Chris Bonnor

Anyone remotely committed to excellence with equity in our schools will feel the urge to break out the champagne this week. After six years a conservative prime minister is not only using the language of Gonski, he had the man standing next to him while he re-booted the Gonski Review. Politics was swept aside: this new initiative would give Australian students the quality education they deserve – with more funding, fair, needs-based and transparent; so the narrative went. (more…)

The big lesson for Australia in education is that we can ‘reform’ schools to the hilt, hammer the maths and science – but nothing will change unless we address structural and equity problems as well.  (more…)

The ALP seems to have missed many points about school funding, especially the need to establish Gonski’s schools resourcing body, a proposal which has been strongly supported by the Grattan Institute.
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Last week was one to remember: one school funding revelation after another.

It began the previous Friday at the Education Minister’s COAG gathering in Adelaide. One big problem, as Bernie Shepherd and I pointed out, was that the gathering wouldn’t begin to tackle the hard issues. They walked out at the end of the day, agreeing … on the need to walk back in at a later date.

The next event was Q&A last Monday night, a forum where it isn’t easy to duck hard issues. To cut a long story short, the well-briefed Tony Jones pressed two issues with Federal Minister. Simon Birmingham acknowledged that some private schools were over-funded – and also said he was very open to the idea of a schools’ resourcing body to oversight funding. It has been this lack of oversight that has substantially created our current impasse. (more…)

The nation’s education ministers have just had a day together to sort out school funding. There was considerable posturing but little agreement. And they managed to sidestep real problems and urgent solutions. They do have some awareness of the institutionalised inequality created, in part, by school funding – but no real will to fix it.

In a new report Bernie Shepherd and I outline the problem, starting with the contrasts between the schools in Albury and Wodonga, two of our most prominent border towns. One school on the NSW side is Albury Public School. Across the Murray is Wodonga Primary School with students who are less advantaged. After all the talk about equity you’d expect the strugglers at Wodonga to be better supported. Quite the opposite: while NSW annually provides over $8000 for each of the students at Albury Public, those in the Victorian school make do with $2000 less. (more…)

A couple of reports out on schools this week are urging policy shifts, but in different directions. The latest offering from the money-doesn’t-matter brigade comes from the Productivity Commission in its draft report Lifting the bonnet on Australia’s schools. Meanwhile Jim McMorrow has completed an analysis which shows that when it comes to money, public schools and disadvantaged schools generally face a lean future.

The Commission wasn’t crudely asked to investigate the alleged non-link between money and results – but it was happy to throw around a few generalisations – and the media reports certainly focused on this issue. (more…)

A news report in The SMH August 29^th revealed that more than 800 public schools in NSW are operating at 100% of capacity or more. Apparently 180 of these are stretched beyond their limits. The report listed a large number of these schools.

Where are these schools and why are they in high demand? Most are primary schools, usually located in metropolitan areas. There are 118 of these for which full My School data is available. 98 of these are located in metropolitan areas.

The most noticeable feature of these 98 schools is that they already enrol advantaged students. Their average Index of socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) is 1069. This compares with the NSW average for public primary schools which is around 100 lower at 967. It is a big difference. (more…)

School education in Australia has been invaded from the west. In 2010 Western Australia added its contribution to free-market orthodoxy by declaring that its public schools would be given greater control over staffing and budgets. From 2010 an increasing number have become independent public schools.

Like many reforms (?) over the last few decades it has a certain resonance and indeed was initially welcomed by a large number of schools. School principals have always complained about excessive bureaucratic control of their schools. (more…)

August is when the NAPLAN test results come out to schools and parents. It isn’t as exciting as the annual release of Year 12 results, but it is developing a life of its own. We are bombarded with media releases, claims and counter claims about schools and results. Cheer squads or jeer squads form up, the occasional moral panic revived, along with the usual exhortations to do better next year. (more…)

What My School really says about our schools. (Text of press release of 28 March 2016)

In the wake of the latest version of My School two researchers have published a startling account of what the numbers behind the website actually show. Former school principals Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd have revealed new findings which challenge myths about Australia’s schools.

