[Greens-Media] Disadvantaged schools given reprieve but still at risk

[Phil Doyle]

Disadvantaged schools given reprieve but still at risk
 
Media release: 12 November 2008
 
Greens NSW MP John Kaye welcomed moves to restore funding to many
disadvantaged public schools cut from the Priority Action Schools
Program (PASP). However he warned that the underlying problem is yet to
be fixed.
 
Dr Kaye said: "A strong campaign from teachers forced the Education
Minister Verity Firth to recognise that it was a mistake to dump
twenty-seven highly disadvantaged schools from the Priority Action
Schools Program.
 
"While the mini-budget has averted the short term crisis using funds
from cancelling the Back to School Allowance, there has been no
resolution to the ongoing issue of how to select schools for the
program.
 
"The 101 schools currently in the program could be facing exactly the
same irrational exclusion in the next funding round.
 
"Earlier this year, the Department unilaterally changed the criteria
and created the embarrassing and damaging problem for the Minister.
 
"Instead of using a range of measures of disadvantage and its impacts
on the school, the bureaucrats relied on responses to a one-page parent
survey.
 
"Factors such as student behaviour and attendance, student learning
outcomes, student turnover and retention and the proportion of beginning
teachers on staff which had previously been part of the process were
ignored. 
 
"Without assessing the full range of impacts of community disadvantage,
many schools fell through the gaps.
 
"Until the criteria are broadened, the risk remains that schools will
be unfairly cut off from their funds.
 
"The Greens are calling on Minister Firth to restore all the criteria
that measure how a school is travelling. 
 
"Minister Firth should ensure that all schools that experience
disadvantage in NSW receive the best assistance possible to improve
outcomes for the state’s public school students," Dr Kaye said.
 
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455 
 
 
Phil Doyle
the office of John Kaye MLC
p (02) 9230 2668 
m 0431 624 404
e phil.doyle at parliament.nsw.gov.au