C'mon Campbell, our kids need Gonski now

A little piece I penned when Campbell Newman announced his Great teachers = Great results 'plan' ...

Sam* is a high school mathematics teacher. With over 15 years experience, she is a senior teacher and has a Masters degree. Like many of her colleagues around the state, much of Sam’s Easter holidays are being taken up with marking exams and assignments. Today she is marking her Year 9 exams – a task she has anticipated with dread, because she knows that several of her students have not done well.

As any teacher will attest, marking the work of students who are failing is a soul-destroying task. What makes it worse is the countless hours Sam has spent examining student data, re-writing unit plans and lessons to better suit her students’ needs, calling home, and helping students at lunchtimes and after school.

More than half the students in Sam’s class have failed mathematics in previous years and several of them have been identified as being academically ‘at risk’. Most require one-to-one assistance every lesson. But with 29 students in her class, Sam only gets to spend an average of 2 minutes with each student per lesson. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that this is simply not enough time to make a difference.

Conscious of this fact, this year Sam’s school purchased computer software to enable students to be provided with more individualised mathematics instruction. But as is the case in so many of our schools, at best Sam’s class only has access to computers once a week. Sam spends a great deal of time preparing individualised worksheets for her students. But it is doubtful the budget will allow for the photocopying of these worksheets past the end of second term. Like so many teachers who dip into their own pockets when resourcing falls short, Sam will probably resort to printing the worksheets at home.

All over Queensland there are students like Sam’s Year 9s who are struggling. And all over Queensland there are thousands of teachers who are trying their absolute best to help them.

This month the Newman government announced its $535M Great teachers = Great results “plan”. According to the Premier, the way to improve Sam’s Year 9 students results is to subject Sam and her principal to a yearly performance review, make it more difficult for Sam to access the experienced senior teacher classification, create a competition rewards system to enable Sam to compete for funds from a “bonus” pool, create job insecurity for the leadership of Sam’s school with fixed-term performance-based contracts, and make all state schools independent public schools. Yep, that should do it.

Unfortunately for the Can-Don't team, similar schemes tried interstate and overseas have failed – sometimes spectacularly so. What makes the Premier think his plan for Queensland schools will be any different?

Whilst the Newman government professes to reject the Gonski reforms because they’re not in the best interests of Queensland’s children, its actions speak louder than its words. So “committed” is this government to the education of Queensland’s children that it budgeted for just “270 additional teachers, teacher-aides and support staff to support enrolment growth” in 2013, despite the fact that its own projections showed that 837 additional staff would be required. Similarly, the government demonstrated its “commitment” to Queensland’s teachers by absolutely refusing to countenance claims for increased planning time for beginning teachers, professional career structures for teachers and recognition of specialist positions during last year’s enterprise bargaining negotiations.

The Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling by contrast undertook the most comprehensive review of funding in 40 years. After receiving more than 7,000 submissions, visiting 39 schools and consulting 71 key education groups around the country, it found that Australia is seriously underinvesting in education. Despite the Newman government’s reliance on teacher bashing and political posturing, the evidence is in that the problem with our schools is not the teachers but the persistent failure of governments to resource schools fairly.

If agreement could be reached and Gonski dollars started to flow, education funding for Queensland students would increase by about $1,500 per student. For a school with 1,600 students the extra money, in real terms, would mean: around 15 extra full-time teachers, smaller class sizes, extra specialist teachers in areas such as literacy and numeracy, greater support for students with higher needs, and increased training and classroom support for teachers. These are all things that we know will actually make a difference to student learning.

The Gonski Review Panel has proposed that half of the funding for its recommended reforms be provided by the federal government, and half by the states. Using that model, the Premier's $535 million dollar plan represents roughly Queensland’s share of funding the Gonski reforms. If the Premier can find the money for an ill-considered failure, surely he can find the money to fund the Gonski reforms, a plan which is backed by proven research and will truly improve our children’s educational outcomes.

I challenge the Premier to find a single parent who would prefer that $535M be spent on teacher “bonus” pools and the like, rather than fully funding the Gonski reforms. I challenge him to find a single teacher who feels that more bureaucracy or meagre bonuses are the resources they need to turn failing students around. If I were Sam, or the parent of one of her students, given a choice between Premier Newman’s “plan” and implementing the Gonski recommendations in full, I know which one I’d choose. 

*Not her real name.

Poverty Costs - A speech by Miranda Grealy given at the Support Single Parents Out of Poverty rally in Brisbane, 13 April 2013

POVERTY COSTS

The social repercussions of multitudes of people of varying backgrounds forced into poverty cost the communities and countries in which they live.
This is fact.  This is why these payments were introduced in the first place.
The fact is most single parents are not teenage mothers, with the aim of living a life on welfare, as they are portrayed to be on programs like ACA. Teenage mothers are less than 3% of single parents in Australia. The majority of single parents in Australia are women between 30-50 who were previously married. 

