Charter schools are an experiment in school autonomy in the United States. After 20 years we can say that the experiment has not been a marked success. The weight of research evidence from meta-analyses, literature reviews, national and regional studies shows that charter schools have not delivered better results than other public schools.

Read more: Charter Schools are not a Good Advertisement for School Autonomy

The State ALP has backed SSTUWA’s Stand on Independent Public Schools . The recent State ALP Conference unanimously passed two resolutions of interest to our members.

Independent Public Schools: WA Labor condemns the Barnett Government for its hasty implementation of the Independent Public Schools initiative. Labor has promised to immediately cease any further roll out of the Independent Public Schools program and institute an immediate independent review of the Independent Public Schools.

No Privatisation in our Public Schools: In Government, Labor will introduce legislation that will prohibit the privatisation of or contracting out of public school functions including, but not limited to, cleaning, gardening, education assistants, teaching, curriculum support, professional development, security, administration, library services, information technology, psychology support services, and dental services.

Read more: State ALP Backs SSTUWA’s Stand on IPS

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.

Read more: It's all “cloak and dagger”!

The Barnett/Constable regime continues to urge schools across Western Australia to “line-up and sign-up” to become Independent Public Schools.

Nowhere do they talk about improved student outcomes or improved teacher outcomes – because neither exist.

The only real outcome that matters to them is a reduction in the annual education budget.

The SSTUWA, through Unions WA, commissioned an independent study by the Curtin University Graduate School of Business into Independent Public Schools.

The study was conducted by Research Fellow Dr Scott Fitzgerald and Professor Al Rainnie, the Chair of the CGSB Research and Development.

Read more: The Great IPS Scam!

Since at least the late 1990s, a significant body of research has established that ‘self-managing schools’ do not improve the quality of educational practices across the public education system or improve ‘student learning outcomes’ for all students. Indeed, it has been noted that on the contrary, for vast numbers of students, especially those who are already disadvantaged, this reform is coming to be seen as being extremely damaging. This outcome is clear in cases such as the Victorian, English and American education systems where self-managing schools have been most fully developed.

Introduction

In September 2009 the West Australian government released a document called ‘Putting the Public First’ (PtPF) (EAC 2009). Written by the Economic Audit Committee, the document is subtitled ‘Partnering with the Community and Business to Deliver Outcomes’. The report is concerned with the future of public services in Western Australia and claims that if the WA government acts on the report’s 43 recommendations then ‘in five to ten years the Western Australian public sector will, achieve outcomes for Western Australians, including the most disadvantaged, that are among the best in the nation and are continually improving’ (EAC: ii). This is an admirable aim, but our concern is that the report is based on a set of assumptions and a form of analysis that make this highly desirable outcome extremely unlikely.

Read more: Putting the Public First? Independent Public Schools