Chris Bonnor

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.

Chris's recent articles

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 dont 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 schools more used to wearing all the blame for deficiencies in student achievement. We seem to be closing the gaps that we measure, but a new report from the Centre for Policy Development shows that we risk widening the gaps that we choose to ignore...

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 other schools and overall student achievement. The Department of Education, successive governments and even peak education groups have long ignored the downsides of selective schools until now. The NSW Education Minister now wants to open the doors of these schools to solve a student...

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. Its worth doing, but the site is quite a depressing catalogue of shallow reporting, recurring failure, ignored research, predictable panics, copying others mistakes, the triumph of vested interests, rebadged quick-fix solutions and the short termism that pervades our public life.

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.

CHRIS BONNOR. Labors National Schools Forum Gonski 2.0 in a day?

Remember the newly elected Rudd Governments 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 suspects held their own education summit a couple of months later.

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 in one sense it is certainly timely: right now the Gonski 2.0 Review is giving us a once-in-a-decade opportunity to have our say about what schools should and shouldnt do.

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.

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, accompanied by a mixture of hand wringing, pious hopes and future plans that might show it was all worthwhile.

CHRIS BONNOR. Has the Gonski dust settled?

Many claims have been made about the Turnbull Governments 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 stressed an urgency to support the most needy schools and the importance of a Schooling Resourcing body. At the penultimate hour both priorities were thrown into the legislation.

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 school principal who established a different type of school, a consultant who carried a new method of assessing students across NSW and a retiree who pioneered analysis of our school system by tapping into the data behind the My School website.

CHRIS BONNOR AND BERNIE SHEPHERD. PART ONE: Losing the game? Do we now have another chance to lift school equity and achievement?

Amidst this weeks 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 theyll indicate the new emerging problems we dont even recognize. Losing the Game, their new publication with the Centre for Policy Development, has just been released.

CHRIS BONNOR AND BERNIE SHEPHERD. PART TWO: Losing the game? Do we now have another chance to lift school equity and achievement?

Amidst this weeks 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 theyll indicate the new emerging problems we dont even recognize. Losing the Game, their new publication with the Centre for Policy Development, has just been released.

CHRIS BONNOR and BERNIE SHEPHERD. Gonskis 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 new initiative would give Australian students the quality education they deserve with more funding, fair, needs-based and transparent; so the narrative went.

CHRIS BONNOR. Selective schools: comprehensively routed?

When you are a school principal there are some days you dont 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 idea for the selected, but even then we knew that it wasnt a good idea for those not similarly blessed. We now know that it has done nothing for overall levels of student achievement.

CHRIS BONNOR. A trans-Tasman story out of school

The Gonski recommendations were our best chance to create something better, but it didnt happen in the way the review envisaged. As one of the Gonski architects puts it, instead we are just on a path to nowhere.

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 can no longer be considered to be private.

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 - Im 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 values to sustain endless dinner table conversations.

CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. Australias 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.

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.

CHRIS BONNOR. School funding: Grattans timely circuit breaker

Chris Bonnor contends that the Grattan Institute report has resurrected the missing link in the sporadic implementation of Gonski.

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 Ministers COAG gathering in Adelaide. One big problem, as Bernie Shepherd and I pointed out, was that the gathering wouldnt begin to tackle the hard issues. They walked out at the end of the day, agreeing on the need to walk back in at a later date. The next event was Q&A last Monday night, a forum where it isnt easy to duck hard issues. To cut a long story short, the well-briefed Tony Jones pressed two...

CHRIS BONNOR. Institutionalised farce: funding Australia's schools.

The nations 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 it. In a new report Bernie Shepherd and I outline the problem, starting with the contrasts between the schools in Albury and Wodonga, two of our most prominent border towns. One school on the NSW side is Albury Public School. Across the Murray is Wodonga...

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-doesnt-matter brigade comes from the Productivity Commission in its draft report Lifting the bonnet on Australias schools. Meanwhile Jim McMorrow has completed an analysis which shows that when it comes to money, public schools and disadvantaged schools generally face a lean future. The Commission wasnt crudely asked to investigate the alleged non-link between money and results but it was happy to throw around a few generalisations and the media reports certainly focused on this issue.

