The publication last week of the report entitled "Rebuilding Public Schools 2020" by education consultant Adam Rorris opened a new and important chapter in the debate about the future of education funding in this country. The report, commissioned by the Australian Education Union, surveyed the literature on international experience to conclusively demonstrate the importance of good-quality buildings, classrooms and facilities to educational outcomes.

The report exposed also the appalling spending capital gap between public and non-government schools, leading to a widening gulf between the sectors, with public education consistently missing out on funding for quality buildings, learning spaces, music, art and sports facilities, and financial support to maintain the highest standards.

Mr Rorris rigorously analysed capital works expenditure in public and non-government schools using publicly available data from State budgets and the National Report on Schooling in Australia by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. His findings should put all governments, State and Federal, to shame for allowing the development of such a massive capital spending injustice.

His findings also highlight the dedication and professionalism of public sector teachers who, despite the handicap imposed on their schools by chronic and spectacular capital underfunding, continue to deliver extraordinary outcomes. It is unfair and unsustainable to continue to rely on the self-sacrifice of public sector teachers to compensate for tight-fisted and biased school funding.

Mr Rorris' figures show that annual funding on capital works in public schools across Australia needs to be boosted by $1.9 billion to match expenditure in private schools on a comparative per-student basis. Over the 2002-2005 period the average public school was $1.2 million worse off than the average private and Catholic school on a per-student basis. The report conservatively estimates that an additional $22 billion needs to be spent on public schools capital works over the next 12 years to give every child access to equivalent quality school buildings and facilities.

In New South Wales the annual outspend by private schools requires an additional $700 million of capital works expenditure to restore per-student parity—more than double the current capital works expenditure. Over the next 12 years State funding needs to increase by a total of $8.3 billion to close the gap.

The story told by the figures is borne out by the experience of public school teachers, principals and parents whose impatience with substandard facilities is rapidly transforming into anger as they watch private schools engage in orgies of luxury building programs. Allowing a gap of this size to widen between school sectors not only forces teachers in public schools to work with one hand tied behind their backs, but also risks opening up divisions in Australian society that will inflict long-term damage on social cohesion.

The paucity of funding for capital works in public schools not only is threatening the quality of education delivery; it is also restricting the future vision for schools developing as the centre of a community integrating adult and childhood learning, health services, family support services, arts, sports and culture. This is the future that is being built in countries that seriously invest in their public education facilities.

Adam Rorris' report challenges State and Federal governments to turn the tide on the growing gap of unfairness in capital facilities between public and private education. The Howard Government opened the floodgates of massive increases in per-capita funding of private schools, exacerbating capital inequalities and kick-starting massive growth in private schools. Neither the State Government nor the Federal Government that replaced the Howard Government has had the courage to stem the flow.

The Rudd Government not only failed to stop the growth of Federal funding to non-government schools; it is rapidly deserting the public system. Federal education Minister Julia Gillard in her speech to the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Independent Schools on 21 May 2008 put on display her disdain for the system that educates almost 70 per cent of Australians.

She said:

“I believe it's time we got beyond the public versus private divide that has blighted our education debates for so long and replaced it with a debate about the quality of education.”

Whenever politicians talk about moving beyond the public versus private debate, make no mistake—they are really saying that they are deserting the funding needs of the public system for the politically more powerful private sector. This is the direction in which the Rudd Government is heading.

It is time New South Wales and Australia had governments that responded to Mr Rorris's report and started investing in public schools to allow every child to have the right to education with quality facilities.