Trevor Cobbold
Trevor Cobbold is National Convenor of Save Our Schools.
Trevor's recent articles
14 March 2025
Government funding increases entrench private school resource advantage
Government funding increases for Catholic and Independent schools have outstripped those for public schools since 2009 and entrenched a major resource advantage for them. New figures published by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority show Catholic and Independent schools have a much higher income per student than public schools across Australia and in nearly every state/territory.
22 February 2025
NSW and Qld public schools will lose billions if stand-off is not resolved
A stand-off between the Albanese Government and the NSW and Queensland Governments over public school funding has been going on for more than a year. The longer it lasts, the more public schools will lose. If it is not resolved, public schools in the two states could lose nearly $40 billion in funding over the next 10 years. Continuing under-funding of public schools will be catastrophic, particularly for disadvantaged students and schools in the two states.
7 February 2025
Public schools bear the greatest burden of disadvantage
A new research paper published by Save Our Schools shows conclusively that public schools bear the greatest burden of disadvantage, but are not resourced to overcome its effect on learning outcomes. Public schools have to do a lot more with far fewer resources than Catholic and Independent schools.
21 December 2024
No Christmas presents for public schools
There are no Christmas presents for public schools in new interim funding agreements between the Albanese Government and the major states.
4 November 2024
Private schools' opportunist attempt to lock-in over-funding
Private schools have seized on an opportunity provided by an Amendment Bill before the Parliament to attempt to lock-in billions in Commonwealth over-funding for years to come.
26 October 2024
Labor’s amendments to the Education Act fail to ensure full funding of Public Schools
The Labor Government‘s proposed amendments to the Australian Education Act fail in their goal to provide “a pathway to full and fair funding for all schools”.
11 August 2024
NT school funding agreement includes more accounting fiddles
The new school funding agreement between the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments brings a much needed boost to public schools funding. However, the claims by the Federal Education Minister, the NT Chief Minister and the NT Education Minister that Territory public schools will be fully funded by 2029 is a deliberate falsehood, that is, a lie.
31 July 2024
Productivity commission exposes private school funding defects
New analysis by the Productivity Commission of donations to school building and other funds highlights how antithetical private school funding is to the concept of needs-based funding.
24 June 2024
Private schools serving richest NSW families over-funded by millions
New figures reveal scandalous over-funding of NSW Independent schools serving the richest families in the state. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds are being squandered on just 52 highly privileged schools while public schools go begging.
21 May 2024
Exposed: Private Schools caught in commonwealth funding rort
The increasing number of Grandparents paying private school fees has enabled elite schools to evade Commonwealth parent income tests determining the rate of taxpayer funding that goes to society’s most wealthy and least in need students.
27 March 2024
Government funding increases continue to favour private schools
New figures again demonstrate the bias against public schools in Australias school funding system.
15 March 2024
Fully funding public schools is critical for the governments education agenda
The recent announcement by the Federal Minister for Education, Jason Clare, that the government wants to raise the percentage of young people achieving a tertiary education to 80% points to the huge stakes at issue in the current negotiations between the Federal and state governments on the next school funding agreements.
23 February 2024
Labors complete capitulation to elite private schools.again!
A few hours of testimony before the Education Committee of Senate Estimates exposed the canker at the heart of school funding in Australia. The canker is the double standard applied to the funding of public and private schools. The Assistant Minister for Education, Anthony Chisholm, announced that a tax rort worth hundreds of millions of dollars to elite private schools would continue but refused to renounce accounting tricks that swindle public schools of billions in funding. The double standard is despicable. In effect, Labor is refusing to fully fund public schools but private school funding privileges are sacrosanct.
29 December 2023
Private schools had biggest decline in PISA results
Catholic and independent schools had the biggest declines in the OECDs Programme of Student Assessment (PISA) test results since 2009. Their students lost 1 to nearly two years of learning in reading, mathematics and science. The falls in test scores were far bigger than for public schools.
16 August 2023
The lost decade of school autonomy in NSW
It is just over ten years since the school autonomy program called Local Schools, Local Decisions commenced in NSW. It has been a lost decade. It was supposed to increased student results but high inequity in education continues with more bureaucracy, less central support for schools and bigger workloads for principals and teachers.
12 February 2023
Shocking Inequity in NSW school outcomes and funding
The latest NAPLAN results show shocking inequalities in school outcomes between highly advantaged and disadvantaged students in NSW.
24 August 2022
Labor should scrap the Stage 3 Tax Cuts for the rich
The Albanese Government should scrap the Stage 3 tax cuts for the rich. They are indefensible when public education and other critical human services face a funding crisis. New studies show that there are no trickle-down economic benefits from tax cuts for the rich. They only to boost inequality directly and indirectly.
