SOS Australia

Thirty-three NSW private schools raked in $72 million in JobKeeper payments in 2020 while making profits of $72 million. Every school made a profit with JobKeeper and all except two increased their profits over the previous year. Some of the state’s most privileged schools got four to eight million and made millions in profits. Just ten schools got $46.5 million and made $44 million in profits.

The shameless greed of some of the wealthiest most exclusive private schools in Victoria was revealed in their financial statements published before Christmas. Twenty-three schools received $94 million in JobKeeper payments while making profits of $102 million. Most of them serve highly advantaged families.

Forty Victorian private schools raked in $135 million in Jobkeeper payments in 2020 while making profits of $96 million. Twenty of the most privileged schools in the state got $94 million and made profits totalling $71 million. Just six of these raked in over $57 million and made nearly $30 million in profits. Nearly all increased their profits over the previous year with the help of Jobkeeper.

In awarding the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2021, the Prize Committee said that there is strong empirical proof that money matters in education. This is an incredibly significant statement from a notoriously conservative institution. It represents a new consensus that has developed in recent years that more spending on education can increase school outcomes and future earnings, especially for disadvantaged students.

Blessed are the rich for they shall inherit more and more, especially if they are already wealthy private schools. New figures show that 700 private schools, including many of Australia’s most exclusive private schools, raked in $750 million in Jobkeeper payments despite many simultaneously running surpluses of millions. It is icing on the cake of the billions in over-funding provided under Morrison’s special deals for private schools.

The average payment was over $1 million per school. School financial statements lodged with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission show that many elite schools got millions more than this while making profits and some even increased their profits with the help of Jobkeeper.

A new study published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research shows that money still matters in education. It found that school finance reforms in the US that increased expenditure in low income school districts increased high school completion and college entrance among Black students and females as well as increasing annual earnings.

We find that school finance reforms lead to increases in educational attainment and in mean earnings. These results hold when we consider the full state population, but we generally find larger effects for Black than for white students….We also find some evidence that effects are larger for female students. [p. 5]

The study analysed the impact of what are known as “adequacy”-based school finance reforms implemented since 1990. Courts in many US states have ruled that state constitutions require adequacy in school funding. This led to increased expenditure in disadvantaged school districts above the state average to compensate for the increased costs of educating children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The following is the Conclusion of a new working paper published by Save Our Schools. It provides a comprehensive review of the Gonski inquiry and its report on school funding in Australia. The full 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

The Gonski Report was a watershed in the history of school funding in Australia. It changed the whole focus of school funding from choice under the Howard Government’s SES model to making equity in education the centrepiece of education policy. It made the biggest commitment to improving equity in education in the history of school funding in Australia.

The strength of the Report was that it recognised the problem of disadvantage in Australian schooling and made serious recommendations about future funding to reduce disadvantage. It made several contributions to the development of a more equitable school funding system.