School and System Organisation
PREMISE 2A
P&C Federation believes that a strong and viable government school system is vital for the nation's future. Australian society and its distinctive values depend on the practical expression of tolerance, fairness, egalitarianism and achievement of equitable outcomes provided by public schools.
POLICY
2.1 All parents and parent organisations should be encouraged to actively campaign to defend the public system and its schools against inaccurate statements and inferences. In particular, manufactured crises in literacy and numeracy and false and misleading reports of violence and substance abuse must be countered at all levels.
2.2 All parents and parent organisations should be encouraged to actively promote the value of their public school and the system generally, the values their schools represent and teach, the breadth and excellence of the outcomes they produce and their key role in the maintenance of a civil society.
B: CO-OPERATION BETWEEN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PREMISE 2B
P&C Federation rejects the application of the theory and practice of markets to education. P&C Federation believes that market choice totally fails to provide equitable and appropriate diversity or to address the individual needs of students. P&C Federation believes that market competition between government schools is wholly destructive: it is inefficient, ineffective and wasteful, it destroys community value, it weakens comprehensive education and instead creates concentrations of advantage and disadvantage to the detriment of outcomes, and works against the interests of all students and their parents.
P&C Federation believes the individual needs of students can only be addressed:
by the application of the principles of equity;
by the participation and empowerment of parents and students;
by the active partnership of informed parents, professional teachers and confident students; and
by co-operation between schools and school communities in locally identified drawing areas or clusters to provide the widest possible subject choices and other appropriate diversities.
POLICY
2.3 The New South Wales Government must:
(a) abandon completely the competitive market model of school and system organisation, together with its values and language. The fact and image presented to parents and the public must be of a unified system committed to addressing parent and student needs through genuine and continuing participation and through equitable and appropriate diversity.
(b) enhance the ability of the system as a whole to provide for the individual needs of students by increasing participation and representation by parents and students, fostering partnerships between parents and teachers and throughout the community, and encouraging co-operation between schools and communities and between various schools themselves.
2.4 Differences between schools must not be used competitively to attract students away from other public schools, but must be planned in consultation with neighbouring schools so as to extend the complement of what is locally accessible for the benefit of all students.
C: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
PREMISE 2C
P&C Federation believes that schools have a responsibility to meet the educational needs of individual students and the communities they serve. P&C Federation expects therefore that there will be differences between schools and expects schools and the DET to be responsive to the wishes of school communities as expressed through their democratic forums.
P&C Federation rejects the notion of school autonomy. P&C Federation believes that the right of school communities to have their wishes met is held in the context of the duty of the system to provide for the needs of all children in its care. P&C Federation believes that the rights and interests of parents and students are best protected by negotiated system-wide guarantees that are observed by all for the benefit of all.
P&C Federation believes that the fundamental principles of public education, that it is free, secular, universal, inclusive and equitable, can only be met within a strong, well resourced system that ensures the rights of all. P&C Federation rejects the notion of "community standards" insofar as that notion implies that individual schools can punish or exclude children for behaviours which are condemned by a majority of that school's community, but not by the law and custom of Australia or by the state-wide policies of the government school system.
POLICY
2.5 Schools should be encouraged to develop their own identity, ethos and culture, which reflect, in the most inclusive way, the collective identity, ethos and cultures of the school community.
2.6 Wherever possible, schools should be locality based so that the communities they serve are connected by common territory and experience. The fundamental right of the child to be enrolled in a local school is only lost where it is demonstrated by fair, just and appealable procedures that the school is an inappropriate setting for that specific child's education.
2.7 Those types of school, and those methods of education delivery, that are not locality based - for example, special schools, single subject distance education, selective schools and specialist schools - should not be expanded in size or number unless it can be demonstrated by validated research both that the educational outcomes of the students that will attend or use them will be increased, and that the outcomes of those who do not, will not be diminished.
2.8 Where existing senior colleges and selective and specialist schools or private schools are shown by validated research to be negatively affecting the ethos, image and enrolment patterns of neighbouring schools, the Department must immediately institute measures to ensure the viability of the local school and the educational rights and outcomes of those who attend them. These measures should include funding or promotions and upgrades of physical resources and the setting up of structures to enable the sharing of resources and expertise and the integration of programs across the cluster for the benefit of all students.
Action Items
1. That P&C Federation seek assurance from the DET that correspondence, or similar requests for information or assistance, forwarded by affiliated P&C associations to the DET will be responded to in writing within one calendar month of receipt of said correspondence or request, and that a proforma response is not acceptable.(2003)