Catholic Schools – the Education Option Australia Can’t do Without

With 2018 changes in the administration of funding to Australian schools, low paying systemic non-denominational schools will lose millions, in particular Catholic schools. The funding model has been questioned and Catholic schools authorities have made appeals to the Turnbull Government to rethink their policy. The National School Resourcing Board, headed by Dr Michael Chaney, was tasked with conducting a review of the policy as Dallas McInerney, CEO, Catholic Schools NSW addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 15 May 2018.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS – THE EDUCATION OPTION AUSTRALIA CAN’T DO WITHOUT

DALLAS MCINERNEY

Gerard, thank you for the introduction and the opportunity to address the great Sydney Institute on this important topic.

To take the platform at the Institute once is an honour; to take it a second time is truly humbling; on that previous occasion, seven years ago, I found myself arguing (unsuccessfully) against Liberal Party policy – perhaps this second time’s a charm?

The topic was superannuation and why the Abbott led Opposition should change its position and support an increase in the superannuation guarantee – the employer’s contribution – from nine percent and put in on a trajectory to 12 per cent. My interlocutor on the night was the three term Federal Liberal MP and former Treasury Minister, Ross Cameron. Ross was in his pre Marcus Aurelius phase and dead set against the idea. As it turns out, Ross had a better read on the issue given the SG is legislated to remain at 9.5 per cent until June 2020.

The topic of my talk this evening is quite different: Catholic Schools – the education option Australia can’t do without. As I sat down to assemble my thoughts, and put together the case, it struck me that I might have overshot with the magnitude of this claim. However, having done the exercise, I don’t think I have, and I look forward to being challenged or supported in the Q & A segment this evening.

My presentation will seek to leave with you three general propositions. First, arguing that an enormously positive intervention in Australian education has been made by the Catholic Church through its commitment to a national network of schools. Second, this commitment represents an enormous contribution to Australia’s social and human capital and its ongoing support from the government delivers a lasting national dividend. And third, the current funding model of the federal government needs revisiting as it disturbs the settled policy of parental school choice and risks undermining the breadth of Australia’s tradition of faith-based education.

Presented with the opportunity to celebrate a uniquely British achievement to a global audience, the artistic director for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics chose to showcase the National Health Service via a melodramatic sequence of dancing Florence Nightingales and spinning hospital beds. Many in the audience, and certainly a number of commentators, looked askance at a homage to socialised medicine featuring at a sporting festival and it quickly drew criticism.

It was left to Olympics Chief and London Lord Mayor, Boris Johnson, to defend the production. Boris argued that the NHS had a special place in British culture and, after watching the display, he found the whole thing “stupefyingly brilliant” and confessed, that even as a Tory, he has “shed holy tears of patriotic pride”.1

Fortunately, Australia does not need the IOC’s party planners to celebrate or preserve the unique Australian institutions and creations that form part of our national DNA. We are fortunate in being able to claim many instances where we have come together – largely absent of government – and forged lasting institutions and traditions shaped by our instincts of egalitarianism and comradery in pursuit of the common good.We are fortunate in being able to claim many instances where we have come together – largely absent of government – and forged lasting institutions and traditions shaped by our instincts of egalitarianism and comradery in pursuit of the common good.

Legacy Australia, the Flying Doctor Service, our surf lifesaving clubs and rural fire brigades are shining examples that have endured across the decades and generations and made significant contributions to Australia’s cohesion and the capacity of our local communities.

Standing tall in this company is the local Catholic school, whose genesis and influence upon Australian education make it a historical achievement of unrepeatable significance.

History

The early years of Church-based education in colonial Australia were humble and without pretension. This was certainly true of Catholic schools, the first of which was opened in 1819 by Fr John Therry out in Parramatta.

On some readings, Catholic schools should never have succeeded in Australia, much less endured, and even thrived, as they have for almost two centuries. It was Australia’s early Protestant schools that prospered under the early colonial patronage thanks to the official status of the established Church of England.

By 1833, Catholics had managed to establish almost a dozen school across various colonies. However, following legislative change in the New South Wales colony that saw the Church of England joined in legal status by the other denominations, a brighter future emerged and, from the mid-1800s, it was a period of accommodation of all denominational schools.

