Is school funding reform 'gonski'?

The crisis of leadership engulfing the Australian Labor Party - indeed, the nation - has so swamped the media that the publication of the long awaited Gonski Review in to the funding of Australia's school system has barely been noticed. The review is the most significant of its kind for almost 40 years. This week, David Gonski published his findings,alongside the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett (yes, the former front man of Midnight Oil whose big hit Beds are Burning will be familar to anyone alive in the 80s).

The review exposes the extent of the inequality in the funding of Australia's schools. The vast majority of children from low socio-economic backgrounds attend public (government) schools; obvious, given that independent schools are fee paying. And yet  government school receive a couple of thousand dollars less per student, recurrently, than do independent schools. What? The government funds children at non-government schools? Yes. Not only that, but parents who send their children to these fee paying schools pay less tax, because their children are not in the public system. Leaving those who can't afford to send their children to a private school to pay more tax for the, er, 'privilege'.

As Gonski has shown, "Two thirds of all school students in Australia attend government schools yet these schools receive less than half the capital expenditure. With 14 per cent of students, the 'independent' schools command a quarter of the overall capital spending" (ABC Online - Gonski, plutocracy and public policy).

It is hard to see this as anything other than grossly unfair. Gonski also recommends extra funding for pupils with disabilities, who under the current hugely bureaucratic system often don't get the funding they should, under the law. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald this week, the Headmaster of my school spoke about this very issue.

So, given that this report was an initiative of the Labor government (and yes, they can't even spell their own name correctly), can we expect change? Surely the party of the left will support a "fair-go" for all? Of course not. The government hamstrung the report's findings from the start, promising that no school would lose a dollar - meaning that there can be no rebalancing of the funding gulf between public and private.

Why? Because (i) the government has committed itself to a budget surplus and (ii) this is a minority government that would lose the support of key voters in marginal seats if it attempted fundamental reform, and (iii) it is a government that appears to stand for nothing except its own re-election. Meanwhile the Opposition simply obstruct all legislation, cry "class warfare" and warn of a looming apocalypse at the mention of the word "reform"; and, of course, it was the Liberal Howard government that was responsible for this particular inequality in education funding.

On Monday, Labor MPs will no doubt vote to support Prime Minister Gillard, despite Kevin Rudd being clearly more popular than both Gillard and Abbott (the leader of the Opposition) with the people; and the ALP will lose the next election.  After that, the Gonski Review, if it isn't already, will be well and truly 'gonski'.