SSTUWA - State School Teachers' Union of Western Australia

It's all “cloak and dagger”!

A secret report commissioned by the former New South Wales Labor Government indicates the scale of the cuts to be made to public education and all areas of  social spending by developing Independent Public Schools.

The report, marked “cabinet-in-confidence,” exposes the Federal Gillard Government's NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) testing regime and it's My School website as vehicles for shutting down schools and slashing education spending.

The Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) report, delivered to the New South Wales Government early last year, proposes closing more than 100 government schools, axing 7,500 teaching jobs, as well as those of 1,500 school support staff, selling off “surplus” school land and cutting back programs to disadvantaged students.

The blueprint aims to eliminate a projected $1 billion “black hole” in that State's Education Department 2012-13 budget, providing $1 billion in one-off savings and up to $800 million in recurrent spending savings.

The confidential New South Wales report took as its benchmark the education policies of the Labor Government in neighbouring Victoria. Between 1999 and last year, when it was defeated, Victorian Labor retained all the cuts made during the 1990s by former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, who destroyed 9,000 permanent teaching jobs and closed more than 300 schools. Short-term contracts were introduced, along with salary cuts.

Before school principals went to war with the Education Department in a dispute over NAPLAN testing last year, the department was working hard to forge a closer relationship with principals. It had offered greater control and autonomy.

A total of 47 principals took up the offer for a trial of Independent Public Schools, which the Past President of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, Jim McAlpine, says was presented as a promise of greater flexibility: "There was no mention of any cutbacks in the resources available. It was never put to us as a cost-savings measure."

The report provides public relations advice on how difficult political decisions such as school closures and cuts to programs for disadvantaged children should be sold to the public.

The Boston Consulting Group’s report describes the devolution process in the context of government cost savings of $20 million to $25 million. It estimates $75 million in cleaning costs could be saved.

The recommended strategy also includes giving principals control over hiring staff, which would effectively dismantle the teacher transfer system, which provides an incentive for teachers to work in remote and hard-to-staff schools.

Teachers who work in a remote area for several years are rewarded with a transfer to a school of choice.

This has given principals little choice.

Principals have also been given the understanding that the department's centralised procurement system, in which it buys supplies including stationery and photocopy machines, rather than allow schools to buy from local retailers, would result in savings which would return to schools.

The Boston report recommends that school budgets should fall by the amount of any savings made.

The BCG advised the government to cynically dress this and other programs up as a means of handing schools greater control over their own administration.

Principals were told that any savings they made would flow back into the education system, with half going into their own schools. In reality, the money was deducted from school budgets.

The report provides public relations advice on how difficult political decisions such as school closures and cuts to programs for disadvantaged children should be sold to the public.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's NAPLAN tests will be used to determine which schools are to be shut.

According to the report, schools with fewer than 400 students, whose test performance is considered below par, could be targeted for closure.

NAPLAN and the My School website, which ranks schools nationally, based on their test performances, are modelled on schemes in the US and Britain that have led to the closure or privatisation of hundreds of “failing” schools and the transformation of curricula into little more than learning by rote.

Last December, Gillard handed the state and territory governments a briefing paper aimed at making schools self-governing.

Principals and school councils would be responsible for school budgets and hiring and firing teachers.

Like the charter school movement in the US, making schools autonomous, that is, publicly funded but privately run, is a transitional step toward privatisation.

Gillard's briefing paper outlined a two-phase implementation process.

One thousand schools nationally were to participate in an initial rollout in 2012-13, with autonomous schools to become the standard in Australia by 2018.

As the BCG report makes clear, the education “revolution” being spearheaded by Gillard has nothing to do with “lifting education standards” and enabling principals to hire “good teachers”.

It is about cost cutting and handing over the provision of education services to business, while intimidating or silencing opposition from teachers.

The report specifies that principal-controlled appointments would end teachers' job security.

There would be no placement guarantee for a displaced teacher “regardless of reason” in the case of school closures or amalgamations.

Using Victoria as the benchmark, the review says NSW has 7500 additional teachers and blames the State Government's long-running strategy to reduce class sizes.

The report also suggests NSW has 1500 too many support staff, costing $900 million a year.