Catallaxy Files

See part 4, the other segments can be seen here.
(HT: James Delingpole)

At the last election Kevin Rudd promised computers for all year 9 through 12 students and also a laptop scheme. At the time Alex Robson and I thought the scheme was underfunded but we got shouted down. It was always part of the Education revolution that computers would be used at school and at home. Here is Kevin Rudd at the 2007 Labor campaign launch.

The final step in the broadband revolution is to link school networks to students at home. For some students, this happens already. However for many, it doesn’t.
And one of the purposes of Labor’s Education Tax Refund is to encourage parents to invest in computers and internet connections at home. Because Labor understands that in the 21st century, information technology is not just a key subject to learn, it is now the key to learning all subjects.

Okay – so what’s happening on the ground? Schools have been provided with laptops. Now just to remind ourselves, remember that laptops are designed to be easily portable unlike desktops that cannot be easily transported to and from home.

After Labor promised to provide access to a computer for every child from Year 9 to Year 12 at the last election, it has emerged that a public school in South Australia, Seaford 6-12 School, is charging a $365-a-year fee to allow students to take the taxpayer-funded computers home.

That’s not the worst of it.

A PUBLIC school is asking parents to pay up to $1460 to lease computers provided under Kevin Rudd’s digital schools plan, while another is urging parents to buy the Apple Mac laptops their child has used for $1200.

While this has the stench of broken promise written all over it.

Another South Australian school, Willunga High School, is urging parents to spend $1200 upfront to lease Apple Mac computers. Parents are being told that, although the offer is “absolutely voluntary”, being able to use computers is “as important in today’s society as being able to read and write”.

Well yes – that’s exactly what Rudd said at the last election.

Mr Howard seems to believe that providing our young people with computers is exotic. Mr Howard just doesn’t get it. Around the rest of the world, providing young people with computers isn’t exotic – it’s mainstream.

It’s not just Mr Howard who doesn’t get it. School kids haven’t got their computers either.

The Australian Education Union has released new “research”  by Jim McMorrow (see also the report ) that purports to show that Government funding of public schools is less than Government funding of private schools. As usual, it looks once again only at Commonwealth Government direct funding – neglecting the fact that public schools are creatures of State and Territory governments and funded by State and Territory governments. Total government (taxpayer) funding of public schools is of course well above that of private schools.  

This is grossly misleading and reflects badly on the credibility of McMorrow who has at once written a hagiography of the Rudd Government while promoting this nonsense. McMorrow writes:  

From the standpoint of public schools, the substantial investment in national education agreements reported in the Budget has begun to turn around some of the funding neglect that characterised the Howard Government’s years.  

The Rudd Government deserves credit for this.  

And hasn’t the media promulgated this misleading report very effectively this morning – effectively acting as an agent of the AEU (listen to the reports on ABC news for example). Yet if (say) the Wine Federal sponsored research into the health benefits of wine consumption the ABC would be either ignoring the research or noting that the sponsor is biased.