"There are many reasons that couples separate. Unfortunately, in many cases the
single parents who rely on Parenting Payment had to leave violent or abusive
relationships, or they separated under the financial strain or the
personal strain of raising a child with a disability."

(Source: http://acoss.org.au/images/uploads/294__info_380_sole_parents.pdf)

As stated in the Australian a few days ago, 68% of single parents were already working, when the Gillard government brought this policy in and the majority of those who were not working had irregular income from casual jobs because children are a huge responsibility. Who is everyone going to blame when they skip school, congregate in gangs, vandalise or steal? The RESPONSIBLE ADULT who is supposed to be taking care of them – a responsibility being taken away from us, but still attributed to us when the shite falls.  Current legislation states that it is illegal under any circumstances to leave children under the age of 12 at home alone. Knowing this, how on earth can a single parent work enough hours to support their kids, and be at home to take care of them?

But what I wanted to talk about today was not the hardships of single parents, or the detriment to kids and society of not having responsible parents taking care of children. Anyone with a brain or a child who cares to look at the situation can see these issues, and I am sure many people will share those stories with us today.

What I wanted to talk about was the ACTUAL cost of these cuts. The problems and costs it brings to the economy and society of Australia, and the saving of 700 million on paper for the Gillard government’s coming budgets, will in fact cost the government and society a lot more in other areas of the economy.

It is a statistical fact that people living in poverty are more likely to serve jail time, in fact according to soundvision’s statistics 12.7% are more likely to serve considerable jail time.  (Source: www.soundvision.com/Info/poor/statistics.asp)

Keeping this in mind in Australia it costs on average $269 a day to house inmates in Australian detention facilities or $98,185 per inmate, per year.
(Source: Civil Liberties Australia, Report on Government Services, 2009, quoting Productivity Commission figures for 2007-8, see figure 8.13)

That equates to feeding and housing 4 single parent families under the parenting payment, 4 adults and 8 children who are now 12.7 % more likely to offend and be placed in jail.  That in itself is almost 4 billion dollars a year.
Now this only takes into consideration those who do actual prison time, nothing about juvenile detention, extra child protection services needed for neglected and abused children, government funded legal aid, court time or the cost of extra police presence that is needed when you have a greater influx of poverty in your streets.

 Of course not all poor people will turn to drug pushing, stealing, or murder, but this doesn’t mean their poverty will not cause extra financial stress on our government and society. There is also the greater need for health services for people who are under nourished and homeless.  With rising costs in the health care industry this would equate to millions if not billions of dollars, 100,000 families just this year, being thrown into poverty, let alone the ones from now on that will be put there every year by this new cost saving measure.

There is also the huge fear that children being left without adult supervision for large hours everyday will become more accessible to child abusers and pedophiles, and there is a huge number of each living in every community in Australia.  Truancy will increase dramatically, lowering greatly the literacy standard of impoverished children, thus making it harder for them to get a job as they get older and become productive members of society.

Now for me the most important economic point to be made on this whole absurd policy is the actual SAVING of over 700million dollars. A saving from what?  Do single parents hoard their money in Swiss bank accounts or spend it on overseas houses, holidays and property?

That 700 million goes directly into local communities schools and businesses, there is no saving for Australia’s economy with this policy. Every single cent of that money went straight into OUR LOCAL economy. That money keeps the economy rolling, something only one prime minister in the past 20 years seems to have understood, when he gave poorer and low income singles and families money to stimulate our economy and keep us out of the huge global recession. Now what I want to know is, how then can the same party, under different leadership, totally ignore the economics that kept us out of a global financial crisis? Australia kept their head above water with these measures, while countries like England and America fell deep into recession by taking from the poor and bailing out the rich, just as The Gillard Labor government has begun to do.

How about taking from the rich? MP Jenny Macklin stated that she and her political friends could live off $35 a day. WHY NOT LET THEM?  If we put current state and federal politicians on $35 a day we would save more over 4 years than a measly 700milion dollars and only 857 people would be under the poverty line instead of 100,000.

The low income and poorer Australians are the roots and soil of the economic tree of Australia, without feeding and nourishing them the leaves begin to die, followed by the branches and then the tree.   Most industry takes from Australia, leaving their noxious waste behind, taking the money and produce from our shores.  This will only set us, as AUSTRALIANS, up to be hit harder financially in the future.

This is BAD HUMANITARIAN POLICY, this is BAD SOCIAL POLICY and it is very, very BAD ECONOMIC POLICY.

POVERTY COSTS the government, the economy and eventually all Australians in one form or another.

Action in the Park - an event for single parents and their children living in the Redlands

In February, single parents and their supporters rallied around the country to say NO to Poverty and NO to Newstart.

On Saturday 13 April 2013, rallies will again be held in every major city across Australia in support of single parents and their children who have been affected by cuts to single parent support payments.

Penny and the Greens will be holding an event for single parents in the Redlands on Saturday 13 April 2013. Click on this link to read the flyer If you're a single parent living in the Redlands, we'd love to see you there.

Larissa Waters on Sky Agenda: CSG