24 July 2022
A review of "Waiting for Gonski"
The book Waiting for Gonski was published earlier this year on the 10th anniversary of the Gonski Report on school funding. It is a well-researched and well-written account of the history of the Gonski funding model, its flawed implementation including many special deals for private schools and its destruction by successive Coalition governments. It should be read by anyone concerned about the state of school funding and inequity in education.
30 June 2022
Equity in education must be clearly defined, measured and reported
Equity in education has long been a key national goal for schooling. Most recently, it is one of the key goals in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration of national goals. However, it has never been clearly defined. This deficiency has resulted in a variety of interpretations, inadequate target, limited reporting and lack of accountability for improving equity. Equity in education should be well-defined in order to effectively guide education policy and funding, measure equity and monitor progress in improving equity.
19 April 2022
Morrison government to over-fund NSW private schools by nearly $1 billion
NSW private schools are massively over-funded by the Commonwealth Government. Estimates based on official figures presented to Senate Estimate show that the NSW Catholic education system and nearly 40% of Independent schools will be over-funded by $865 million by the Commonwealth Government from 2022 to 2028.
20 March 2022
NSW public schools face a funding crisis while private schools are over funded
Public schools in NSW face a funding crisis. Combined Commonwealth and NSW Government funding for private schools has increased by three times that for public schools since 2009-10. Projected funding estimates show that private schools will be over-funded by $2 billion for the rest of the decade while public schools will be under-funded by $21 billion.
27 February 2022
We need to get Gonski back on track
The Gonski Report on School Funding was published 10 years ago this month. It promised much to increase equity in education. However, its promise was undermined by fundamental flaws in Labor's new model and trashed by Coalition governments.
10 February 2022
New funding figures pressure Labor to offer fair deal to public schools
Unless there is a dramatic change in school funding policies the vast inequity in school outcomes will continue for the rest of the decade.
21 January 2022
Greed or need? Privileged schools top the class in avarice
Highly profitable private schools raked in millions from JobKeeper, underlining the deep flaws and inequality in Australia's school funding system.
5 January 2022
Don't mind if we do: Victorian private schools deep in JobKeeper trough
A scheme designed to save Australia from long unemployment queues has been a gravy train for the private schools serving the most advantaged families.
16 November 2021
In education we are now measuring motivation rather than learning
The international education juggernaut is under scrutiny for reliability as figures show some students make scant effort and there are implications for NAPLAN.
31 October 2021
Nobel Prize reveals how much money matters in education and carries a lesson for Australia
Research by a Nobel Prize for Economics winner shows the impact of education funding on the future success of students is greater than previously believed.
12 October 2021
Wealthy schools pocket millions in JobKeeper funds despite profits
Blessed are the rich! The payments to elite schools despite their healthy bottom lines and vast assets highlight the pressing need for education funding reform.
27 June 2021
Private schools brawl to get their snouts deeper in the funding trough
A coalition of Independent schools complained (on the ABC 7.30 Report) that they are disadvantaged by the Morrison Government's new funding model because their funding increase is not as big as others. They want yet another special deal from the Morrison Government as do many other Independent schools.
23 May 2021
Education department refuses to hold private schools accountable for taxpayer funding
Yet another damning report by the Auditor-General shows that the Commonwealth Department of Education continues to fail to fully hold private school systems accountable for how they distribute taxpayer funding. It also criticises the Minister for Education and the Department for failing to meet their parliamentary reporting obligations.
4 May 2021
Tudge fudges school results and funding
The Minister for Education, Alan Tudge, was fudging figures to denigrate Australia's school performance at the The Age education summit last week. He claimed the UK as the new benchmark for education performance, but ignored serious flaws in the reporting of its results. He also fudged data on school funding and student results in Australia.
17 February 2021
Numbers don't lie: Public schools underfunded by $60bn; private overfunded by $6bn
The Morrison Government has abandoned all pretence at funding private schools according to need and has washed its hands of ensuring that public schools are fully funded.
3 February 2021
Beware false idols of education excellence: take PISA test results with a grain of salt
Research shows that a large majority of students do not fully try on low-stakes tests such as PISA. There is little incentive for students to perform because there are no personal consequences. This could help explain the stark contradiction between Australias falling PISA results and its improving Year 12 results.
25 January 2021
Morrison's private school funding model ignores the Bank of Mum and Dad
Private schools will receive $130 billion from the Federal Government over the next eight years. It constitutes massive over-funding by taxpayers because the Governments funding model ignores a major source of family income used to assess the financial need of private schools.
