inamerrata

Wow. The ABC headline: Latham accuses Coalition of school privatisation plan. My thought “Cool. Bold and unlikely, but cool if true.” What’s actually being proposed:

The Nationals’ Kay Hull says public schools should introduce fees for parents earning more than $100,000 a year.

She also wants poorer country schools to receive more government money and the establishment of a national benchmark for Australian schools

First time I’ve seen an ABC headline make a coalition MP’s proposal sound better than it is.

The news.com article on the topic has slightly more information (and actually focusses on what Mrs Hull has to say, rather than worrying more about what Mark Latham thinks about). As well as noting she’s the MP for the Riverina (where I grew up!), it includes this:

“We should forget this debate on private and public education and look at having a benchmark which says that every school has to fulfil this standard,” she said.

“I’m saying that all schools should be brought up to a minimum standard benchmark and all capital funding money should go to those schools, and anyone who’s above the standard should get no capital works money.”

Ugh. That’s not privatisation, it’s the opposite — forcing schools to do what the government thinks is best, not what parents and student think is best. Part of the proposal is that all schools have air-conditioning and heaters; which would be appropriate in the Riverina, sure, but heaters in Brisbane, where it’s 20 degrees in mid-winter? Another part is that “anyone who’s above the [minimum] standard should get no capital works money” — which means it’s not just a minimum standard, it’s the standard. And further, people earning over $100,000 already pay more for government schooling — that’s what income tax is for. The only reason to slug them when they’re choosing a school for the kids rather than filling out their annual return is to make public schools look less attractive so they’ll go to a private school instead. Resulting in less funding for the school, less mingling between rich kids and poor kids, smaller schools and hence less chance to have interesting electives available for the students, and less chance of rich or powerful people turning up to the PTA and being available to help out if needed.

As well intentioned as I’m sure this nonsense is, the only rational argument for it that I can see is along the lines of “Well, after we implement this, public schools will be so ruined they’ll have to be replaced with private schools”. That’s more like the path of most resistance than least.

“[Mrs Hull] conceded [her model] was vastly different from the one Education Minister Brendan Nelson was pushing”. I should hope so.

(Aren’t schools meant to be a state issue anyway? Making it a federal one is also the opposite of privatisation. Yeesh. Andrew Norton’s post on Big government liberalism seems apropos.)