The earlier antipathy of Irish-centred Catholicism continued to recede. Official support came in the form of the Church Act 1836 (NSW) which afforded pound for pound subsidies for Church Buildings and Schools and later the establishment of the very first non-Government school funding body, the Denominational School Board of NSW in 1848.

What followed was two decades of State munificence; the amount of money appropriated to each denomination was fixed by parliament and calculated on a per capita basis (not a needs basis) for each of the four denominations: Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians and Methodists.

Times were good until the entire faith-based collection of schools met head on with a movement that was gathering support across the colonies in the form of “free, secular and compulsory schools”.

After an initial threat from Anglican favouritism, Catholic schools were now faced with a new risk in the form of state-instigated constraint. All denominational schools and their clerical leaders had to wrestle with a generation of political leaders who were intent on elbowing Church schools aside to make room for a State system, free from religious instruction.

Henry Parkes was responsible for the early legislation which seriously constrained the fortunes of Catholic schools – even railing against them in parliament, chiding the “multiplicity of small inefficient schools. ² – reminiscent of some discussions we continue to have today. Parkes also targeted the clergy who he regarded as the most “powerful enemies that popular education ever had” ³.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, a series of public policy developments ensued, the Denominational School Board was abolished. Parkes’ 1866 Public Schools Act (NSW) passed and the Public Instruction Act (1880) formally ceased funding to all Church schools effective from Dec 1882. ⁴ After a relatively short period of State funding, government support for faith-based schools ended and this remained the case for almost a century.

The Church was not passive in the face of these developments. Its leadership took issue with the new focus on secular education and were alarmed at the dangers this posed. The Archbishops and Bishops exercising jurisdiction in NSW issued a Joint Pastoral Letter in 1879, and cast itself a reluctant participant in matters of state; the letter read “…with politics, as such, it was never our taste to meddle” ⁵

Oh really?

The letter warned that these new secular schools were “… seed plots of future immorality, infidelity and lawlessness, being calculated to debase the standard of human excellence and to corrupt the political, social and individual life of future citizens” ⁶ The intervention did not change the policy. But for the efforts of the Church during this period, particularly the inspired commitment of leading Catholic women in the various religious orders, the Catholic school project might have collapsed and never survived.

Fast forward to the 1960s; the situation was becoming quite acute.

Government funding was yet to return. The population was increasing. Critically, the most significant change to the cost base of the whole operation was underway – namely, the move from unpaid teaching staff, thanks to vocations and an invaluable contribution from the religious, towards a paid professional staff of laity. The challenges were piling up all around the place. A reflection from that time bears this out. Br Kelvin Canavan has on another occasion recounted the following:

In the 1960s, I taught in Catholic primary schools in Sydney. Classes were large – partly explained by post-war immigration – and facilities were inadequate. There was zero government recurrent funding. In 1966, I taught 68 boys in Year 5 at Marist Brothers Eastwood. I was also responsible for the primary department. This school was similar to other Catholic schools. The demand for places outstripped supply and the very survival of these schools was uncertain. In the late 1960s, the financial situation had become so desperate that the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese considered a proposal to have either primary or secondary schools, but not both.  ⁷

Soon after the time of Kelvin’s recollections – and thanks to his efforts – State Aid did return. Those developments and battles have been well canvassed and I won’t dwell on them tonight… suffice to say, it provided a platform for ongoing operation of Catholic and other religious schools.

Descriptive

Today, there are more than 765,000 students in 1731 Catholic schools across Australia, with approximately 70 new Catholic schools planned over the next five years. This year, parents of Catholic school students will pay more than $3 billion in fees and capital levies to support their children’s’ education.⁸ Here, in New South Wales, we are predominantly a system of primary schools. Of our 595 schools, 424 are primary schools, 134 are secondary schools and 30 are combined. We also operate seven schools for children with special needs.

The geographic breadth of the school network has always been a distinguishing feature of Catholic schools… schools pioneered in areas often before government. More than 48 per cent of Catholic schools are located outside of Sydney, with 70 in outer regional or remote areas. Presently, there are approximately 256,000 student in NSW Catholic schools There are 14 schools with boarding facilities and tonight, just over 2100 students will board in our schools across the state.