17 January 2021
Public schools are as good as private schools
The widely held myth that private schools deliver better results than public schools has taken another blow. A new study of NAPLAN results shows that public schools do as well as private schools despite the large resource advantage of private schools.
26 October 2020
To those that have more will be given: Education resource gaps in Australia
New evidence shows that education resource gaps between disadvantaged and advantaged schools in Australia are among the largest in the OECD and the world. This is a shameful record for a country that regards itself as egalitarian.
8 October 2020
Private school funding model is deeply flawed
The Morrison Governments funding model for private schools introduced earlier this year is littered with flaws and will result in massive over-funding of schools. It should be replaced by a new approach.
5 September 2020
New expose of Catholic Churchs rorting of taxpayer funding
Documents leaked to the ABC expose shocking rorting of taxpayer funding by the NSW Catholic school system with the approval of Catholic bishops. It is the latest in a long line of exposes about misuse of government funding by Catholic systems and which successive Coalition and Labor governments have meekly acquiesced to.
6 August 2020
The Bureaucratisation of Public Education in Australia
Public school systems in Australia have seen an enormous increase in bureaucracy since the turn of the century. So-called school reforms promised less bureaucratic control but have instead intensified bureaucracy at all levels - central and regional offices, schools and for teachers.
20 July 2020
Catholic School Systems Required to be More Transparent About How They Use Taxpayer Funds
Catholic school systems have been diverting taxpayer funding for schools in poor areas to schools in wealthy inner suburbs for years. Many official and other reports have documented this unethical and unchristian practice. It may at last be about to change.
2 July 2020
Public Schools Face a Funding Crisis While Private Schools Are in Clover
Government funding increases continue to massively favour private schools over public schools according to new figures published by the Australian Curriculum, Reporting and Assessment Authority (ACARA).
9 June 2020
Turnbull Exposes Rorting of School Funding by Catholic Church
In his recently published memoirs, Malcolm Turnbull thoroughly exposes the hypocrisy of Catholic education authorities in diverting taxpayer funding intended for poor schools to subsidise rich inner-city schools. In doing so, he exposed his own hypocrisy by allowing them to continue to do so under his Gonski 2.0 funding model.
16 February 2020
New Figures Show Huge Funding Increases for Private Schools & Cuts to Public Schools
New figures show that government (Commonwealth and State) funding increases massively favoured private schools over public schools between 2009-10 and 2017-18.
6 February 2020
Disadvantaged Schools in Australia Are Far Less Resourced than Advantaged Schools
Data from the OECDs Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 show that Australia allocates more and better quality teacher and physical resources to high socio-economic status (SES) secondary schools than to low SES schools. The gaps are amongst the largest in the OECD. The highest performing OECD countries generally allocate resources more equitably between low and high SES secondary schools than Australia does.
21 December 2019
OECD Says 3 in 4 Australian Students Do Not Try on PISA Tests
The hand-wringing over the continuing decline in Australias PISA results misses the issue of whether students try their best on the tests. The OECDs report on PISA 2018 shows that about three in four Australian students and two-thirds of students in OECD countries did not try their hardest on the tests. There are also wide differences between countries. It has potentially explosive implications for the validity of international comparisons of student achievement based on PISA.
21 July 2019
Skulduggery by the Morrison & Andrews Governments Robs Victorian Public Schools of Billions
Skulduggery between the Morrison and Victorian Labor Government will defraud Victorian public schools of about $17 billion over ten years to 2028. The new funding agreement between the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments signed last month will mean that public schools will be under-funded indefinitely while private schools are fully funded or more by 2023 at the latest.
30 June 2019
The Facts About School Funding in NSW
The reputation of the NSW Government for fully implementing the Gonski funding model is totally unwarranted. The NSW Government took the opportunity of increased Commonwealth funding for public schools during 2013-2017 to cut its own inflation adjusted funding of public schools while maintaining funding for private schools. This continued the trend from earlier years.
23 June 2019
The Facts About School Funding in Australia
Australia has an inequitable school funding system that continues to discriminate against public schools and disadvantaged students. Government funding has been badly mis-directed over many years with massive increases for the more privileged, better-off school sectors and students and far less for public schools.
17 June 2019
Money Really Does Matter in Education
Three new US studies have found that increasing funding for disadvantaged students increases school results. They bring to 21 the number of studies in the last five years showing that funding increases targeted at disadvantaged students improves achievement. This is a remarkable degree of unanimity amongst education economists. Even notorious sceptics of the worth of increasing school spending such as Professor Eric Hanushek from Stanford University (USA) and The Economist magazine have been forced to concede that money matters for disadvantaged students.