The Australian Education Union (AEU) has compared public funding going to private schools with amounts going to similar government schools. Its revelations are alarming and should be game-changing. One private school peak group has cried foul, but the union is on the money. So what should happen next?
The AEU research is entitled “A decade of inequity, How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013“. From the beginning, it states that a majority of private schools in Australia receive more government funding per student than public schools of very similar size and geographical location, with student populations from very similar socio-educational backgrounds. It has repeated and enlarged on this methodology several times.
In overall terms, this finding isn’t new, it dates back to 2015 and probably earlier. But the AEU finding has been reported in great detail and is well-sourced and documented. Also not new is the response from Independent Schools Australia which states that, “The latest data clearly shows that nationally, Independent school students receive an average of $12,160 in government funding, while public school students receive $22,510.”
At one level both the AEU and ISA are correct, but private school lobbies have been trotting out misleading average funding figures for well over two decades. Yes, they inevitably show that, on average, government schools are funded at higher levels, fuelling the myth that private schools save taxpayer funding – a claim which is also relatively easy to challenge.
But schools are anything but equal, and even their funding varies considerably, based on the costs of educating their often very different students. Only public schools must be open to every student from every location and every family. Private schools have no such obligation and charge a fee.
One of the strengths of the AEU report is that it goes to great lengths to illustrate this school diversity, effectively showing that apples-with-apples comparisons are essential when school sectors are compared. Ironically, the ISA statement celebrates the diversity of independent schools – but its “average” funding figures undercut its argument, falsely assuming that all schools and sectors are apparently alike. It seems that diversity is a wonderful thing, but it can be cheerfully ignored when trying to prove something about funding. What results is tantamount to fraud.
One of the Independent Schools Australia criticisms deserves a more considered response. It notes that ACARA (the curriculum and assessment authority) warns against direct funding comparisons between schools, even those in the same sector, due to the difference in funding and operating models. ACARA is referring to individual school comparisons, but of course its data invites and encourages comparisons of large groups of schools.
The AEU report does make individual school comparisons, but within groups of comparable schools. Its overall criteria for identifying the comparable schools is the most rigorous to date for this type of research. However, its choice of particular schools to compare invites claims that they weren’t typical of the schools in each comparable group. On the other hand, the ISA complaint that the report is using “the complexity of school funding as a smokescreen to launch misguided and misleading attacks on individual non-government schools and their communities” is arguably nonsense.
Amidst all this, Catholic school peak groups have apparently remained quiet on the AEU revelations, but Catholic Schools NSW also parades average funding figures as apparent proof that the funding of private schools represents a huge discount to taxpayers – perhaps believing that a “discount” avoids the need to elaborate in any detail. It is also the case that CSNSW has issued claims about school system equity that defy the evidence test.
The AEU report does fall short on another front. It concludes with three recommendations to all Australian governments: increase the Commonwealth’s commitment to at least 25% of the Schooling Resource Standard, reverse the Coalition’s decision which enables the states and territories to under-contribute, and properly resource schools so that they can meet student needs.
Yes, the funding is critical and needs to underpin the drive to much greater equity – and the AEU report does state that full funding of all schools is “a pre-condition of ensuring equity in the Australian school system”. Hence the implication is that while funding is critical, ensuring equity is the main game.
But if funding is a pre-condition for equity, what should come next? What structural and regulatory changes in the total framework of schools need to accompany the funding? If nothing else happens and even if the funding does arrive, the very unlevelled playing field of schools will ensure that its equity impact will be ineffective or limited.
More bluntly, when will the AEU properly engage with the problem created by the unlevelled school playing field, in which one system has obligations to all and the other can choose who and where to serve, whom to enrol and even whom to “disenroll”?
There is increasing concern about the unfairness created by the rules for some and not for others, and the ways in which this feeds inequality, along with often mediocre student outcomes. Even the Productivity Commission and last year’s Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System have been aware of these problems. Initiatives such as Australian Learning Lecture’s Choice and Fairness proposals are among those offering solutions.
Years ago, the AEU played a leading role in successfully campaigning for the “full Gonski”. It now needs to face up to the policy challenges implied in “A decade of inequity”. It can start by asking exactly what will, and what won’t, change, even if its funding recommendations are implemented – and join the debate about how the whole framework of Australia’s schools must now be on any agenda for change.
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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