SOS Australia – Page 3 – Fighting for Equity in Education

Wealthy Victorian Private Schools Rake in Millions in Donations & Investment Income

Trevor Cobbold / February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 / Funding

Victoria’s wealthiest most exclusive private schools are raking in millions of dollars in donations and investment income. It exposes a major flaw in how private schools are funded. These millions are ignored in assessing the need for government funding. It means the schools are massively over-funded by the taxpayer. It shows that the funding of private schools must be overhauled.

New figures obtained from the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) show that 44 Victorian private schools received nearly $300 million in donations and investment income over five years from 2017 to 2021 (download table below). Donations totalled $215 million and investment income was $84 million. Just nine schools received $175 million over the period. The average income from these sources was $6.8 million per school over the five years. Each of the 44 schools received more than $1 million over the five years.

Private Schools Had the Biggest Funding Increases and the Biggest Falls in School Results

Trevor Cobbold / February 3, 2023February 3, 2023 / Equity in education, Funding, Public education

Some of the commentary on the Productivity Commission report on the National Schools Reform Agreement drew a simplistic and highly misleading link between increased school funding and results. It ignored the key facts that Catholic and Independent schools had the largest funding increases since 2009 and the largest declines in international test results. The figures suggest that private schools are much less efficient that public schools, especially given that public schools enrol the vast majority of disadvantaged students.

Government Funding Failures Have Stoked Shocking Inequity in NSW School Outcomes

Trevor Cobbold / January 29, 2023 / Equity in education, Funding

The following is a summary of an Education Research Paper on NSW school outcomes and funding. It can be downloaded below.

The latest NAPLAN results show shocking inequalities in school outcomes between highly advantaged and disadvantaged students in NSW. Very high proportions of low socio-economic status (SES), Indigenous and remote area students do not achieve national literacy and numeracy standards compared to very small proportions of high SES students. By Year 9, low SES, Indigenous and remote area students are several years of learning behind their high SES peers. There has been very little progress in reducing the learning gaps between rich and poor over the last decade or so.

Labor Kicks the Public School Funding Can Down the Road

Trevor Cobbold / January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 / Funding

Prior to Christmas, the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, announced that the current National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA) will be extended for another year to 2024. It has major funding implications for public sools. It stops any funding increases for public schools which enrol the large majority of disadvantaged students and it continues an absurd arrangement that defrauds public schools of funding. Private schools will also get a relatively small windfall funding gain.

Shocking Inequalities in School Results

Trevor Cobbold / December 19, 2022 / Equity in education, Funding

The following is a summary of a new research paper by Save Our Schools analysing the latest NAPLAN results. The paper can be downloaded below.

The latest NAPLAN reslts shows shocking inequalities in school outcomes between highly advantaged and disadvantaged students in Australia. Very high proportions of low socio-economic status (SES), Indigenous and remote area students do not achieve national literacy and numeracy standards compared to very small proportions of high SES students. By Year 9, low SES, Indigenous and remote area students are several years of learning behind their high SES peers. There has been very little progress in reducing the learning gaps between rich and poor over the last decade or so.

The paper shows that 29% of low SES Year 9 students were below the national reading standard in 2022, 38% were below the writing standard and 16% were below the numeracy standard. One-third of Indigenous students were below the reading standard, 44% were below the writing standard and 19% were below the numeracy standard. Nearly one-quarter of remote area students were below the reading standard, 35% were below the writing standard and 13% were below the numeracy standard. By contrast, 3% of Year 9 high SES students did not achieve the reading standard, 7% did not achieve the writing standard and 2% did not achieve the numeracy standard.

These are shocking inequities. For example, it is totally unacceptable that the percentage of low SES Year 9 students not achieving the national reading standard is 9 times that of high SES students and the proportion of Indigenous students not achieving the standard is 11 times that of high SES students. Remote area 8 times.

Labor Betrays Public Schools & Disadvantaged Students

sosaustralia / December 16, 2022 / Equity in education, Funding, Media releases

The public education advocacy group, Save Our Schools, today slammed the decision of the Labor Government to delay the introduction of the next National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA) until 2025. SOS National Convenor, Trevor Cobbold, said that it is an act of betrayal of under-funded public schools and disadvantaged students.

“This is Labor perfidy at its worst. Labor is denying full funding of public schools indefinitely.

Education Ministers Must Commit to Fully Funding Public Schools

sosaustralia / December 12, 2022 / Funding, Media releases

Save Our Schools calls on the Education Ministers’ meeting on Wednesday to commit to fully funding public schools by 2027. SOS National Convener, Trevor Cobbold, said that Ministers must end their silence on when public schools will be fully funded: “The inaction by governments must end”.

“Public schools are massively under-funded. At present, they are only funded at 87.1% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) on average across Australia and they will be under-funded indefinitely under the current arrangements. There is no plan in place to get them to 100%. As a result, public schools are missing out on about $6 billion in funding each year.

“By contrast, private schools are funded at 104.3% on average and will be over-funded for the rest of the decade.

A Guide to Research on Vouchers

sosaustralia / November 30, 2022 / Choice and competition, Funding, Public education

School vouchers have devastating effects on student outcomes. Full stop. .

Large-scale independent studies in D.C.,Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio show that for kids who left public schools, harmful voucher impacts actually meet or exceed what the pandemic did to test scores. That’s also a similar impact in Louisiana to what Hurricane Katrina did to student achievement back in 2005.

Think about that next time you hear a politician or activist claim we need taxpayer support for private schools to offset what the pandemic did to student learning. Here, their cure would in test score terms be quite literally worse than the disease.

Our Public Schools in Crisis

sosaustralia / November 24, 2022 / Public education

Public schools in Victoria as we have known them for so long no longer exist. I never thought I would see the day when that fundamental and unique pillar of strength of the public education system, systemic collegiality and team work would be dismantled. It devastates me to see the growing evidence, almost daily, of a dog-eat-dog culture springing up across the public system.

It isn’t new news to anyone that we are experiencing a teacher shortage of disturbing levels, levels I’ve not witnessed in my fifty plus years in Victorian public schools. What is new, are the desperate measures to which principals are turning to attract and retain staff. wage and work conditions inducements, are being dangled in front of teachers, either to lure them out of their existing positions or have them change their minds after accepting an appointment at another school, days and even hours after doing so.

Public School Students Are Robbed of Funding By Increasing Bureaucracy

Trevor Cobbold / November 18, 2022 / Funding

Public school students in Victoria are being robbed of funding by a bloated bureaucracy There has been a huge expansion in the education bureaucracy over the past decade or more. It has far exceeded the growth in teachers and students in public schools. It has soaked up much of a very small funding increase for public schools.

Since 2009, the increase in non-teaching staff in the public education system was double that of teachers and three times the increase in students. Non-teaching staff increased by 60.4% between 2009 and 2021 compared to a 29.3% increase in teachers and an increase of 20.1% in students.

The growth in non-teaching staff has occurred at all levels of the school system – central and regional offices and in schools. The increases occurred under both Liberal and Labor Governments.