SOS Australia – Page 3 – Fighting for Equity in Education

Morrison’s $3.4 Billion Increase for Private Schools is Another Special Deal

Trevor Cobbold / March 23, 2020 / Funding

The report by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee on moving to a direct income measure of assessing the capacity to contribute of families in private schools contains a bombshell. It unequivocally shows that the financial cost of the move to a direct income measure has never been properly calculated by the Government. The additional funding for private schools of $3.2 billion (now $3.4 billion) promised by the Government is just another special deal plucked out of thin air.

Statement on the “Science of Reading” from US Think Tank

sosaustralia / March 21, 2020 / National issues

The US National Education Policy Center and the Education Deans for Justice and Equity have jointly released a Policy Statement on the “Science of Reading”. It is reprinted here in the interests of promoting rational debate.

For the past few years, a wave of media has reignited the unproductive Reading Wars, which frame early-literacy teaching as a battle between opposing camps. This coverage speaks of an established “science of reading” as the appropriate focus of teacher education programs and as the necessary approach for early-reading instruction. Unfortunately, this media coverage has distorted the research evidence on the teaching of reading, with the result that policymakers are now promoting and implementing policy based on misinformation.

New Method of Assessing Financial Need of Private Schools Has Major Flaws

Trevor Cobbold / March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 / Funding

At the end of February the Senate referred the provisions of the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020 to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. The Bill provides for a new measure of capacity to contribute by families to private schools, adjusted taxable income, to replace the area-based socio-economic status method introduced in 2001.

The submission by Save Our Schools highlights major flaws in the new measure and makes 13 recommendations to the Senate Committee. It can be downloaded below.

Private Schools Continue to Have a Massive Resource Advantage Over Public Schools

Trevor Cobbold / March 3, 2020 / Equity in education

Data from the OECD’s Programme for International Assessments (PISA) in 2018 confirm everyday impressions of the vast gap in the resources of public and private schools in Australia. They show that private schools have far more, and better quality, teacher and physical resources than public schools. Despite the fact that public schools enrol over 80% of the most disadvantaged students, they are constrained by a lack of education resources.

While class sizes and student-teacher ratios are similar in public and private secondary schools, public schools have far fewer highly qualified teachers, more teacher shortages, more inadequately qualified teachers, more teacher absenteeism and more shortages of assisting staff than private schools. Much higher proportions of students in public schools have their learning hindered by a lack of educational materials, poor quality educational materials, lack of physical infrastructure and poor quality infrastructure than in private schools. There are also significant differences between the resources available to lower fee and higher fee private schools.

ACT Public Schools Hit With Funding Cut While Private Schools Got a Massive Funding Increase

Trevor Cobbold / February 26, 2020 / Funding

The following are the notes and slides of a talk given to the ACT Council of P&C Associations by Trevor Cobbold on 25th of February. It shows that changes in school income and government funding have hugely favoured Catholic and Independent schools over public schools since 2009. In particular, government funding of public schools has been cut while private schools received large increases in funding. Moreover, public schools face further cuts in funding as a result of the bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and ACT Governments in December 2018. In contrast, private schools will continue to be over-funded under the agreement and as a result of another special funding deal by the Commonwealth

The Federal Government Has a National Responsibility to Fund Public Education

Trevor Cobbold / February 23, 2020February 23, 2020 / Funding

The call by the former head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Martin Parkinson, for the Federal Government to hand over all responsibility for school funding to the States would have disastrous consequences for the nation. If pursued, it will only ever apply to public schools because the Coalition and Labor will never agree to ending the Federal role in funding private schools. Ending Federal funding for public schools would undermine national education, social and economic goals,

New Figures Show Huge Funding Increases for Private Schools & Cuts to Public Schools

Trevor Cobbold / February 13, 2020 / Funding

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

New figures show that government (Commonwealth and State) funding increases massively favoured private schools over public schools between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Government funding for private schools increased by $1,779 per student, adjusted for inflation, while funding for public schools was cut by $49 per student. The increase for private schools was 18.9% while funding for public school students was cut by 0.4%.

Lessons Learned From Technology in the Classroom

sosaustralia / February 10, 2020 / National issues

Larry Cuban, Emeritus Professor of Education at Stanford University, recently drew on his extensive study of technology in education over many years to draw some key lessons about the use of technology in the classroom. The following are extracts from his article which is available on his blog.

Low SES Schools Have Far Less Resources than High SES Schools

Trevor Cobbold / January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 / Equity in education

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

New data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 show that Australia allocates more and better quality teacher and physical resources to socio-economically advantaged secondary schools than to disadvantaged schools. The gaps are amongst the largest out of 36 countries in the OECD. The highest performing countries in the OECD generally allocate resources more equitably between low and high SES secondary schools.

Call for Private Schools to Pay Local Government Rates

Trevor Cobbold / January 9, 2020 / Funding

Private schools should pay rates according to the Municipal Association of Victoria. It claims that local councils are missing out on millions of dollars in revenue because private schools are exempted from paying rates. It says the exemptions are unfair and inequitable as other ratepayers must pay more to cover the revenue loss.