Writer
Chris Bonnor
Chris Bonnor is an education researcher and writer.
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Three school education policies for Labor
It seems just months since the last one, but the next election is already highlighting interest in policy development. What school education policies might a progressive sort of party like the ALP develop? They would have to pass three simple tests: they must address something that urgently needs fixing, they mustn’t scare the punters and… Continue reading »
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Upturn in education? A few more lessons need to be learned
Tanya Plibersek’s contribution to Upturn, a better normal after COVID-19, is entitled ‘Lessons Learned: Education in recovery’. For school education in particular, the problems and the lessons learned go back many years. Achieving a better normal is not good enough; the pandemic didn’t so much create new problems as seriously highlight and worsen old ones…. Continue reading »
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The failing pursuit of school success in NSW
Yes, it was announced in a Sunday newspaper, but this is serious: The NSW Department of Education will intervene in public schools that fail to meet performance targets in priority areas such as HSC and NAPLAN results, and other measures of success…. Continue reading »
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Lobbyland: How the lobbies hijacked school education
In all areas of public policy there are groups that engage in advocacy and lobbying to influence public opinion and to advance their special interests. These groups have been obvious and successful over half a century of increasingly privatised school education…. Continue reading »
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Blessed are the rich … Catholic schools
The ABC news report ‘How the Catholic school system takes from the poor to give to the rich’ is a significant and telling revelation of how Catholic school authorities have used public funding to play rich favourites among their schools. This unacceptable practice has been long standing and far reaching…. Continue reading »
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Kids are back at school, but some have fallen well behind
The Grattan Institute wants help for disadvantaged students left stranded by the switch to remote learning during the pandemic. Around $1 billion would fund the small-group tutoring needed. Is it going to happen? … Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. This virus might lead to education reform.
Education reform is well overdue. As the need to act with speed has seen governments jettison rusted-on assumptions and ideologies in areas such as employment, health and welfare – can school education be next? After all, there are just as many education problems sitting in the too-hard basket, many of them extremely wicked and ignored… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Two very wicked problems in school funding
Australia certainly isn’t short of policy headaches, but one promises to be of migraine proportions: our school funding regime has reached new heights of absurdity and needs urgent review…. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. The pendulum swings (yet again) for NSW schools
One thing we used to tell beginning teachers was to never punish the whole class because a few students were misbehaving…. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. SMH Schools Summit flies many kites
If you want a headline or two, put on a big event. That has just worked for the SMH with its current Schools Summit…. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. School fixes and fantasy
Two weeks ago I commented on the forthcoming Education Council of Ministers meeting and how it was apparently going to tackle our latest reported dive in student achievement. I declared that the chance of an enduring solution emerging from that gathering amounted to fantasy. True to form, the ministers emerged from that meeting with strong… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. PISA – the never-ending story
It’s PISA time again and Australia’s student achievement levels continue to be miserable. The finger-pointing is in full swing…again. Someone should re-shoot ‘Groundhog Day’ around the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), with a cast of education ministers, their shadows, a teacher unionist, journalists, the odd academic and crowd shots of everyone else with an… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Britain’s private schools in the firing line
It seems that there is more to UK politics than Brexit: Britain’s Labour conference has passed a motion to effectively abolish private schools and redistribute their students and even their properties to the state sector. Are there implications of such proposals for Australia and what would a similar move cost in this country?… Continue reading »
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Rich school, poor school
This week the ABC kicked open the door to an overdue debate about school funding – a debate claimed to have been settled by Malcolm Turnbull two years ago. In a stunning interactive report on its website, Inga Ting and her team at the ABC unpacked and presented a disturbing picture of the capital funding… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR Selective schools … again
Making stupid policy on the run is hardly new, but Gladys Berejiklian’sdecision to establish a new selective school in Sydney’s south-west has set new precedents. Few people seem to support it, even fewer will benefit. It ignores the debate about selective schooling, a debate underpinned by concern about the regressive impact on the unselected schools… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR The education election: it’s the same old song
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that school education was taking a back seat in the election campaign. With just a few days to go not much has changed: the various protagonists are making more noise, while managing to avoid the mounting wicked problems that beset school education. The coalition has stuck to business… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. An election without education?