Pleasingly, NSW Catholic schools have witnessed a significant increase in enrolments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In NSW Catholic primary schools, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student enrolments have almost doubled in the decade to 2017.

NSW’s Catholic schools are the largest non-government employer of teachers in Australia, with total staff numbering exceeding 27,000.

A national contribution

What is so unique about Australian Catholic schools that make them worth the preservation effort for the twenty-first century and beyond? The answer is multifaceted and partly explained by a willingness to build on the existing contributions of Catholic schools to Australian development. It is also a recognition that the Australian school landscape, distinguished by a parallel network of more than 1700 mostly low-fee schools is globally unique and enriches the entire school offering.

The Catholic primary school anchored so many of our pre-federation towns and regional centres. In hundreds of communities across budding settlements, the local Catholic primary school was the nucleus for generations of parents united in the support of their young and their future. Consider some examples:

• St Patricks Primary School in Brewarrina – established in 1894;
• St Monica’s Primary School in Richmond – a Good Samaritan School, established in 1859;
• St Joseph’s Primary in Dungog – established in 1888 by the Sisters of St Joseph;
• St Joseph’s Primary in Merriwa – established by local Catholics in 1883 who agreed to fund a teacher at 10 pounds per month until the Sisters of St Joseph arrived two years later.
• Joseph’s Primary in Bombala – another Mary MacKillop School, opening in 1888.

All of these schools remain open today. I could add hundreds more to the list.

Just as colonial governments set about laying railway tracks across the geography of the country – the benefits of which are still evident today – so too the Church busily built a network of schools modelled on the example of Christ and delivered through hard work and sacrifice. In barren towns without electricity, they brought God’s light and committed themselves to the Mission of Education.

While the Business Council of Australia and others can talk about the era of the knowledge economy and the agile learning required in a global market… it needs to be acknowledged that much of the foundation for this ambition was laid down by Catholic schools that brought education to the children of pre-Federation Australia when nobody else shared that ambition.

The Mission of Catholic schools is embracing and inclusive. With a daily classroom mission guided by the examples of Christ, the Catholic school has neither felt the need to make way for louder voices nor replace the contemporary expressions of our pluralistic society; rather, it has identified for itself a role for the enrichment of Australian pluralism.

Although primarily attended by Catholic students, the Church does not envision nor has it delivered school education as an exclusive pursuit, solely for the benefit of its own faithful. It has always believed that the mission of education was also in service to the greater good and should be accessible to more people – not less.

Nearly 40 years ago, the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education articulated the objectives of the school Mission. It was clear that the project was to be in service for the greater good and wider population, and act as a leavening influence in an increasingly contested world:

..to promote in them a sense of value; to encourage just attitude and prudent behaviour; to prepare them for professional life and to encourage the friendly interchange among students of diverse cultures and backgrounds that lead to mutual understanding. ⁹

In his 2008 seminal address to Catholic Educators, Pope Benedict XVI reminded the Church that:

Everything possible must be done in cooperation with the wider community to ensure (Catholic Schools) are accessible to people of all social and economic strata.¹⁰

In doing so, Benedict submitted, the soul of a nation would be nurtured.

Benedict was speaking to a philosophical tradition that holds that education without reference to Christianity is merely instruction and, without it, it’s not possible to civilise the heart, instruct the conscience and properly direct one’s will.

Our great Australian historian, Geoffrey Blainey, gives some support for the apparent success of this wider, outbound aspiration of organised religion. Writing on the period of the 1880s, Blainey noted the positive influence of the main churches, noting “they strengthened society in many ways… encouraged a sense of individual responsibility… (and were) foremost in the provision of education.” ¹¹ 

Reminding the world that the mission of Catholic education is not restrictive and seeks to expand the experience beyond its faithful, Benedict had critical insight on the identity of a Catholic school. The Holy Father said “… a school’s Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students… Identity is not dependent on statistics.”

