Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Children with Disability Australia is the national peak body for children and young people with disability aged 0-25years. We have 5000 members nationally and a social media subscription of over 7000. We are a fairly young organisation being officially launched in 2010. We are a small organisation operationally, with a lot of ground to cover. CDA has a total staffing of 3.3 EFT positions. Despite our small operational capacity we have established a strong national voice, increased community awareness of education and the experience of students with disability and are well regarded for our expertise and contribution in this area At Children with Disability Australia (CDA) we hear daily of shameful education experiences of students with disability. It is extremely hard to convey the breadth of disadvantage students with disability must contend with in the current education system in Australia. A typical school experience for students with disability involves limited choice of school, discrimination, bullying, limited or no funding for support and resources, inadequately trained staff and having to contend with a culture of low expectations. These failings have become entrenched in the education system and the urgency of delivering system wide solutions is now acute. One of the most common scenarios is that families are often directly told that their child is unable to attend their local school, or another school of choice, because of the childs disability or they are left with a feeling that their child would be such an inordinate burden on a particular school that they feel compelled to seek other options. CDA is told frequently of situations where students can only attend school part-time due to inadequate availability of resources and support. Whilst it cannot be denied that attitudinal change is also imperative, it needs to be recognised that the difficulty of obtaining adequate funding to support children with disability plays a major role in these poor experiences. Funding inadequacies are a major barrier to the provision of essential resources & equipment, individual support, training and access to other professional expertise. These are all essential components in the provision of an adequate and quality education to students with disability. While there have been modest investments in these areas through initiatives such as the More Support for Students with Disabilities National Partnerships, the ambition has been limited and these programs remain bolt-on programs outside the core funding and policy model for education. They do not fundamentally change the way education is delivered for students with disability. Every classroom in Australia is likely to have a student with disability. Teachers want and need to be well equipped to teach all students. To this end, it is crucial that they are appropriately resourced, trained and supported. It is time that schools and school communities welcome students with disability, not view them as a burden or place them in the too hard basket. For this to happen we need cultural change that is mandated by the education funding system with positive policy commitments and adequate resourcing. While around 90% of students with disability attend mainstream schools across all systems in Australia, the poor outcomes being achieved demonstrate that just being counted inside the school gate does not deliver a quality education for these students. The local and international evidence is unequivocal that an inclusive education provides significant benefits for students with and without disability. In a public policy area that prides its adherence to research evidence, the lack of high level policy support and translation of this evidence into practice is shameful, and has resulted in the continued marginalisation of students with disability in many Australian schools. In some States there is growth in segregated schools, and parents are getting

increasingly exasperated with the mainstream system because of its systematic failings. In fact CDA is noting the trend to increased conflict between schools and families in this area. It is currently the sad reality that more often than not, families must fiercely advocate or fight to ensure basic education opportunities for their child can be accessed. It is the experience of CDA that it is rare for students to be provided with equal education opportunities or a truly inclusive education experience. There are entrenched attitudes and expectations held by students and families of a continued dysfunctional education system which has typically failed their child and family in many ways. There is a great deal yet to be finalised and negotiated before the planned introduction of a disability loading, but what is of central concern to CDA is the lack of clarity about the process that will be undertaken to deliver a coherent and effective funding model by 2015. CDA has asked since the initial commitment was made to develop a disability loading for articulation of the clear program of work occurring to develop this loading and how this will be in place for the 2015 school year as promised. This is still not clear for CDA. Additionally, it is of concern that there has only been minimal meaningful consultation and involvement of groups outside of government in this work to date. It is absolutely critical to the success of the reform for students with disability to ensure that families and students are informed, engaged and able to contribute to the process so that historical expectations of despondency and disempowerment can be re-set. As yet this has not been an obvious priority or consideration of the reform. Those closely involved and responsible for delivering this reform would do well to observe how the Department of Social Services (previously FaHCSIA) and the States developed the NDIS in a collaborative way. CDA believes that there is much to be learnt from this given that the NDIS is now up and running. I want to cite a few brief comments which reflect the despondency which exists. FAMILY COMMENTS Every promise of support and modification has yet to be delivered. My son was never given the opportunity to reach his full potential. My child is clearly not quite as entitled to education as the kid next door. Sometimes the hardest thing about disability is expecting support but ending up with yet another time consuming fight. I don't have anything good to say about our sons education except it gave the family free child care. AND THOSE FROM STUDENTS WITH DISABILITY I constantly felt left out and isolated in all the schools I attended special, primary and high schools. Each had its own problems.

Im not allowed to attend my local secondary college full time like my 3 brothers before me (who dont have a disability). At the school I attend, Im treated like an idiot, like I cant do what other kids can do. Their expectations of me are very low. They dont treat me like an individual. I spoke at assembly and said it felt terrible to be called a retard and everyone needed to stop presuming disability is a bad thing. School would be a much better place for kids with disability if everyone thought about their attitude to disability. Disability doesn't mean 'not normal' and it does not mean less ability. It's just a different ability. We are all different so it shouldn't be such a big deal. So it is critical to engage battle weary families and students in reform for students with disability in education reform so that the process of reform neednt go forward characterised by conflict. Something must be injected to create a new frame of reference for this reform beyond the laboured bureaucratic approach currently underway. The urgency we see daily is in no way reflected in the slow pace of this work, or indeed in the statements from responsible Ministers. The area of disability has proven to be of the most difficult parts of the present education reform process to deliver. The Australian Education Act 2013 had only temporary arrangements for the funding of students with disability, while other areas of disadvantage had loadings articulated in the Act. Like many areas of public policy there is no silver bullet. We must begin to approach the funding system for students with disability in a fundamentally different way. It is not simply a political or bureaucratic problem to solve, but a central area of Australias education system. As such it needs to be brought to the centre of the funding model, not continue to languish at the periphery where it has been left for more than a generation. We must prioritise the addressing of this gross disadvantage.