The Greens say curriculum debates are a sideshow which distracts policymakers from the school funding crisis, and that the key to ending school inequality is ensuring every child can access a well-resourced and inclusive public school.
As stated by Greens spokesperson on Education (Primary & Secondary), Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
“Blaming educational inequality on curriculum while continuing to underfund our public schools is a distraction that parents, carers and teachers will see straight through.
“Teachers are overworked and leaving the profession; parents and teachers are dipping into their own pockets to pay for classroom supplies; and thousands of students can’t attend class because their schools don’t have the resources to adequately support them.
“The idea that tweaking the curriculum would magically reverse the decades of neglect of our public school system is a technocratic fantasy that no serious person can possibly believe.
“This is a game the right’s culture warriors have been playing for years. They’re desperate to undermine the public system, and they’ll blame declining performance and disengagement on everything but the actual cause: persistent underfunding.
“It’s a cynical shell game that helps prop up the private system and entrench elite privilege at the expense of millions of the most disadvantaged kids in the country.
“To even have a chance of reversing educational inequality in Australia, every public school must be funded to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard by the start of the next National School Reform Agreement, in January 2025.”
