Crushing Diversity
The AGE Friday, November 07, 2008
Please print this correction of an article in yesterday's age (Schools baulk at funds disclosure AGE 7 Nov 2008). I am NOT terrified of a financial audit of Fitzroy Community School.
I would be quite happy for the public to know that we, like most non-government schools, operate on a lower budget for each child than the state system.
I would add too, that if higher-spending independent schools were to have their private fund-raising published, it would only be fair if total taxpayer input plus private fundraising of same-suburb state schools be published alongside.
No, what I AM terrified of is a proposed "non-financial audit". An odd phrase to be sure: it is bully talk for ideology using bureaucracy to squash diversity in schooling.
[Your education article missed out the "non". The federal government is proposing to cut funding to non-government schools that don't pass their "non-financial audit"].
Already, when we independents are inspected by Education Ministry officers, we are greeted with a threat that they can shut us down. Then, no matter how good an education we deliver, if there is anything missing from the mountain of required pedantic documentation, we are asked to "show cause" why they don't close us down.
Philip O'Carroll