Commentators often express dismay that debates about policy go missing in action at election time. This time around, the vacuous reigns supreme as the election degenerates into a policy parody – despite longer term policy work by the ALP and some others. But after the starting gun sounded, meaningful debate was cast aside, yet again…. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Separating scholars in Australia’s schools
The beginning of the school year is a time of excitement and expectation for students and their families: a new year, new friends, and often a new school. It is also exciting for teachers and school principals as they welcome returning and new students. Principals are always keen to know how many students they will… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONOR. The Best of 2018: The elite schools’ arms race goes nuclear
Yes, it was Sunday and the news is usually more sensational than during the week. But the extravagant building plans of some ‘elite’ schools, revealed in the Sun Herald, were certainly eye-opening. According to the report, two of these schools are already funded by governments well above their Schooling Resource Standard. The combined cost ($365m)… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. The ABC of school funding
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… Continue reading »
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Discrimination recriminations in the debate about private schools
Debates about discrimination in schools need to go much further, argues Chris Bonnor… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Ruddock review kicks up a storm
If short term reactions are any guide it seems that many of those who submitted to the Ruddock review into religious protections might have some cause for regret. While it is early days, it is likely to throw a timely spotlight on religious school enrolment and employment discrimination. Such discrimination already applies unevenly across Australia,… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Catholic schools’ funding: here we go again.
I have a great idea to fix the drought. Give farmers drought relief, extend it to better-endowed areas with access to water – and continue it long after the rain returns. The farmers I know would be horrified if this happened. But when it comes to school funding the Catholic bishops have no such shame…. Continue reading »
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CHRISTINA HO AND CHRIS BONNOR. ‘Hubs of concentrated advantage’: selective schools need a rethink
In the debate about selective schools personal stories and beliefs can drown out evidence, especially when that evidence challenges the status quo. So we hear plenty of anecdotes about the successes of selective school students, but relatively few about the students and schools they leave behind…. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Gonski’s second coming
When they update the history of Australian school education the name Gonski, and the names of those he has worked with, deserve to be up there in lights. He’s done it again: an exhaustive investigation into what we need to do to improve school education. Will it all come to pass this time around? What… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Is it time to shut Goulburn’s Catholic School doors … again?
For those who don’t have a life and follow the school funding saga, the recent spat over Catholic school funding won’t come as any great surprise. Labor’s proposed extra $250 million commitment has attracted criticism, most recently from The Australian Council of State School Organisations. The analysis and criticism focuses on various interpretations of future… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR and LYNDSAY CONNORS A school funding horror story: special deals are back
Almost a year ago we thought that peace had been declared in the school funding wars. True, the Turnbull government’s ‘Gonski’ school funding changes fall well short on many fronts but the government did try to bury the special deals that have dogged school funding for decades. After less than a year Labor has resurrected… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONOR. The elite schools’ arms race goes nuclear
Yes, it was Sunday and the news is usually more sensational than during the week. But the extravagant building plans of some ‘elite’ schools, revealed in the Sun Herald, were certainly eye-opening. According to the report, two of these schools are already funded by governments well above their Schooling Resource Standard. The combined cost ($365m)… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Indigenous education: closing – and opening – the gaps.
The reports and narratives around the strategy to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians are quite well-known, if only because they don’t change much from year to year. With the possible exception of education, not many targets are being reached. The gains in education in numeracy, reading and school retention will be welcomed by… Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR AND CHRISTINA HO. Selective school decisions coming back to haunt us.
Almost alone in Australia, New South Wales has been expanding its number of selective schools, accompanied each time by arguments about the need to increase choice and cater for the gifted and talented. And each time we are left with one less school for local students, together with an ongoing trail of collateral damage to… Continue reading »