While reports are frequently about the ‘drift to the private schools’ Bonnor and Shepherd have found that the drift could be equally seen as one from low socio-educational advantage (SEA) schools to higher SEA schools. As recently reported on Lateline, they show that enrolments are increasing in higher SEA government schools, but declining in low SEA government schools.

Lower SEA schools in all sectors are tending to lose their more advantaged students, while higher SEA schools, again in all sectors, are not only getting bigger but are increasing their enrolment of the most advantaged.

“The flipside, as Gonski warned, is that disadvantage is being compounded in lower SEA schools”, Chris Bonnor said. “Hence the student achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged schools are widening. My School data shows Australia’s school equity problem is worsening, especially in the secondary school years and in metropolitan areas’.

The two former principals warn against using rusted-on beliefs, rather than evidence, to decide future directions for Australia’s schools.

“The current trend is to make public schools more like private schools, in the belief that the latter get better results. We use both NAPLAN and HSC results to show this is a myth.”

They also found that government recurrent funding (per student) to private schools is increasing at around double the rate of increases to public schools.

“We are already seeing large numbers of private schools getting more public funding than goes to public schools serving similar students”, Bonnor and Shepherd warn. “The idea that private schools save public funds is at best a half-truth – on the way to becoming a myth.”

Their analysis also shows that the high spending on students who are already advantaged is not improving measurable student outcomes.

“The government portion of this overspend is around $1.5 billion each year. It would be a better investment if it was redirected to more needy schools,”.

Bonnor and Shepherd’s new publication School Daze – what My School really says about our schools, is available for free download at www.edmediawatch.com

For more information contact Chris Bonnor on 0411048200

The ALP’s commitment to funding Gonski for the full six years has created interest and even excitement, being welcomed by the three main school sectors, but panned by the Coalition.

So why do I just feel that we’ve been here before?

It could be because everyone welcomed Gonski’s findings and recommendations in 2012, but what followed was one disappointment after the other. Key players in the the non-government school sector soon disappeared behind closed doors to argue the details, especially the weighting given to student needs. It was probably academic: after the 2013 election the Coalition abandoned Gonski funding plans for the vital last two years of the six year period.

But let’s share the blame around. As education minister and as prime minister Julia Gillard dragged her heels in setting up the Gonski review and then in acting on its findings. When the 2013 election loomed Labor created and jumped into a trench, ready to do battle with Abbott around school equity and Gonski funding. Abbott and Pyne then declared a ‘unity ticket’ on funding and Gonski disappeared as a significant election issue.

Fast forward and we have another ALP leader facing an election from well behind a reinvigorated Coalition. Malcolm Turnbull and Simon Birmingham have nailed their colors to the masthead, having recently abandoned any idea of funding Gonski for the full six years. A door has opened for Bill Shorten.

Like Gillard, Shorten is keen to get on the front foot in anything which will define a difference with the Coalition. When Abbott was around the ALP showed little inclination to talk about Gonski funding. Their conversations about school education policy seemed to focus on anything but. Now Shorten is on fire, taking a leaf from Gillard’s 2013 strategy – and on current form, heading for the same outcome.

Labor’s announcement included separate funding for students with a disability, even though no one seems to know how many students have a disability and where they go to school. Years ago Gonski recommended that we find out. Disability funding has created a few headlines recently and both sides of politics want to be seen to be responding.

Shorten also mentioned that the distribution of future funding would be “sector neutral”. Whatever that means, it sounds new – but was more likely a misuse of words. Gonski’s distribution was to be sector-blind, in effect funding on need without school sector being a consideration. Sector neutral suggest making sure everyone gets a slice of the funding pie, regardless of need.

Meanwhile the lofty goals of yesteryear have been dragged out again. Gillard wanted Australian kids to be ahead of Shanghai by 2025. Shorten wants something along those lines and a 95% retention to Year 12. This time around Labor has stressed that there will be strings attached to the money – as indeed there should be. Kate Ellis has  stipulated the need for a strong evidence base to where the funding is to go. Another good move.

