The latest NAPLAN results reveal the enormity of the challenge facing Australia’s school system. They show vast achievement gaps between rich and poor, a huge proportion of equity group cohorts not achieving national proficiency standards and a very large proportion in need of additional support in their learning. The new results intensify the pressure on the Federal and state/territory governments to fully fund public schools because these schools enrol over 80% of disadvantaged students. Education ministers must end their disgraceful wrangling over who pays for what and co-operate to fully fund public schools and address the vast inequity In school outcomes.
Year 9 students of parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher achieved at 96-99 points higher scores in reading, writing and numeracy than students of parents who only completed Year 11 [Chart 1]. This represents a learning gap of 4-5 years because Year 9 students of parents with only a Year 11 education achieved average literacy and numeracy scores below that of Year 5 students of highly educated parents.
Year 9 students of parents in the highest occupational group (Occupational Group 1: elected officials, senior executives/manager, management in large business organisation, government administration and defence, and qualified professionals) are nearly four years of learning ahead of students of parents in the lowest occupation group (Occupational Group 4: machine operators, sales/office/service/hospitality staff, assistants, labourers, and related workers). The gap between students from the highest occupation group and those of parents not in paid work is over four years of learning.
The gap between Indigenous students and those of highly educated parents is nearly five years of learning. The equivalent gap for remote area students is about four years while that for very remote area students is nearly six years.
The NAPLAN results also reveal that very large proportions of disadvantaged students are not achieving national proficiency standards in reading, writing and numeracy. For example, over half to two-thirds of disadvantaged Year 9 students do not achieve the standards as shown by the following percentages [Chart 2]:
- 63-66% of students whose parents have a Year 11 education;
- 51-52% of students whose parents are in the lowest paid occupation group;
- 57-59% of students whose parents are not in paid work;
- 68-70% of Indigenous students;
- 57-61% of remote area students;
- 77-80% of very remote area students.
By contrast, only 19-24% of students of highly educated parents and of parents in the highest occupation group are did not achieve the standards. The proportion of disadvantaged students not achieving the standards is about three times that of more advantaged students.
Many disadvantaged students are not achieving at the basic minimum standards and are only achieving at the lowest proficiency level. For example, the following percentages of Year 9 students need additional learning support in reading, writing and numeracy [Chart 3]
- 30% of students whose parents have a Year 11 education;
- Nearly 20% of students whose parents are in the lowest paid occupation group;
- 25% of students whose parents are not in paid work;
- 34-36% of Indigenous students;
- 27-30% of remote area students;
- 53-57% of very remote area students.
By contrast, only 3-5% of students of highly educated parents and of parents in the highest occupation group need additional learning support.
These are massive differences between advantaged and disadvantaged students. The proportion of disadvantaged students needing additional support is generally five to seven times that of advantaged students.
The proportions of disadvantaged Year 9 students in need of additional support are similar to those in 2023 and also similar to the proportions not achieving national minimum standards in 2022 as measured by the previous method of reporting NAPLAN results. Indeed, there has been little change in the proportion of students whose parents did not complete Year 12, Indigenous students and remote area students since 2011.
The vast majority of students in need of additional support attend public schools. Our analysis of data drawn from the My School data base shows that in 2023 80.5% of low socio-economic status (SES) students, 82% of Indigenous students, 79% of remote area students and 87% of very remote area students are enrolled in public schools. Catholic schools enrol only 11.8% of low SES students and Independent schools enrol only 7.7%.
Other data derived from My Schools shows that 91% of schools with over 50% of students from the lowest SES quartile are public schools. Catholic schools account for only 4% of such disadvantaged schools and Independent schools account for 5%.
Despite this heavy concentration of disadvantaged students in public schools, government funding increases have massively favoured Catholic and Independent schools since 2009. Government funding adjusted for inflation increased by $2,901 per student for Catholic schools between 2009 and 2022 and by $2,478 per student in Independent schools compared to $1,621 in public schools in Australia [Chart 4].
The funding increases favouring private schools are the major factor behind their resource advantage over public schools. The national average income per student in all Independent schools was $25,649 in 2022 and $19,747 in Catholic schools compared to $18,076 in public schools. Given the concentration of disadvantaged students in public schools, public schools should be provided with a resource advantage over private schools to address the high level of need. However, public schools are massively under-funded.
On average, they are only funded at 87.6% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). Public schools in all states except the ACT are funded at 90% or less of their SRS [Chart 5]. The funding shortfall is estimated at $6.8 billion. By contrast, private schools across Australia are funded at an average of 104.9% of their SRS with private schools in all jurisdictions except the Northern Territory funded at over 100% of their SRS. The over-funding amounts to $1 billion for 2024.
Public schools will remain under-funded until at least 2029 because the new funding agreements being negotiated between the Commonwealth and the states retain accounting tricks that defraud public schools of about $2 billion a year. This means that 17 years after the Gonski report recommended full funding of public schools they will remain under-funded. By contrast, all private schools are fully funded from 2023 and 40% are over-funded and will remain over-funded until at least 2029. Clearly, the school funding war is not over as Education Minister in the Morrison Government, Dan Tehan, claimed.
Money matters in education, especially for disadvantaged students and schools. A meta-analysis of studies of the relationship between school expenditure and school outcomes published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that all but one of 25 statistical studies done since 2000 found positive effects of increases in school expenditure on student achievement. In awarding the 2021 Nobel Prize for Economics jointly to David Card, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkley, the Prize Committee said his work showed “that resources in schools are far more important for students’ future labour market success than was previously thought”. A member of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Professor C. Kirabo Jackson, has published several studies showing a positive relationship between school expenditure and outcomes, most recently in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in January this year.
The evidence that money matters in school education is now so compelling that a longstanding opponent of more spending, Eric Hanushek, Professor of Economics at Stanford University, has acknowledged that studies using modern sophisticated methods show “more compelling analyses that offer stronger identification of resource impacts” of school expenditure. As the national research director at the Fordham Institute, a conservative US education think tank, observed: “The fact that Hanushek has found so many positive effects is especially significant because he’s associated with the idea that money doesn’t matter all that much to school performance.”
To be sure, more expenditure can be misspent as has long been the case in Australia with large funding increases for private schools serving a small minority of disadvantaged students and the over-funding of elite private schools serving the richest families in Australia. The other main misdirection of funding is that the small increase for public schools has been largely directed to more bureaucracy and oversight of schools rather than on more teachers and learning support staff.
The NAPLAN results highlight the need to fully fund public schools in the next funding agreement. Continued under-funding of public schools will restrict progress in reducing the proportion of disadvantaged students not achieving national proficiency standards and in reducing achievement gaps between rich and poor. Failure to fully fund public schools will also restrict workforce skills and productivity. It is heartening that the national employer association Australian Industry Group has recognised the importance of improving NAPLAN results and resolving the funding imbroglio. Its Chief Executive, Innes Willox, said:
The latest NAPLAN results are a bad sign for our country and paint a bleak picture for a more productive and competitive future…
It is incumbent upon all levels of government to tackle the issues because this issue goes to the heart of our country’s future. The funding issue must be resolved and the political blame game has to stop – we have well passed the time for this to be settled.
Increased funding for public schools is critical to increasing the proportion of disadvantaged students achieving national standards and reducing the achievement gaps between rich and poor. The stand-off between governments must end. They should adopt a simple 3-point plan:
- The Commonwealth Government increase its share of funding for public schools from 20% to 25% of their SRS.
- State governments renounce the accounting tricks in the current agreements and increase their share of funding public schools to 75% of their SRS.
- The Commonwealth and state governments end their over-funding of private schools.