Rudd Government must address the way Australian schools are funded

The independent Australian Council on Educational Research (ACER) recently released a report Australia's School Funding System.

This report highlights ongoing problems with Commonwealth criteria for school funding.

If Kevin Rudd intends an education revolution over the next four years he cannot avoid this issue of disproportionate funding favouring private schools.

 

"This does not mean the Commonwealth

is giving less money to government schools but

rather that its funding to non-government schools

may be disproportionate to that sector's needs.20

To summarise, "average" school costs are increasingly

problematic as a means of determining adequate

funds to educate real students. Both government

and non-government schools are receiving funding

based on an "average" student even though nongovernment

schools may be recruiting a student

body with below average costs. On the other hand,

government schools appear to have an increasingly

expensive student body.

Other issues include that:

a) The system does not actually measure a

school's resources and in fact ignores a school's

capacity to generate its own income through

fees, investments, donations and fundraising in

measuring need (the stated rationale from the

Commonwealth is that to reduce funding for

schools that exceed a limit on private income

would act as a disincentive to private efforts to

raise funds).

b) The local community's SES may not reflect the

individual student's SES in a particular nongovernment

school. Some students may come

from the wealthiest home in a disadvantaged

area. Barry McGaw has recently described this

phenomenon as "relatively advantaged students

from disadvantaged communities carry[ing]

with them to a non-government school a

government voucher based on the students they

leave behind in their communities" (2007).

c) Although a formula, the SES system is not

applied consistently with scope for compromise

arrangements to alter the formula. As mentioned

above, in 2005, over half of non-government

schools received an adjusted amount because

the strict application of their SES score would

have resulted in less funding."

Full ACER report:

 http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/PolicyBriefs_Dowling07.pdf

Telstra's Next G being tested by NSW North Coast resident

"Telstra raised Mr Cameron's hackles when it started telling people they'd have to switch networks fast or lose their phone number.-------Mr Cameron said he had just got a Next G handset from Telstra, which he planned to compare with his CDMA handset. He had selected 35 'marginal' locations around Goonengerry, Coopers Creek, Federal, Eureka and between Eureka and Lismore, where he gets coverage on his CDMA phone.

He had tested each location by calling his home and leaving a message on his answering machine describing the location, the time of day and the weather conditions. The next step would be to go through the same process with his new Next G phone.

"However, even if he could get clear messages through to his home phone, most of the new network's features would be wasted in the bush.

"It's really starting to annoy me," he said. "Even if we get to the point where Next G can be said to be as good as CDMA, there's still questions of why we have to go to it.

"Because of the enhanced applications, the video calls and rapid downloads, even if we can get it as good as CDMA we won't get the speed or consistency of coverage for those enhanced functions; so we're having to pay for a new $500 phone to get the same phone coverage as we had before."

Telstra, at the request of Mr Conroy, has set up a 1800 number to answer questions about the new network and the axing of the old one."

The Northern Star article last Sunday:

http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3762013&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

Time for the Nats to give Libs the boot

Last Saturday Liberal Senator Nick Minchin joined the national conservative chorus calling for one united right-wing political party in Australia.

I particularly loved his comment in The Herald Sun "that internal party factions were "evil in the wrong hands" and repeated calls for a united conservative party to effectively compete with their "great political enemy".

Yeah, just what Australia needs - narrowing voter choice in an already narrow political spectrum.

If the Nationals had any spine they would split with the Liberal Party and form genuine policy platforms to take to the next federal election.

They have been a 'tag along' party for too long. If they stay with their demoralised and disintegrating partner the Nats may disappear from the federal stage within the next few years.

Time to tell the Libs to get on their bikes. The only smart move that party machine has made in recent years was to refuse Liberal Party presidency to Lazarus-with-a-triple-bypass when he lobbied for it within weeks of losing his seat.

telephones

I rang Telstra to inform them that my phone is suffering from phonopause ( the telegraphic equivalent of menopause) and to see if they could help.

A very nice young man patiently listened to the list of symptoms I described;

• sometimes the phone will not ring and sends all incoming calls to message bank
• one ring then message bank
• rings loudly, no one there
• only one half of the conversation can be heard, I can heard the caller talking and they can't hear me or visa versa.
• sometimes only parts of the conversation can be heard, this has lead to some amusing and annoying conversations. From what I'm hearing I think the conversation is about Soya futures when the other person is talking about store cattle prices.
• other times the phone is obviously bored with the conversation and just hangs up
• even when both parties can hear one another there are many and various noises heard, the most common is a loud clicking. Is the phone going to blow-up?
• the fastest I can get a download is 3.1 kbts, and this only for a few minutes. I think the phone then takes a Valium and has a nice rest before it decides if it will perhaps do a little bit more. With this attitude it can take hours to download virus updates.
• we have had a fair bit of rain here so is that why some callers sound as if they are under water?

