Trevor Cobbold

Private schools will receive $130 billion from the Federal Government over the next eight years. It constitutes massive over-funding by taxpayers because the Government’s funding model ignores a major source of family income used to assess the financial need of private schools. (more…)

The widely held myth that private schools deliver better results than public schools has taken another blow. A new study of NAPLAN results shows that public schools do as well as private schools despite the large resource advantage of private schools. (more…)

New evidence shows that education resource gaps between disadvantaged and advantaged schools in Australia are among the largest in the OECD and the world. This is a shameful record for a country that regards itself as egalitarian. (more…)

Public school systems in Australia have seen an enormous increase in bureaucracy since the turn of the century. So-called school reforms promised less bureaucratic control but have instead intensified bureaucracy at all levels – central and regional offices, schools and for teachers. (more…)

Catholic school systems have been diverting taxpayer funding for schools in poor areas to schools in wealthy inner suburbs for years. Many official and other reports have documented this unethical and unchristian practice. It may at last be about to change. (more…)

Government funding increases continue to massively favour private schools over public schools according to new figures published by the Australian Curriculum, Reporting and Assessment Authority (ACARA). (more…)

New figures show that government (Commonwealth and State) funding increases massively favoured private schools over public schools between 2009-10 and 2017-18. (more…)

Data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 show that Australia allocates more and better quality teacher and physical resources to high socio-economic status (SES) secondary schools than to low SES schools. The gaps are amongst the largest in the OECD. The highest performing OECD countries generally allocate resources more equitably between low and high SES secondary schools than Australia does. (more…)

The hand-wringing over the continuing decline in Australia’s PISA results misses the issue of whether students try their best on the tests. The OECD’s report on PISA 2018 shows that about three in four Australian students and two-thirds of students in OECD countries did not try their hardest on the tests. There are also wide differences between countries. It has potentially explosive implications for the validity of international comparisons of student achievement based on PISA. (more…)

Skulduggery between the Morrison and Victorian Labor Government will defraud Victorian public schools of about $17 billion over ten years to 2028. The new funding agreement between the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments signed last month will mean that public schools will be under-funded indefinitely while private schools are fully funded or more by 2023 at the latest. (more…)

The reputation of the NSW Government for fully implementing the Gonski funding model is totally unwarranted. The NSW Government took the opportunity of increased Commonwealth funding for public schools during 2013-2017 to cut its own inflation adjusted funding of public schools while maintaining funding for private schools. This continued the trend from earlier years. (more…)

Australia has an inequitable school funding system that continues to discriminate against public schools and disadvantaged students. Government funding has been badly mis-directed over many years with massive increases for the more privileged, better-off school sectors and students and far less for public schools. (more…)

Three new US studies have found that increasing funding for disadvantaged students increases school results. They bring to 21 the number of studies in the last five years showing that funding increases targeted at disadvantaged students improves achievement. This is a remarkable degree of unanimity amongst education economists. Even notorious sceptics of the worth of increasing school spending such as Professor Eric Hanushek from Stanford University (USA) and The Economist magazine have been forced to concede that money matters for disadvantaged students.

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New funding figures show that government funding increases for private schools continue to far outstrip increases for public schools. Government funding per student in public schools (adjusted for inflation) was cut between 2009-10 and 2016-17 while private schools received a massive increase. Even during the Gonski funding period of 2012-13 to 2016-17 increases in funding for private schools far outstripped those for public schools.

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Public accountability for the use of taxpayer funding is a fundamental tenet of democratic government. Yet, this principle has long been ignored by Catholic education authorities who refuse to reveal how they distribute government funding amongst their schools despite it being a legislative requirement. Their refusal has been connived at by successive governments that failed to make the Commonwealth Department of Education enforce the legislation. The latest example of this tacit agreement at work is the refusal of the Education Department to fully disclose how Catholic Education Commissions distribute their taxpayer funding.

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The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit of the Parliament has slammed the Commonwealth Department of Education for failing to ensure that government funding of public and private school systems is distributed according to needs-based principles. (more…)