Trevor Cobbold – Page 4

Public Schools do More than Private Schools with Fewer Resources

Trevor Cobbold / June 7, 2021 / Equity in education

The following is a summary of an Education Research Paper published by Save Our Schools. The full paper can be downloaded below.

Public schools have to do much more than private schools with far fewer resources. New figures show that public schools continue to bear the large burden of education disadvantage. Enrolments of disadvantaged students in public schools are over double that in private schools but public schools have far less income. The burden of disadvantage of public schools is three times that of private schools when their lower income is considered.

Education Dept Still Dragging its Feet on Holding Private Schools Accountable for Taxpayer Funding

Trevor Cobbold / May 18, 2021 / 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.

The report found that the Department has made minor improvements since the 2017 report of the Audit Office castigated the Department for failing to ensure accountability and transparency in funding of private schools. However, the new report found that the Department is still not fully meeting its legislative responsibilities eight years after the Australian Education Act was implemented.

New Figures Reveal Increasing Resource Advantage for Private Schools

Trevor Cobbold / May 12, 2021May 12, 2021 / Funding

Figures recently published by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) on its National Report on Schooling data portal show that income per student of Catholic and Independent schools is much higher than for public schools and that their income has increased six to eight times that of public schools since 2009. The increasing resource advantage of private schools is mainly due to much larger government funding increases than for public schools.

The resource advantage of private schools is projected to accelerate over the rest of the decade to 2029. Commonwealth funding for private schools will increase under special deals not available to public schools and bilateral funding agreements between them and the Commonwealth allow the states to continue to under-fund public schools.

Tudge Fudges School Results and Funding

Trevor Cobbold / May 2, 2021May 8, 2021 / National issues

The Minister for Education, Alan Tudge, resorted to 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 he misrepresented its results by ignoring serious flaws in them and other evidence showing no improvement. He also fudged data on school funding and student results in Australia.

Morrison Abandons Needs-Based Funding

Trevor Cobbold / April 14, 2021 / Funding

The following is a section from a new Working Paper published by Save Our Schools on the the abandonment of needs-based funding and the massive funding increase for private schools by the Morrison Government. The Government has completed the demolition of the Gonski funding model begun by the Abbott and Turnbull governments and re-affirmed funding choice as its priority. The paper can be downloaded below.

Comments on the paper are invited. Notification of issues not covered and mistakes of fact, analysis and interpretation will be appreciated. Please excuse any remaining typos and repetitions.Comments can be sent to the Save Our Schools email address: saveourschools690@gmail.com

Disadvantage accelerates as private school funding rises six times public schools over the decade

Trevor Cobbold / March 24, 2021 / Funding

Education Minister Alan Tudge has now declared that the school funding wars are over. But they are only over in the minds of the Morrison Government, which has demolished the Gonski fairer-funding model and lavished billions more on private schools.

The war is certainly not over for public schools, with new figures showing them falling further behind. Chronic under-funding of public schools presents huge costs to individuals, society and national economic prosperity.

Govt Funding Increases are Grossly Unfair – They Favour the Most Advantaged Over the Most Disadvantaged

Trevor Cobbold / March 14, 2021 / Funding, Media releases

Government funding for private schools increased by six times that for public schools since 2009-10 according to new research by Save Our Schools. SOS National Convenor, Trevor Cobbold, said the heavy bias against public schools is grossly unfair.

Private School Funding Increase is Six Times the Public School Increase

Trevor Cobbold / March 14, 2021 / Funding

The following is a summary of a new Education Research Paper by Save Our Schools on government funding of public and private schools.

Government (Commonwealth and state) funding for private schools increased by over six times that for public schools between 2009-10 and 2018-19. Private school funding increased by $2,164 per student, adjusted for inflation, compared to $334 per student for public schools.

The contrast is even worse in percentage terms. Funding per private school student increased by 22.4% compared to only 2.4% for public schools, that is, nearly 10 times the increase for public schools.

Both the Commonwealth and state government funding changes strongly favoured private schools over public schools.

More School Funding Means Better Student Outcomes

Trevor Cobbold / March 8, 2021March 8, 2021 / Funding

A new analysis of major studies of the relationship between school expenditure and student outcomes provides conclusive evidence that increased expenditure leads to higher test scores, high school graduation and tertiary entrance. The impacts are much larger for low income than for high income students.

Studies of School Expenditure and School Outcomes

Trevor Cobbold / March 4, 2021 / Funding

The following is a list of studies since 2000 that employed sophisticated statistical methods to analyse the impact of changes in non-capital school expenditure on student achievement. The list is drawn from a new meta-analysis of the studies published by the US National Bureau of Economic Reseach. All but one of the 25 studies found positive effects of increases in school expenditure on student achievement. There can be no doubt that money matters in education.