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? Most are primary schools, usually located in metropolitan areas. There are 118 of these for which full My School data is available. 98 of these are located in metropolitan areas. The most noticeable feature of these 98 schools is that they already enrol advantaged...

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 it has a certain resonance and indeed was initially welcomed by a large number of schools. School principals have always complained about excessive bureaucratic control of their schools.

CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. Its NAPLAN time again!

August is when the NAPLAN test results come out to schools and parents. It isnt 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 up, the occasional moral panic revived, along with the usual exhortations to do better next year.

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 school funding and even more narrowly, a proxy for school dollars going this way or that. After Bill Shorten announced extra school funding, electorate by electorate, we now know how many Gonskis will flow and who gets them. Under Labor it seems everyone...

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 Gonskis recommendations into a form that the Gonski panel would hardly recognize, and the Coalition was never committed in fact it is only a few months since they announced that extra Gonski funding wasnt going to happen. But the agitation wouldnt go away and the May budget included a further $1.2 billion. It comes with certain obligations imposed on...

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 Turnbulls 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 dismiss it as a piece of spontaneous kite flying. Conservatives have been playing in this space for some time. In April 2014 the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) flagged having wealthy parents paying fees for public education. Around the same time Tony Abbott commissioned...

Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd (researchers). School Myths Busted.

WhatMy 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 myths about Australias schools. While reports are frequently about the drift to the private schools Bonnor and Shepherd have found that the drift could be equally seen as one from low socio-educational advantage (SEA) schools to higher SEA schools. As recently reported on...

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 followed was one disappointment after the other. Key players in the the non-government school sector soon disappeared behind closed doors to argue the details, especially the weighting given to student needs. It was probably academic: after the 2013 election the Coalition abandoned Gonski...

Chris Bonnor . Unhappy New Year, struggling schools and parents!

Prime ministers come and go but the timing of nasty announcements doesnt 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 but the December MYEFO showed an increasing deficit of fiscal rabbits. Aside from a very few, the reaction was one of dismay, including from NSW. Amongst the few was Jennifer Buckingham who joined the usual more money doesnt deliver chorus, drawing attention to recent...

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 Universitys Centre for International Research on Education Systems, compiles data from a variety of sources to answer the who succeeds and who misses out question. And they do this by investigating four stages of education: beginning school, Year 7, senior school and at age 24. The report draws together existing...

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 the length of time students spend at school impacts on GDP. The experiences of young people at school, who they mix with and what they learn - including about each other - also has implications for our future social and community lives. In short: developing...

Chris Bonnor. School funding and achievement: following the money trail

The recurrent expenditure on school education in Australia is over 44 billion dollars, around 36 billion of this provided by governments. These are considerable sums, more often than not expressed as a cost rather than an investment especially when it doesnt always seem to deliver noticeable improvements in student results. But a closer look at where the money goes and what it delivers reveals many surprises. Schools are expensive places, some far more than others. But in recent years the biggest funding increases have gone to the most advantaged schools - and there is scant evidence of any difference...

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 of Audit demonstrated its expertise in matters educational by suggesting that the states, almost alone, should run education. Recently Terry Moran wrote in favour of shifting funding and responsibilities back to the states. His first example was schooling, something he said could...

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 about the (well-deserved) success of particular students and hear from school principals about why their schools (apparently) did so well. The language of sporting competition is readily employed as schools rise or slip in the ranks as they inevitably do as Year 12...

Chris Bonnor, Bernie Shepherd. School equity since Gonski: how bad became worse.

This is a shorter version, prepared for Pearls and Irritations, of a paper which was reported in the Sun Herald on September 14 Go to http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/schools-worse-now-than-when-gonski-wrote-report-20140913-10gepz.html A longer version, including graphics, is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxK25rJrOw-eVU4zM2p2UTF5ZkE/edit?usp=sharing   The story of the Review of Funding for Schooling, otherwise known as the Gonski review, is well known. The Review began in 2010 and its report, with its significant findings and recommendations, was handed to the Gillard Government at the end of 2011. Over the last three years we have seen the report and its promised pathway to greater equity and...

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