Years ago the late Bernie Shepherd and I began wading through a mountain of My School data about schools. We soon discovered that the public funding of private schools was growing so rapidly that they would soon get more money from governments than was going to similar public schools. So we published our early findings which, along with our motives, were met with denials and accusations by the Catholic and Independent school peak groups. Fast forward four years and the ABC News has just produced an up-to-date and more sophisticated analysis for all to see. The situation has worsened; this issue won’t go away.
Much has been written about school funding, where it has gone wrong and why it matters. But the policy dilemmas exposed by equal or even near-equivalent public funding of private schools raises a host of questions which have been avoided for years.
The avoidance hasn’t been very hard: Private school peak groups just keep trotting out the figures which show that, on average, the public funding of private schools still falls well short. But that strategy won’t work this time around. It’s far more widely known that public schools enrol the vast majority of high-cost students. Julia Gillard can almost be forgiven for the My School website because it readily shows this in almost every community. Averages mean very little.
As the ABC tells it:
“Average figures tell us Catholic school students receive 84 cents for every taxpayer dollar spent on public school students and independent school students receive 69 cents. But averages, which lump together vastly different kinds of schools, reveal only a fraction of the story.
So when we go beyond the ‘average’ story it looks very different. Again from the ABC:
“In 2016, 35 per cent of Australia’s private schools received more public funding than the typical similar public school, up from 5 per cent in 2009. Most were low-fee Catholic schools. We’ve defined “typical” as the median, which means the private school received more public funding than half of similar public schools. This is a conservative way of looking at it. If we look at the percentage of private schools receiving more public funding than any similar public school, that figure is 85 per cent, up from 58 per cent in 2009.
Clearly, the mask of averages, as one colleague describes it, is well past its use-by date. So where do private school advocacy groups go now? They can’t rewrite history. They can’t justify the special deals made in the past, but we certainly should reverse the new deals currently being made. They can’t airbrush away the flawed logic in the idea that if public funding went up fees would go down. They can no longer pretend that the different school sectors are carrying an equal load of our more needy and challenging young people. They can’t back out by saying that their schools save public funding; such savings disappear, year by year, as the funding goes up.
Just like the My School website itself, the ABC’s analysis allows anyone to check out the figures for themselves, but this time around it is much easier. Just go to the site, type in the name of your school and up comes the school’s public funding levels, along with the public funding of schools enrolling similar students. Then do the same for total funding. It saves all that trawling through My School.
It is important to note that some of the funding differences between schools can be attributed to factors not measured by My School, and differences between similar schools in the same sector will still emerge. If these are substantial it is beholden on school authorities to explain why and adjust any larger funding anomalies that may exist. But that nowhere near negates the validity of broad comparisons. Nor can it explain or justify why schools in sectors with very different obligations should be anywhere near funded at similar levels.
So all the avoided questions are still waiting for answers. Why should private schools get anywhere near current funding when they are not available to every student from every family in every location under every circumstance? Will governments – and oppositions – finally acknowledge that the playing field, on which schools are supposed to compete, need to be urgently levelled? How absurd do our current arrangements, almost unique in the world, have to be before we reform a framework of schools that doesn’t deliver.
One thing is certain: in the past the discourse about school funding could be manipulated due to limited information and by misrepresentation of what information we had. Those days are long gone and both governments and school authorities will be increasingly held to account.
Chris Bonnor AM is co-author, with Jane Caro, of The Stupid Country and What makes a good school.
Chris Bonnor is a former teacher and secondary school principal, a previous head of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, co-author with Jane Caro of The Stupid Country and What Makes a Good School, and co-author of Waiting for Gonski. He has jointly authored papers on Australia’s schools in association with the Centre for Policy Development and the Gonski Institute for Education.
Comments
3 responses to “CHRIS BONNOR. The ABC of school funding”
The Institutional Abuse Royal Commission has shown faith-based organisations were not immune from harbouring improper conduct (and in fact, on the contrary). When you add falling church attendances, has the time to consider the relevance of the faith-based school system? After all, the division has its history at different times and is barely to be seen in other parts of the western world.
When the Bishop of Goulburn many years ago triggered the flood of state aid which has followed, governments have been influenced by trying to avoid the extra cost of teaching kids in the faith schools systems. Now the state is assuming more of the costs, the faith schools have less leverage to withdraw undertaking their share of the load.
A new debate would be a welcome alternative to the constant bickering and pork barreling about fair shares. The schools’ chaplain system may be an obstacle to such a debate gaining traction.
Good article Chris, and thanks to you and Bernie for contributing to — if not initiating — this type of analysis.
In theory, the tide has turned in the 18 months since Gonski 2.0, and all schools should now be heading towards their needs-based level of funding. When/if that is in place, there should be no more cases where a private school gets more money than a comparable public school.
The challenge is that the journey will take a decade, and will be resisted along the way. That’s what we saw with the recent deal from Dan Tehan; an over-generous $3.3b grand-fathering scheme as part of the move to a new and better way of gauging how much parents can afford to pay for a non-government school, plus the unjustifiable ‘Choice and affordability’ slush fund.
Those that care about fair and consistent funding will need to remain vigilant.
The level of public funding for private schools cuts right across one of Australia’s strongest characteristics in other areas: a means tested, well targeted tax/transfer payments system. How can counter the political leverage of the private school lobby groups? The policy has to be changed. Simon Birmingham I think made a valiant attempt but got mowed down by the lobby groups. Where do we go now to get a fair and equitable education funding framework?