their agenda is).

In spite of that, all the extra spending on facilities isnt worth much if they cant sort out the other aspects of the education system like programs and well paid and qualified teachers.

that clear enough?

I’m not sure what your argument is Jazz.

You say that even though the ACT is ahead of AEU recommendations for funding public school infrastructure that this might not be enough. In the next sentence you state you’re not even sure it is worth having these facilities! These seem like contradictory positions to me.