The young man said he had the answer to all my problems, the Next G network had a larger footprint than the old CDMA system and was vastly superior in many ways and all of this I could enjoy as soon as I purchase a better handset then all my problems would be solved. When I informed him I was talking about a landline and that we never had CDMA reception out here I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. The phone decided that it had enough and hung-up. It refused to work for the rest of the day.

I think I will just have to bred a race of carrier ducks, it's too wet for pigeons.

North coast hospitals to cut 86 beds

It appears the annual silly season has been extended in northern NSW.

How else can the ridiculous decision that will see fourteen public hospitals on NSW's north coast lose a total of 86 bed be explained?

The Age reports that North Coast Area's health chief executive Chris Crawford announced the decision in a memo.

What is Mr Crawford's real role with NCAHS? Rather than serve as a health administrator, Mr Crawford is yet again portraying himself as a bean counter who's acting on behalf of a state government that continues to fail to deliver the necessary resources public health so desperately needs.

Does the Sydney-centric not understand the demography of northern NSW?

Read The Age article at: http://news.theage.com.au/north-coast-hospitals-to-cut-86-beds/20080127-1ode.html

The U.S. pushes its own climate change agenda - it's all about increasing the reach of American international trade

The Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong would do well to keep her eye on the ball at the Hawaii climate change conference.

Accepting the elimination of trade barriers as the only or principal outcome of this conference would not significantly move the international climate change response forward.

Europe, Asia, South America and Australia, not the U.S., need to drive the agenda.

This is the only way real progress will be made.

 

"WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States pushed forward with its own agenda on climate change Friday despite criticism that Washington is attempting to undermine the global effort led by the United Nations.-------

Bush has invited Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the United Nations to send representatives to the meeting in Hawaii January 30-31.-------

Europeans leaders in particular have approached the US initiative with reluctance and have said they will take a firm approach to ensure the talks do not undermine the progress made in Bali last month.

High on the US agenda is an attempt to eliminate trade barriers for "climate-beneficial goods and services," Connaughton said.-------

Europeans leaders in particular have approached the US initiative with reluctance and have said they will take a firm approach to ensure the talks do not undermine the progress made in Bali last month.

High on the US agenda is an attempt to eliminate trade barriers for "climate-beneficial goods and services," Connaughton said."

Google News yesterday: 

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jlgTTxinVCRqeqRMGI5Zq7bv0jBw

Barack Obama casts his net wide

I received this email message from the Obama for America campaign team yesterday.

For some reason the team seems to think I vote in the United States.

For details of the obscene amount of money the US presidential nominees are receiving and spending, go to: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/

It looks as though Malcolm Turnbull's former business associates at Goldman Sachs are making campaign contributions to a number of the candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

 

The email.

"In less than 24 hours, voters in South Carolina will head to the polls.

Before they do, I wanted to show you a bit about what kind of campaign we're running here.

When Michelle and I talked about my running for president, one of the core goals we both had for this campaign was to leave the political process better off than we found it.

Here in South Carolina, a state with a history of some pretty divisive politics, ordinary people have challenged conventional thinking about the process and built a statewide organization based on local community organizing and neighbor-to-neighbor contacts.

Our supporters -- men and women of all ages, races, religions, and backgrounds -- have come together around the idea that we are one people, invested in each other and in our common future.

We've put together a few videos that will give you a sense of what we've built here -- please take a look:

http://my.barackobama.com/organize

In communities across this state, people who have never been involved in politics before -- or who had given up on what they saw as a broken system -- have built something special.

No matter what the outcome tomorrow, our work here will have a lasting impact on those communities and on the Democratic Party for a long time to come.

We're seeing the same story play out across the country as grassroots supporters in 22 states prepare to cast their votes or turn out to caucus on February 5th.

Remember that tomorrow night, after the votes are in from South Carolina, the playing field will expand dramatically as races in those states come into full focus.

There will be a lot happening, and the intensity will be ratcheted up.

But the spirit of the grassroots organizing we have done here -- of ordinary people taking back the political process -- will be apparent in thousands of communities across the country.

I believe more strongly than ever that this movement for change can do more than just win an election. Together, we can transform this country.

Thank you for being part of this,

Barack"