Simon Birmingham has predictably responded by complaining that spending more money doesn’t improve results. He needs to revisit this script: it seems that the best evidence to support this assertion comes not from struggling schools but from high-fee non-government schools. NSW Minister Adrian Piccoli guardedly welcomed Labor’s new commitment. From opposite sides of the fence the AEU and the Independent Schools Council of Australia seem happy – as they were in 2012.

Here we go again, maybe.

Chris Bonnor is a Fellow of the centre for Policy Development and a Director of Big Picture Education Australia

Prime ministers come and go but the timing of nasty announcements doesn’t change. And so it was with the dumping of Gonski funding beyond 2017, announced in the traditional period of national lethargy between Christmas and New Year. It came despite earlier rumours which suggested Turnbull would pull a rabbit out of the hat – but the December MYEFO showed an increasing deficit of fiscal rabbits.

Aside from a very few, the reaction was one of dismay, including from NSW. Amongst the few was Jennifer Buckingham who joined the usual ‘more money doesn’t deliver’ chorus, drawing attention to recent findings which suggested funding makes little difference to student achievement. But the full report on the impact of National Partnership funding in NSW shows that, with certain programs and practices in place, targeted funding is certainly effective.

Alas it seems that the solution is now to simply cap the funding rather than focus on support and accountability to ensure such programs are indeed in place. And of course, with no continuity of funding the successful programs will fade and new and better ways of doing school will disappear off the agenda. The trickle of Gonski funding to date won’t mean much long term. It somewhat reminds me of the laggards who exist in every school who would respond to new ideas with ‘we tried that but it didn’t work’. Governments have thrown a few dollars at equity programs and gee, NAPLAN scores didn’t go through the roof. What’s the point!

With the Gonski deck now clear Education Minister Birmingham will just revert to the toolbox of useless school fixes paraded by his predecessors on both sides of politics. There will inevitably be some attention to equity, accompanied by high rhetoric and low dollars. And, as Buckingham implies, extra funding will be presumably accompanied by pressure for assured tangible benefits, by itself not a bad thing.

But the pressure to show these benefits will be placed on the struggling schools, even though much of existing expenditure is poorly distributed and not particularly effective. My School shows that private schools in Australia spend $4 billion more on their students than do similar government schools – but with almost no difference in measurable student results. At the moment the government share of this unproductive investment is around $1.5 billion. A nice little amount to divert to low SES schools.

The abandonment of Gonski has much wider implications and is going to multiply the range of problems identified by Gonski, problems which have worsened in recent years. Here are a few which have emerged from my work with Bernie Shepherd and reported in Gonski, My School and the Education Market.

1. Socio-educational gradients (SEGs) – key measures of school equity – have worsened. For all Australian schools the gradient shifted from 32% to 37% between 2010 and 2014. SEGs for some schools, for example secondary schools, have steepened even more than 5%.
2. Student performance varies between states and sectors, but the most significant and under-reported trend is a flat-lining of achievement in higher socio-educational advantage (SEA) schools and a noticeable decline in lower SEA schools.
3. The SEA difference in student enrolment in the different sectors continues, but the rate of recurrent funding increases per student have favoured sectors enrolling the most advantaged.
4. The funding differences between the sectors has reached the point where, if current trends continue, the level of public recurrent funding of students in non-government schools will exceed the level of funding of students in similar government schools. Regardless of possible future trends, the current operation of all the school sectors must be reviewed.
5. There are stark examples, within and especially between sectors, of a disproportionately high public and privately sourced expenditure on some schools which is not yielding a return in measurable student achievement.
6. My School data reveals a significant difference between the level of SEA of schools and the equivalent measure of the communities in which schools are located. Recent research shows that this extends to the ethnic composition of school enrolments.

As I repeat rather too often, at some stage we’ll feel the need to have a review of the mounting unsustainability of our framework of schools. In the meantime, buckle up for a ride back to the future.

