MASSIVE OVERFUNDING OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS

IN NSW AND QUEENSLAND

TREVOR COBBOLD

Australian citizens, and most particularly public school supporters, are being short changed and ignored in the current bread and circuses of federal politics. The Liberal Party is avoiding education as an issue and the Labor Party is skirting around the issue, trying to play safe with religious interest groups.

Get Gonski Back on Track

Trevor Cobbold / February 22, 2022 

The Adam Rorris Report

( See AEU : INVESTMENT IN MODERN CLASSROOMS WOULD LIFT STUDENT PERFORMANCE NEW REPORT SHOWS (aeufederal.org.au)

The Report itself rewards careful reading.  Rorris draws on a decade of local and international evidence that shows modern facilities with good lighting, temperature and acoustic controls and appropriate furniture affect learning opportunities and student outcomes.

Studies of School Expenditure and School Outcomes

Trevor Cobbold / March 4, 2021 / Funding

                                                                  Private school funding shows ‘neglect’ of public students

                                                                                              February 03, 2021

A new report has shown that federal funding for private schools continues to grow at a faster rate than for public schools.

http://www.aeufederal.org.au/application/files/9916/0161/2192/AEU188_Public_Expenditure.pdf

The Bureaucratisation of Public Education in Australia

New Method of Assessing Financial Need of Private Schools Has Major Flaws

Trevor Cobbold / March 13, 2020 / Funding

Report on Governmnt Services 2020 details growing funding gap between public and private schools

The 2020 Report on Government Services (RoGS) showed that non-government school funding per student grew by 3.3 times faster than public school funding per student in the last decade, a gap that has widened further in the last year.

Government funding for public schools has grown by only 11 per cent over the last ten years, whereas government funding for private schools has grown by 35 per cent.

The Real Cost of Private Education

By

Thomas Orren

In Episode 10 of the second series of Ahn Do’s ‘Brush with Fame’, he painted and interviewed the wonderful plastic surgeon Fiona Wood. When talking about her early life, Ahn pointed out that Woods’ mother had enrolled her in a private school, because she said she wanted her to have the, “best education possible.”

Prime Minister Morrison must answer for public school capital-funding injustice

16 August 2019

The Morrison Government must justify why it provides any funding at all for elite private schools, in light of My School data showing that the four richest elite private schools in Australia received more Commonwealth capital funding than 1800 other schools combined.

Rich school, poor school: Australia’s great education divide

By Inga Ting, Alex Palmer and Nathanael Scott

Updated 14 Aug 2019, 11:11am

Published 13 Aug 2019, 5:05am

Spending on education in Australia increased nearly 80% between 2000 and 2015. from shutterstock.com

THE CONVERSATION:

Three charts on: how much Australia spends on all levels of education

July 24, 2019 6.02am AEST

Authors

1. Daniel Edwards

Research Director, Australian Council for Educational Research

Public Schools Are Swindled by Billions Under New Education Agreements

Friday November 30, 2018

This article is a summary of a new Education Research Brief published by Save Our Schools. The Brief can be downloaded below.

NSW Public Schools Benefit Under Gonski 1.0

Save Our Schools :Trevor Cobbold

Wednesday February 21, 2018

 Public schools were the main beneficiaries of the Gonski 1.0 funding plan in NSW.

Wealth of the Catholic Church in Australia exceeds $30 billion

An Age investigation reveals for the first time the value of the Catholic Church’s wealth in Australia and raises serious questions about compensation payments to victims of child sex abuse.

RISING SCHOOL COSTS RITUAL JANUARY 2018:

                 Private school education to crack $500,000 barrier

There is a ritual in Australian media reports on education. It is January, so it is ‘Back to School’ commentary and time for the ‘Rising Costs’ ritual. Right on time, the Murdoch Press obliges, with information on the rising costs of private – and ‘free’ public education for parents.

Trevor Cobbold provides   Facts and Figures: 

State Aid to Private Schools is Disastrous Public Policy

Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools continues, valiantly, to expose the funding follies with public funding of private education. 

https://www.facebook.com/361954467250872/videos/840527319393582/

See

• UPDATE: Gonski, My School and the Education Market. This is Bernie Shepherd's updated findings. It is the most current assessment available anywhere. His analysis is cautious, but telling. A MUST READ.

 AT

AT

New Figures Show that Government Funding Increases Favour Private Schools

Wednesday January 28, 2015

New school funding figures provided to Senate Estimates show that government funding increases for Catholic and Independent schools have outstripped funding increases for public schools since 2009. The percentage increase in funding for Catholic and Independent schools was almost double that for public schools despite the fact that public schools enrol the overwhelming majority of students in need of increased support.

See Research by Barbara Preston at

http://theconversation.com/state-school-kids-do-better-at-uni-29155

School Money Wars

17.06.2014

From Save our Schools Australia website at http://www.saveourschools.com.au/funding/school-money-wars

The claim that there has been a huge increase in government funding of schools over the past decade or more while school outcomes have declined is highly misleading. The increase in funding was relatively small and there have been some significant improvements in school outcomes.

February 16 2012: The general public and taxpayers are outraged at the upper-middle class welfare involved in taxpayer funding of wealthy private schools.

DOGS have always said that they had to be paid off to cement the unholy alliance between Protestant and Catholic schools in the 1970s. Now they have to be paid off to enable insecure middle class parents to have choice. The following research from Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools illustrates the level of direct grants enjoyed by these schools. His figures do not include the taxation expenditures involved in taxation exemptions.

Comparison of Howard Government Recurrent Funding of Government V Non-Government Schools 2006/2007 And 2007/2008

DOGS wish to congratulate the Australian Education Union for their analysis of the Federal Budget Papers 2006 on their website at  www.aeufederal.org.au  "Funding for Schools and VET."

"History has a very important economic aspect. One of the dangers of subsidizing religious institutions and granting them financial privileges ( such as exemption from income tax, land and municipal rates, sales and other taxes) is that such Institutions tend to become extremely wealthy to aggrandize and to become States within a State.

In the 1960s DOGS predicted that the trickling stream of State Aid to church schools would end in a raging flood.

State Aid was re-introduced as a result of political blackmail. Whatever was given in one year was a prelude to the demands for the next year and following years. A little whetted the appetite for much more. In the opening phases, modest amounts were sought. Deference became preference and now preference has become near monopoly. The Church has truly invaded the Public Treasury. Public funds are open to plunder. The group with the most supporters, the largest political lobby, and the greatest political power, has and will be best able to exploit the public treasury for what it chooses to call education.

As predicted by the D.O.G.S. the percentage share of federal funding received by public education has declined significantly. The following table clearly indicates that in the first year of federal funding public education received 73.7% of federal funding. If the latest States Grants Bill in 2000 is passed, it is predicted that in the year 2003/2004 public school percentage share of federal funding will decline to 32.2%. One should remember that the percentage share of pupil population in government schools for 1999 was 69.9%.