The Age, 7 December 2020:
Educators have lashed out at the NSW government's new performance targets for public schools, saying the policy fails to provide them with specialist resources they need and instead scapegoats teachers and principals for system failures.
The new School Success Model, announced by Education Minister Sarah Mitchell on Sunday, will require the education department to intervene in public schools that fail to meet performance targets and see executives take more responsibility for school outcomes.
It replaces the troubled Local Schools, Local Decisions model from 2012, which gave principals greater autonomy but axed support staff and left the department with little influence over how schools made decisions or spent money.
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said Sunday's announcement was "more spin than substance" as it failed to restore adequate specialist support for schools. He said it instead blamed teachers and principals for failures.
"This policy will not deliver schools, teachers and principals the support they need to perform the very complex task expected from them ... It will not address crippling administrative burdens placed on schools," he said.
"It provides no evidence of the restoration of more than 800 specialist and expert positions that were stripped from the system when Local Schools, Local Decisions was announced."
He accused the government of attempting to distance itself from the "failed policy", which had cut support to schools for efficiency gains…..