Once again we are in the middle of the annual HSC result festival – time to celebrate the winners amongst students and schools. Names of the top 100 schools are again paraded, seemingly to confirm a language about schools variously described as elite, high performing or prestigious. Everything else is out of sight. We read about the (well-deserved) success of particular students and hear from school principals about why their schools (apparently) did so well.

The language of sporting competition is readily employed as schools rise or slip in the ranks – as they inevitably do as Year 12 cohorts come and go. School labels are prominently displayed: selective, private, comprehensive. Cheer squads for one label or another are found in almost every home, every workplace, in the columns and airtime of media and in the halls of policy and power. Competing claims and even urban myths are created and recycled.

The more astute punter will know that the top 100 schools are dominated by those which are selective, private or planted in the right postcode. Any school which selects kids will gravitate to the top of the academic and social pile. Many private schools are there because their fees are high and fees always have a gatekeeping role. For other schools the right postcode has the same effect.

Some of the top 100 schools are very good – it’s just that we don’t really know which ones. After all, around 75% of the so-called top schools would also be in the top 100 if ranked by the level of advantage of the enrolled families.

To really comment on school achievement – especially to compare school apples with apples – we need to take into account this level of advantage. So what does such a fair comparison of schools really show, especially about the public and private labels?

If we use NAPLAN as a measure it seems that public schools across Australia nudge above Catholic and Independent schools, especially among schools enrolling above-average advantaged kids.

For the Higher School Certificate the story is more complex, mainly because the numbers of schools are smaller. But there is still a story:

• For schools enrolling the most advantaged students, public secondary schools are ahead by a country mile, but they are not included on the next graph because most of those schools select their enrolments, so any comparison isn’t fair!
• But in the next rank of advantage (ICSEA 1100-1149 for the My School savvy) public schools, almost all them local comprehensive schools, are ahead.
• Going further down the food chain we find Catholic schools ahead of both public and Independent,
• Then in the next group (ICSEA 1000-1049) they are all the same.

There aren’t too many private schools enrolling the less advantaged so comparisons at that end are more difficult.

There are a few take-outs from all this. There are certainly quality differences between schools – even schools which enrol similar students can achieve at different levels. But brands and labels, such as public and private, don’t describe, or align with, these differences.

There are implications for parents. The differences between the sectors are simply not significant, hence choosing schools by sector label can be largely pointless. Even where one sector is apparently ahead in one group of schools parents still have to believe that their child would be advantaged by enrolling in a school in that sector. They also have to weigh up any perceived advantage against other factors such as cost, transport and whether the apparent advantage actually exists for similarly labelled schools in their locality.

All other factors being equal, an informed process of school choice needs to be sector blind. Parents would be best advised to put urban myths and rusted-on beliefs to one side, do their homework and pay much closer attention to the many and complex indicators of school quality.

At the level of school provision and funding there is another interesting implication of the similarity between school outcomes. Given that the achievement of schools enrolling similar students is much the same what does this potentially reveal about the effectiveness of the public and private investment in schools?

The average recurring cost of educating public school students is around $12 000 per annum. There are large numbers of public schools, disadvantaged and remote, where the average investment is much higher. Much of this higher investment is tied up in fixed costs but is the additional investment well-targeted? At the other end of the scale there are large numbers of higher SES private schools where the combined public and private investment per student is well above $12 000. The investment in these schools is around $3bn each year. It is going into schools which don’t achieve at levels above equivalent public schools.

We need to know more about this. For almost a year my colleague Bernie Shepherd and I have been analysing My School data to see what it tells. So far we have revealed:

• shifts in funding which are seeing more going to schools which enrol more advantaged students,
• a widening achievement gap between high and low SES schools, and now
• a persistent lack of significant difference between outcomes of public and private schools.

At a time when the Gonski recommendations have been largely written off as being too hard or too expensive these findings are enough to raise considerable concern about equity and achievement.

Watch this space.

Chris Bonnor