Editorial, March 11, 2011
My School … go figure
FOLLOWING complaints and criticism centred on flawed data collection last time around, the Government this week released its updated My School website, version 2.0.
While supposedly allowing parents to easily compare the financial details of more than 10,000 national schools, many are concerned that the information available does not actually allow for this like-with-like comparison.
The Australian Council of Jewish Schools this week welcomed the release of the data, saying if used correctly, the additional facts will equip parents with more knowledge and provide added transparency.
But is there a point to the system if financial information at each school is structured differently? If one school only provided figures for its secular studies, another didn’t include the financial data of its kindergarten and preschool, while another still has more special-needs students enrolled and therefore receives additional government funding, none is remotely comparable to the other.
It’s interesting also to note that the first release My School website had a strong focus on the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results, whereas this round seems to have more weight on the financial side of affairs. Will the next version ignore the finances and instead propose a new focus?
The site also gives each school an Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) value and it’s clear to see that Government funding reflects the value.
While most of the Jewish schools receive between $3000-$4000 in combined federal and state funding, Sydney’s Kesser Torah College and Melbourne schools Yeshivah and Beth Rivkah colleges, Yesodei Hatorah and the Adass Israel school all receive well over $9000.
While these facts are interesting, parents still have to consider if it actually affects the quality of education.
It was Sydney’s Emanuel School president David Nathan who pointed out that the two-year-old data, released through the website, hardly reflects the schools today. But perhaps he said it best when he told The AJN that he doesn’t think any reasonable person could decide on a school for their children based on these financial figures.
The Gospel as gospel?
TRIGGERING déjà vu in Vatican watchers, Pope Benedict XVI’s new book this week declares the Jews are not culpable for the death of Jesus. Haven’t we already been presented with Nostra Aetate, the landmark document from the Second Vatican Council 46 years ago, which disavowed the New Testament narrative blaming the Jerusalemite Jews of the time and their descendants everywhere for all time?
There have since been several reiterations of Nostra Aetate, in the form of a new catechism in the 1990s and a pontifical commission at the start of the new millennium. So there was widespread bemusement at the myopic media reaction to the Pope’s 2011 tome, Jesus Of Nazareth: Holy Week. Newspapers deliberately or perhaps just clumsily looked through the wormhole and portrayed the Jews’ innocence as if it were a novel discovery.
That said, Jewish leaders have welcomed the Pope’s conclusions in his scholarly and highly personal new treatise – and leading Catholics agree.
This time it is not just a declaration from on high, but a detailed examination of the New Testament Book of Matthew, studiously exposing the reference to the Jews exclaiming “his blood be upon us and upon our children” as a retrospective fiction. The lesson for Catholic scholars seems to be to not always take the Gospel as gospel.
Jesus’s crucifixion is a seminal chapter at the crossroads of faith and history and, at the very least, Jewish innocence bears repeating.
Bible students down the centuries have failed horribly, but we Jews have paid their tuition with our blood. The finger of accusation has been pointed at us for two millennia and has brought us inquisitions, exiles and pogroms. The exploitation of these ancient hatreds ultimately allowed the Shoah to unfold in all its demonic magnitude.
Jewish-Catholic relations will remain strained as long as sections of the church continue to blame “the perfidious Jews” – as they are referred to in the old Latin Mass – for the death of their saviour.
It is troubling that Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions already in place against the Latin Mass, revoked the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop and wants the canonisation of Pius XII, a predecessor who is widely held to have succumbed to the sin of silence during that terrible time.
Benedict XVI is a meticulous scholar, but he is also astute in interfaith relations. With his latest writings, he may be seeking to calm troubled waters.
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