Sydney, 29 August 2025 .
A new article published in Pearls and Irritations warns that Australia’s public-school system is in deep crisis, and that much of the damage stems not only from Coalition governments but from the Australian Labor Party’s own embrace of market-driven reforms.
Education commentator and former principal John Frew argues that while the Coalition has maintained inequitable policies, it was successive Labor government, beginning with Hawke and Keating’s economic rationalism and culminating in Julia Gillard’s league tables and compromised Gonski reforms that entrenched neoliberalism into education.
“Labor likes to present itself as the party of equality, but in education it has built the very market that is dismantling public schooling,” Frew writes. “From Dawkins’ university reforms and the introduction of contestable funding in TAFE, to NAPLAN, the My School website, and deals that protected private school overfunding, Labor has consistently prioritised market logic over public provision.”
The article highlights key consequences of this bipartisan marketisation:
- Residualisation of public schools, which now carry the overwhelming share of high-needs students.
- Chronic teacher shortages, worsened by compliance burdens and high attrition.
- Narrowed curriculum, as schools “teach to the test” to protect reputations.
- Erosion of social cohesion, with education increasingly segregated by income and status.
Frew calls the Albanese Government’s refusal to fully fund public schools to the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) until 2029 a “moral abdication,” arguing that every year of delay denies another generation of disadvantaged children the resources they need.
The article concludes with a call for urgent reform, including:
- Full public-school funding to 100% of SRS by 2025.
- Ending overfunding of private schools.
- Abolishing high-stakes use of NAPLAN and removing league tables from My School.
- Rebuilding TAFE as the dominant public provider.
“Labor built this market. If it is serious about equity, it must dismantle the system it created,” Frew says.
The full article is available at: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/08/how-the-alp-built-the-market-that-is-destroying-public-schools/
Public Education Party