Weekend Wrap for 19 February 2023

Trevor Cobbold: Shocking Inequity in NSW school outcomes and funding.
"Public schools in NSW are vastly under-funded to meet the challenges they face. In 2022, they were funded at 87.4% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). They will remain under-funded until at least 2029 under current funding arrangements. By contrast, private schools, who serve only a small minority of disadvantaged students, are significantly over-funded. In 2022, they were funded at 105.9% of their SRS and will remain over-funded for the rest of the decade." (13 Feb 2023)
Read more at Pearls & Irritations

David Hastie: Defunding private schools is not on, but we can make education fairer.
(A response to Why we should defund private schools and examine their values, 31 Jan 2023)
"State schooling was tweaked postwar to introduce compulsory secondary schooling, but the design of public education has remained essentially the same: totally centralised from head offices in capital cities, and underpinned by an enduring narrative that all schools, and their communities, are fundamentally disadvantaged and cannot run themselves. But now more than 1.4 million children in Australia are enrolled in faith-affiliated non-government schools that run themselves. That’s 40 per cent of secondary students. In the eastern capital cities, it is almost half of senior secondary students." (13 Feb 2023)
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald

Alison Courtice: The 113 year old elephant in Queensland’s state school classrooms.
"Religious Instruction (RI), or as I call it, the elephant in the state school classroom, remains as controversial in 2023 as it was in 1910 when the law was changed to give churches right of entry to state schools to hold Sunday School during school hours. At that time, 84% of Queenslanders were Christian, and they were proud of their internationally recognised truly secular state education. Hansard’s record of speeches demonstrates the controversy and reluctance to change the law but change it they did. The legal requirement for state schools to be secular was removed to accommodate RI." (14 Feb 2023)
Read more at the National Secular Lobby

Lucy Hamilton: Unite to block the Right’s campaign to divide and conquer.
"Australia must not allow our politicians and 'thought' leaders on the right to push us down the destructive path being pursued by the Republicans. The American right is waging war on modernity. The radicalised right alliance is sacrificing empirical evidence and truth for theocracy, tribal games and lies. It is determined to reverse the achievements of the Civil Rights era: white Christian man will return to his rightful place as delineator of truth. The contingent is destroying America’s standing to achieve it." (15 Feb 2023)
Read more at the AIMN

Mark Fowler: Authentic culture of faith-based schools must be protected.
"The public release on Monday of a letter signed by the leaders of all major faith traditions addressed to the federal Attorney-General has reignited the debate on religious freedoms in this country. The leaders convey their 'deep disappointment' with proposed reforms released for comment by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Those reforms are in response to the Albanese government’s request for laws that will ensure that a religious school 'must not discriminate against a member of staff' but may 'continue to build a community of faith by giving preference … to persons of the same religion'." (15 Feb 2023)
Read more at The Australian

Ellie Dudley: Religious schools ‘lose faith’ in law reform.
"Two major Christian schooling associations have pulled out of a consultation process with the Australian Law Reform Commission over new anti-discrimination laws for religious schools, claiming to have 'lost faith' in the commission remaining 'balanced' in tackling the issue. The Australian Association of Christian Schools and Christian Schools Australia, which cover about 150,000 students across every state and territory, wrote to ALRC Commissioner Stephen Rothman to withdraw from further consultation on the new legislation, and reached out to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to voice grave concerns over 'radical reforms' that could 'strip religious schools of their rights'." (15 Feb 2023)
Read more at The Australian

James Robertson: Preparing for the end of days: Australia’s Christian terrorists.
"Six people were shot dead on a rural Queensland farm two months ago as a result of Christian fundamentalism, it has been found – the first case in modern times. Police will now explore links between the family who prepared for murder and doomsday and American evangelical believers, a demographic experts say has high potential for radicalism." (16 Feb 2023)
Read more at The New Daily

Neil Foster: Is declining to print a Pride poster unlawful?
"Press reports today record that a local franchisee of company “Kwik Kopy” declined a request to print posters for an event associated with the 'World Pride' events happening in Sydney at the moment- see this report from Nine News. But, of course, not everyone is on board with an event celebrating sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage. Mr Wing Khong, a Christian man who runs the Sydney CBD franchise of Kwik Kopy, declined to accept an order from Skater Leo Bunch, who emailed to ask for a quote to print 'roller derby' flyers with a World Pride theme. Mr Khong commented: 'There was no offence meant. Everyone is entitled is to their own position. I don't believe it was discrimination, rather I was just obeying the Word of God.'" (18 Feb 2023)
Read more at Law and Religion Australia