This is the enduring and consistent theme of instruction for Catholic schooling – it is to be a project for the benefit of all. The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education calls for the “mobilisation of {the church’s resources}” to make a positive contribution “in a spirit of cooperation, to the building up of secular society”.

It is impossible to regard this injunction as being anything other than additive to the broader mission of education, public and private.

Policy

In reality, the substantial State support for non-government, faith-based schools in Australia – no matter the denomination – is not forthcoming because governments are responding to religious instincts or duties. The motivation for public support for non-government schools is much more utilitarian and more likely a recognition of the benefits of having the government school system relieved of the burden of educating the entire student population.

The Catholic primary school in particular has delivered substantial public policy dividends for Australian education. For almost two centuries, it has stood alongside the local government school providing a valuable choice for Australian parents. It has delivered a competitive tension into the primary school system – a critical component for any compulsory activity, mandated by the state.

The government school on one side of the street is a better school for the presence of the Catholic school on the other side of the street; the benefits flow in both directions.

One of the many positive features of the Australian school system – and, arguably, globally unique – is the comprehensive nature of Australia’s parallel systems of Government and Catholic schools. The ubiquity and geographic reach means that choice has been able to be exercised in almost every corner of the country. Parents have been able to exercise this choice with minimal social or physical disruption, allowing personal and family networks to be maintained.

Contrast this with the American school experience that does not have the network of Catholic schools complementing its public system. The most common way school choice is exercised in the United States is by securing a domicile in your preferred school district.

A study published by the respected Peabody Journal of Education, “A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice” ¹², revealed that almost a third of public school parents move or plan to move neighbourhoods so that their child can attend the zoned public school for that community. The type of parents exercising this choice provides further insight. The figures were highest among whites, Asians and families classified as non-poor.

The journal reflected on the asymmetry this creates in access to quality schools. The stratification effects upon the broader population from this form of school choice are obvious – chiefly, by the creation of additional access barriers, particularly for families without the means to relocate their families to better performing school districts.

The Peabody study goes on to reference data that undoubtedly motors this stratification -real estate price inflation. The study found that, on average, for every 5 per cent increase in school performance above the state mean, families were willing to pay an additional 2.5 per cent for their housing.

Australia has avoided this form of postcode determinism in large part because of the Catholic school architecture built across the nation. The contrast with the Australian experience is stark; the basic cost of school choice are modest fees – essentially, a tax on the choice made by parents and carers.

From time to time, there are questions raised about the efficacy of any type of support for a parallel system of low fee non-government schools across New South Wales. Why should the government support two systems? So goes the question. References are made to duplication and overlap.

If there are any diseconomies of scale experienced by the State because of the Catholic school system, then this is paid for by private fees contributed by families – in short, the inefficiency argument does not hold. This question has been a point of the Church’s focus for more than 100 years, starting when Sydney Archbishop Vaughn urged:

Bishops, Priests and people do all that lies in them, if necessary at personal sacrifice. To render their present schools as efficient in every way as possible; so as to be equal in secular instruction to non-Catholic school. ¹³

Funding

The long-standing tradition of school choice for Catholics and its underlying principle is well known and was again cogently put by Mark Tannock, the Principal of St Aloysius’ College in Sydney. Published in The Australian last year as parliament was considering the government’s school funding package, Mark wrote:

To be a real choice for any family, Catholic schools need to operate with low (or at least moderate) fee levels. It should not matter where you live or what your income is… Catholic schools (should be) an available option to any family who might choose to enrol their family in them. ^[14]

At present, about a quarter of students in Catholic schools are not Catholic. The opportunity is open to the wider population. This approach to enrolments and the modest fee levels, make Catholic systemic schools more akin to local Government schools – not high-fee independent schools – and they should be regarded as such.

The Declaration of Christian Education – Gravissimum educationis, issued in 1965 following the Second Vatican Council, contains both an injunction for civil bodies and Catholic parents to support Catholic schools. It puts an obligation upon Catholic parents, reminding them of their duty to send their children to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible and – critically – the importance of supporting these schools to the best of their ability^.16

Here, the Church is putting an explicit contributory onus on those parents with the means to support Catholic schooling. Catholic parents are up for that; as I mentioned earlier, Catholic parents will pay more than $3 billion in fees and other contributions this year.

