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. Selective schools: comprehensively routed?
When you are a school principal there are some days you don’t forget. For me it was the day the government ambushed my school by establishing a selective school down the road. No warning, no consultation – it just seemed like a good idea at the time. It was argued that it was a good Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. A trans-Tasman story out of school
The Gonski recommendations were our best chance to create something better, but it didn’t happen in the way the review envisaged. As one of the Gonski architects puts it, instead we are just on a path to nowhere. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. The vanishing private school
Just when we are getting used to the idea of having a mix of public and private schools in Australia along comes a development with the potential to upset everything once again. Over the years our federal and state governments, apparently without comparing notes, have raised private school funding to the point where those schools Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Schools punching above their weight – or just punching each other?
Put your hand up if you are participants in the festive season. No, not that Christmas stuff – I’m talking about the annual festival of the HSC/VCE or whatever. You must have searched to see where your old school, your kids’ or grandkids’ school ranked in the hierarchy. For many people it joins real estate Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. Australia’s test scores: what lies beneath?
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. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Time for some ghost-busting in school funding by ALP.
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. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. School funding: Grattan’s timely circuit breaker
Chris Bonnor contends that the Grattan Institute report has resurrected the missing link in the sporadic implementation of Gonski. Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. School funding ‘overs’ and ‘unders’
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 Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Institutionalised farce: funding Australia’s schools.
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 Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. Reports on schools: lift the bonnet … and ration the petrol.
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, Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. NSW public schools are bursting at the seams – but which ones and why?
A news report in The SMH August 29th 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? Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. When public schools become part of the problem
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 Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. It’s NAPLAN time again!
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 Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR and BERNIE SHEPHERD. Will we really get Gonski?
So the election is in full swing and the word ‘Gonski’ is once more up there in lights. You have to feel a bit sorry for David Gonski. His achievements are indeed stellar but his name has become a proxy for just one: a major review into schools. Actually it has become a proxy for Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. My Gonski is bigger than yours
We should have known it would come to this. For years both Labor and the Coalition have ducked and weaved while the education sector battled to ensure that at least the Gonski funding hope was kept alive. Labor recast Gonski’s recommendations into a form that the Gonski panel would hardly recognize, and the Coalition was Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. Malcolm abandons the middle in schooling
Two plus years of conservative government has given oxygen to a number of strange solutions to ill-defined problems. Malcolm Turnbull’s proposal to have the States alone fund government schools, leaving the Commonwealth to look after private schools, is the latest. As a serious suggestion it has been widely condemned, but it would be premature to Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd (researchers). School Myths Busted.
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 Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. Labor goes back to the Gonski future.
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 Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor . Unhappy New Year, struggling schools and parents!
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 Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. Educational opportunity in Australia.
Educational opportunity in Australia – who succeeds and who misses out? This critical question about our schools is the title of a new report commissioned by the Mitchell Institute. It is a thorough, timely and outstanding contribution to our understanding of disadvantage in schooling. The report, produced by Victoria University’s Centre for International Research Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. Eroding human capital in our schools
Policy Series There are a number of givens about schools and their students. Both are critical to economy and society. The level of collective student achievement can create future dividends – or deficits. The quality of school education not only matters but the extent to which this quality is distributed around schools also matters. Even Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. The education gap is widening.
A repost in case you missed this important article by Chris Bonnor. John Menadue It appears we are going to have yet another tilt at reforming federalism. The persistent overlap between the Commonwealth and states in school education is frequently stated as reason enough to rethink the roles of government. Last May the Commission Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. The public and private of school achievement.
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 Continue reading »