Writer

Chris Bonnor
Chris Bonnor is co-author, with Tom Greenwell, of Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for all Australian schools, Koshland Innovation Fund, 2023.
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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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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 »
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Schools: will we ever join the dots?
I have this little website, Edmediawatch, which monitors media reports about schools. It is a long-running repository of policies, decisions, research and commentary. I even have an ‘Edu-fact check’ section which uses a variety of f-words to pass judgment on claims about school education. It’s worth doing, but the site is quite a depressing catalogue Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Wealthy parents flock to public schools
The results of the 2016 census are continuing to roll out. This time it is the turn of school education to grab the headlines, most recently with Fairfax telling us that wealthy families are turning away from elite private schools. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Labor’s National Schools Forum – Gonski 2.0 in a day?
Remember the newly elected Rudd Government’s 2020 Summit back in 2008? It was a high-profile gathering of a sympathetic audience to address pre-selected policy issues and options. Far from coming up with answers, the education sessions at the Summit managed to avoid the urgent questions – to such an extent that a group of unusual Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. A rare opportunity to fix schools
A little news item can tell a big story. This week the Guardian reported on a survey that revealed that Australian parents want schools to teach more social skills. It raises many questions: whose job it is anyway, what will fall off the curriculum to make space, how will we know if it works? But Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Gonski is back, but who noticed?
The Government has called for submissions into the “Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools” – aka the “second Gonski review”. Gonski was about money and equity, this review is about what schools should do. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. NAPLAN has just turned ten. So what?
NAPLAN is not unlike some kids I have known: conceived in haste as a result of a rush of blood, a bit of an erratic upbringing (from a variety of guardians), confusion as to purpose in life and fervent hopes that he/she/it will turn out right in the end. Each year there is a birthday, Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Has the Gonski dust settled?
Many claims have been made about the Turnbull Government’s Gonski breakthrough. It seemed to grant the wishes of advocates for greater equity and efficacy in the funding of schools – so much so that I had to re-cast the recommendations in the recent CPD report, Losing the Game, written with Bernie Shepherd. We had always Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor Vale Bernie Shepherd
Every profession has them: those people with an extraordinary range of interests and talents who change the lives of others and sometimes the profession itself. Bernie Shepherd, who has just lost his battle against cancer, was one of these. He was a science teacher with great interest and ability in English and the arts, a Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR AND BERNIE SHEPHERD. PART ONE: Losing the game? Do we now have another chance to lift school equity and achievement?
Amidst this week’s flurry of activity over the ‘Gonski’ legislation we seem to have forgotten serious problems, both old and new. In this first of two parts Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd consider the problems we still need to solve. In the second part they’ll indicate the new emerging problems we don’t even recognize. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR AND BERNIE SHEPHERD. PART TWO: Losing the game? Do we now have another chance to lift school equity and achievement?
Amidst this week’s flurry of activity over the ‘Gonski’ legislation we seem to have forgotten serious problems, both old and new. In this first of two parts Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd consider the problems we still need to solve. In the second part they’ll indicate the new emerging problems we don’t even recognize. Losing Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR and BERNIE SHEPHERD. Gonski’s second coming will need a miracle or three
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 Continue reading »