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.
Government spending on school facilities and buildings has favoured private schools to an “astonishing degree”, says a new report by economist Adam Rorris.
The report, Investing in Schools Equals Funding the Future, examines government funding for capital works over the 10 years to 2018.
Private schools received more funds for capital works in seven out of the 10 years, despite having about half the enrolments of public schools.
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.
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.
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.
In a new analysis, Macquarie University researchers have found that the area in which a student goes to school is one of the clearest predictors of year 5 NAPLAN reading scores, painting a stark picture of Australia's socioeducational divide.
"The results are confronting," said Crichton Smith, the study's lead author and a PhD candidate at Macquarie University.
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.
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.
Recent trends in school recurrent funding strongly suggest that over 40 per cent of students in Catholic schools next year will average as much, if not more, public funding than their peers in similar government schools. Two years further on an additional 40 per cent will most likely join them. Half the students in Independent schools are on track to get as much, if not more, than government school students by the end of the decade.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Private Schools Threaten "Goulburn Closure" Blackmail. Saving To Taxpayers Of $2.4 Billion Not A Cost Of $4.2 Billion
Although it now costs the taxpayer more to run many private church schools and church school systems than to fund a first class public school system, the old chesnut that private church schools save money and the public system collapse if they are not given the funding they demand to provide the privileged with further privileges, we are once again being threatened with a "flood" of private school children enrolled in public education.
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.
Before State Aid was introduced again in the Twentieth Century, the opponents of State Aid declared that "public money to private schools encourages division amongst children based on social, economic, class, and particularisms such as colour, country, ethnicity, and creed. It was clearly stated that the increase in State Aid would divide children along the lines of divisions in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Children have been divided by colour and within colour.
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%.
Decline in Public School Percentage Share of Pupil Population
State Aid has brought about the decline of the percentage share of pupils in the public systems throughout Australia - as it was intended to do by the major beneficiary.
Below is a table, by decades of the percentage share of public education of school children. (1901-1999)