In October 2017, parliament passed the government’s legislation supporting a new school funding model. The parliamentary approval has not ended the debate… and with good reason. Beyond the oft-repeated descriptors of “needs based” and “increased funding” over the next 10 years, there are serious challenges for affordable Catholic schools in the details of that package.

The new funding model relies on a flawed measurement model – the socio-economic status (or SES) score methodology – to assess parents’ income and, relatedly, their capacity to contribute to the cost of their children’s education. It ranks schools on a scale from 60 to 140. The higher the SES score, the higher the capacity of parents to contribute is deemed to be – and therefore the lower the government’s funding support for that school.

But the methodology throws up some bizarre conclusions, for example:

• Trinity Grammar – a K-12 independent school in Summer Hill that charged average fees of about $24,000 a year in 2016 – has an SES score of 114. The methodology says it needs base government funding of almost $6,000 per primary student per year ($5,969) and $6,070 per secondary student (this is before additional funding is added for any student disadvantage)
• The King’s School has an SES score of 116, which means it receives base funding of $5,400 per primary school student and $5,463 per secondary student. It charged average fees of $28,700 in 2016.

Let’s compare that with St Joseph’s primary school at Oatley. It has been assigned an SES score of 117 – higher than both Trinity Grammar and King’s – so it attracts less government funding per student – $5,115 per student (2016 fees: $1800)

St Gerard’s primary school in Carlingford has an SES of 118. It attracts $4,830 per student (2016 fees: $2900).

St Brendan’s Primary school at Annandale has an SES score of 126. It attracts only $2,191 per student (fees: $2490).

All up, there are 63 low fee, suburban and regional Catholic schools in NSW and the ACT that have been given a higher SES score than The King’s School.

The government’s policy deems that the parents in these schools can afford to pay the difference that’s needed to bring school resourcing up to a base target of almost $11,000 per year, per student for all primary schools.

In other words, the funding methodology expects the parents at St Brendan’s Annandale to be able to pay almost $8,800 per year in fees for each of their children to attend primary school from Kindergarten onwards – a fee level which totally affronts the mission of Catholic schools, and undermines parents’ ability to choose an alternative to the government option.

This methodology needs to change. It is clear that the formula is mischaracterising sections of the parent population. The government has responded with a review of the SES methodology and this is a good thing. The review is being conducted by the National Schools Resourcing Board and headed by the Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Michael Chaney.

However, other aspects of concern are outside the government’s review and will remain a point of contention for Catholic schools until they are resolved; we stand ready to engage the government on these matters.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, the story of Catholic education is Australia is a noble one Considered in toto, it is the terrific example of civil support for a faith-based pursuit, in pursuit of the common good. This is its history of the last two centuries; it remains in prospect for the years ahead, so long as we get the policy settings right.

ENDNOTES

¹ Evening Standard, 28 July, 2012

² Parkes, H; Parliamentary Speech on the introduction of the Public Schools Act (1866) as per, R Travers, The Grand Old Man of Australian Politics (1992) 161

³ Ibid.

⁴ Australian Catholic Historical Society, Journal. April 2018, Kelvin Canavan fms

⁵ Joint Pastoral Letter on Catholic Education. 1879

⁶ Ibid

⁷ Federalism, Whitlam and the funding of Catholic schools; Br Kelvin Canavan, fms, 1 May 2012. Address to the Whitlam Institute, University of Western Sydney

⁸ https://www.ncec.catholic.edu.au/resources/publications/401-catholic-schools-in-australia-2016/file

⁹ Catholics in Schools: Witness to Faith Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education (1982). Part IV

¹⁰ The Catholic University of America; Address to Catholic Educators by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI April 17, 2008,

¹¹ Heyday of the Churches in Victoria, Blainey, G; Richmond, 1985, 4-5

¹² Anna J. Egalite & Patrick J Wolf (2016) A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice, Peabody Journal of Education, 91:4, 441-454

¹³ Joint Pastoral Letter on Catholic Education. 1879

^[14] The Australian, 20 June 2017

^[16] Pope Paul VI. (1965) Gravissiumum educationis www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii)