Sydney’s Knox Grammar School has announced Oliver! as the first production to be produced by the school’s new performing arts centre. Oliver’s famous line of working class rebellion, “please, sir, I want some more”, will echo across the brand new $47 million facility later this year.
Meanwhile, here I am buying lead pencils for the 33 kids in my class so they have something to write with while the paint peels off the walls and the carpet is held down with masking tape.
The Coalition government will be “maintaining the historic role of the Australian government as the majority funder of non-government schools”. Under the Morrison government, private schools will receive $181.6 billion of federal funding over the next 10 years, compared to public education’s $128.8 billion.
According to Fair Funding Now, the Coalition’s brutal restructuring of schools funding will ensure 99% of public schools fall below the national resource standard while 99% of private schools will either meet the standard or exceed it. A student who performs well in Year 3 at a disadvantaged school will by Year 9 fall two-and-a-half years behind peers in attendance at a resources-rich school, according to a Grattan report.
Last year, my primary school colleagues and I were put on a compulsory 20-week “professional development” course mandated and funded by the government. Running during school hours, the course encouraged us to buy books for our classes from Amazon. The course was supposed to enhance our efficacy in delivering the literacy curriculum but was more like a weekly Tupperware party — the wares being various resources the school was deprived of in its budget. It was even suggested to us via PowerPoint presentation that we get down to Ikea at opening time on a Sunday morning to snag some cheap furniture for our classrooms.
The heavy lifting falls to parents too. At the start of each school year, parents are asked to supply their child with paper towel, tissues, hand soap, baby wipes, and other essentials. The items are hoarded in storerooms and beneath sinks; when they’re depleted, the teacher has to buy more.
Twitter erupted this week at the news of yet another independent school opening world class facilities while public schools scramble to find funds to feed hungry students (apparently it is not unusual for independent schools to have their own full-time barista though?). Teachers shared stories of being forced to fund everything from curtains to online subscriptions for lesson resources.
In my experience, the public school classroom has become a site of perpetual material malfunction and deprivation: broken air conditioners that never get fixed, insufficient computers (all of which are in various states of disrepair), pencil shortages, book shortages, classroom walls pockmarked by termites and disintegrating paint, carpet that is so old it has been worn down to expose the cement beneath — the list goes on.
I’m yet to work in a public school classroom in which every student can access a computer at the same time. Rare are the days that a child can pick up a working pen or pencil at any given time and write. The outrage is fair enough: in 2018 independent schools received 42% of their funding from the government. And yet these schools, which are also multi-million dollar private businesses, have the temerity to beg the taxpayer: please, sir, I want some more. Please, sir, I want a Macbook Air for every student.
In a report prepared for the Productivity Commission by the Grattan Institute this year, it was revealed “funding disparities have grown in Australia over the past decade, despite national bipartisan support for needs-based funding”. Fifty-one percent of disadvantaged students attend disadvantaged schools — that is, schools that report a significant shortage of materials have to somehow cater to the students with the highest level of need.
The report goes on to assert that under current policy settings, public schools will remain “indefinitely” under-resourced. Perhaps most shocking is the fact that a public school student gained $155 of public funding over the last decade while a private school student gained $1429 of public funds.
While more than twice as many students attend public schools, private schools receive the lion’s share of federal government funding. This insidious distribution deficiency is failing a majority of the school-age population. Please, sir, I want fair funding now.
Much as I hate to go into bat for the Federal government, your numbers are grossly misleading and create a false narrative.
One needn’t go further than one of the articles you link in your piece, from the SMH, to explain the numbers:
“Between the 2007-08 and 2016-17 financial years, combined state and federal government funding for public schools grew by 22 per cent, adjusted for inflation, while public funding for non-government schools grew by 46 per cent.
The disparity is due to a significant increase in Commonwealth money. As the federal government mainly funds private schools and contributes just one fifth of public school funding, more of that money went to the Catholic and independent sectors.
The states, which are supposed to cover 80 per cent of the cost of their public schools, have been slower to lift their contributions.”
I will also quote a fact-check from The Conversation:
“Funding for government schools
In 2015-16, 86% of funding for government schools came from state and territory governments, and 14% from the federal government. The latter was an increase over the past decade from the 9% of federal funding for government schools in 2006-07.
In Victorian government schools, the federal government’s share of funding increased from 9% to 15% in the decade to 2015-16.
This increase in the federal government contribution is largely the result of the various iterations of the school funding model that arose from the Gonski review of school funding in 2011.”
There is not a single word in your article about state government funding, just the Feds.
The argument for government funding of non-government schools is simply that all kids should get evenly supported by government education funding, and then if parents are willing to pay school fees to get the improved facilities and experiences offered by private schools, then so be it. Many non-government schools (especially in the Catholic sector) are a far cry from Kings or Scotch anyway and those schools could not exist without government funding. A school like Kings or Scotch probably could exist without government funding but for most of them, if they didn’t have the public funding, they couldn’t offer enough compared to public schools for anyone to actually be willing to shell out to attend. If you’re paying 20 grand a year for little Oliver to attend a private school, you want to see 20 grand a year worth of improvements over a public school experience. If you aren’t getting that, you might as well send little Oliver to a public school and spend 5-10k on private tutors or whatever.
Maybe you want to argue that private schools shouldn’t exist at all, but good luck pushing that against hundreds of years of tradition (from both the rich-Anglo and religious schools areas) just as good luck pushing the idea some people like of private health not existing at all. We’re not a communist country; people want to be able to pay for private; deal with it.
I am entirely in favour of more school funding- from state and Commonwealth. The short-resourcing of schools you mention is a disgrace. But going about it by running the politics of envy against private schools and focussing solely on the federal government? Not the right way.
You saved me the trouble of pointing this out Arky. Why Crikey allows an article like this, with such a plethora of dishonesty by omission, truly baffles me.
I am not sure of the details but really rich private schools didn’t get anywhere near the amount government funding they get now until Howard changed the funding formula (another example of his middle/upper class welfare that so distorts the economy).
Since then there has been a frenzy of building fabulous new buildings and state the art facilities amongst all the leading private schools (we have about 10 within walking distance). Their campuses are paragons of luxury and they compete fiercely with each other to prove who is more elite than everyone else, all with the help of government funding.
This doesn’t seem right to me when state schools are poverty stricken. I agree that state governments are not doing enough (and in Victoria the Labor Government legislated so that private schools would get 25% (I think that is the correct %) of the funding going to state schools. All the money starts with the Commonwealth, so if they were really serious about improving public education instead of turning them into charity schools, is to quarantine some of the funding so that it goes into public education.
I would still argue that private schools should be privately funded.
As I understand it, the best ranked school systems in the world don’t have much in the way of private schools, if any at all.
Perhaps a better way would be to provide subsidies for the child, paid to the parent(s), to help with tuition if there the child, for some reason, has to go to a private school.
Agree that private schools should be privately funded – isn’t that what ‘private’ means? Either you choose private and pay, or you go to a publicly-funded state school. At the moment we have luxury private schools which market their exclusivity, selectivity and elitism yet they get buckets of public money.
And it has become an increasingly divided system. When I went to a state high school many years ago, we were well-funded and produced better-educated students for the most part than the private schools. This is not the case now.
When you say “the best private schools in the world”, you are meaning “the most exclusive private schools for the richest people”. I don’t think it’s really great for society when private schools become exclusively for the children of the super-rich and don’t even mix with the children of upper middle class types.
A guy from the party of Labour, everyone. More upper-middle class representation in private schools!
Fucking useless.
“The argument for government funding of non-government schools is simply that all kids should get evenly supported by government education funding, and then if parents are willing to pay school fees to get the improved facilities and experiences offered by private schools, then so be it. Many non-government schools (especially in the Catholic sector) are a far cry from Kings or Scotch anyway and those schools could not exist without government funding. A school like Kings or Scotch probably could exist without government funding but for most of them, if they didn’t have the public funding, they couldn’t offer enough compared to public schools for anyone to actually be willing to shell out to attend.”
If some catholic schools are doing it tough, while the elite schools aren’t, it suggests that the funding given to the catholic education system may not be properly distributed.
The government provides education for all, but if some opt to pursue private education then they are opting out of government support. It is their choice.
I don’t see why pursuing private education should require you to “opt out” of government funding.
That’s an extremely narrow view of society in my view.
“Eat the government-manufactured cereal or opt out of government health inspections!”
“Live in government housing or opt out of government building regulations!”
That is not the society we live in. I know some Crikey readers would adore a society with no private sector but that’s not Australia.
Consider a private school to be a government school where all the parents agree to chip in 15k or 20k a year to collectively hire tutors, sport coaches, music teachers and the necessary venues to provide extra experiences for their kids. Indeed, if there wasn’t government funding to these schools, that is probably close to what would happen- parents couldn’t and wouldn’t pay a price hike just to keep getting what they get now, their kids would go to government schools and they’d pay for outside classes etc.
Those analogies all suck. Regulations and standards are the first thing the private schools want out of, while readily accepting your money, generously given to them by the government on your behalf.
“Politics of envy”! More like politics of justice. Government funding of private schools should be reduced until all Australian students have access to the same level of educational goods. In any case, much of the luxury items one observes being provided to private school students are of no educational value: e.g. one of my colleagues had a tea lady provided for the Year 12 common room at his private school. The phrase “politics of envy” has to be, like patriotism, one of the last refuges of the bourgeois scoundrel defending his respectable thefts from the public purse.
The fact that you’re talking about dragging private school students down rather than raising other students up demonstrates that this is actually a case where the “politics of envy” jibe is completely appropriate.
Raising state school students up doesn’t require dragging other students down.
It does if the amount of public money available is limited, as it clearly is; also, if the money available to private schools is making the provision of luxury items of little to no actual educational value available to selected students. We could start a list of the luxury items provided to private school students right now, beginning with tea ladies, vast performing spaces, theatres etc.
Talk of envy and dragging down (actually not in Lethell’s post) is based on the false assumption that more money (and indeed luxury) leads to better education.
I went to a big musical put on by a rich private school. It was a polished and professional advertisement for the school. It was also not cheap to attend, because it was a fund raiser. It benefited from the expertise of various well-connected parents, so in its extravagant presentation was equal to anything you’d see from a professional theatre group. But the result was strangely soulless. I don’t remember much about it except that the kids I knew on the stage looked overwhelmed. It was not a deep learning experience for the students.
I can think of other examples of the ways children can be stifled by being given too much. Learning comes out of the gaps.
Of course, depriving children of essential education is much worse.
Everybody is entitled to a reasonable, equitable and decently funded school education, Arky. To better that situation was an initial premise of Gonski, but as a good friend of mine who spent decades in the relevant Federal departments pointed out, in the end Gonski was always going to be a funding reform, not a comprehensive reform of Australia’s education linkages and layers. The latter has been broken for decades. At a school level, private schools benefit more than public schools, in a relative as well as absolute sense. Economically and statistically, that is a fact. To abrogate the Feds of any significant responsibility of said fact is naïve. All of our children and the generations ahead deserve and need a quality education – that is a combined federal/state/territory responsibility. Quality education for all will advance our nation and the standard of living of our children, grandchildren and generations beyond. This doesn’t play out as it should in Australia because any slightest hint of an upset to the private school system is attacked (led by the powerful Catholic school apparatchiks whinging to and bullying of governments) as foul play. How can you believe in God and lobby for a funding system that actively discriminates against the roughly two-thirds of Australian school children who attend public schools? Parents know their own upbringing, know their children and know where they want to send their kids to school. I have many close and valued friends who have kids pursuing a private education, or a public education. Who cares? The education decisions that a family makes are their prerogative, but if the best that private school agitators have is trying to absolve the federal government of any responsibility or blame for a broken system then maybe they spent too much time during their formative years looking out the window at ‘Red Dawn’, regardless of where you were located at school. Firstly, you divulge a lack of respect for the future of our nation – my kids learn wonderful things about respect at the public school they attend – my kids have a first rate education which is underfunded. Secondly, you needed to do better in mathematics to get the funding equation correct if you wanted to use federalism as your ‘out’ for the education debate being largely a state/territory matter. Thirdly, if you could look back over decades of education policy with any degree of authority – policy changes or reform, funding changes or reform, the inevitable departmental transformations – you couldn’t say what you do. You’d realise you should have taken history as a subject. If you did, you failed it.
Melbourne’s Scotch College is selling 8 “12 month old,professionally maintained pianos with full 12 year Kawai manufacturer’s warranty”.(age green guide 13 june)
What will replace them?12 harps or just baby grands? Whatever-it will come from the education budget and certainly won’t go to public schools; They’ll be grateful for 8 recorders.
Megan.stoyles@bigpond.com
One of the problems with our current public/private system is the divisions in our society being reenforced. We have one of the most stratified education school systems in the world. That means kids from low socio-economic families, where in many cases the parents were not particularly successful in school, go to school with kids of a similar background. Kids from wealthier families, with like peers. I think Mexico, Hungary and Chile amongst OECD countries are more stratified. We also have one of the highest percentages of students attending private schools. In NSW this is compounded by selective high schools, as motivated students (and families), are filtered out of the local school.
At this point I don’t care if Federal or States aren’t funding schools properly, but until public schools are fully funded, no money should be going into the private system.
They are, after all, private businesses, not common goods.
As a retired-early burnt-out teacher, I have to say that every word in this article rings true. None of this is at all exaggerated – even slightly. The inequity in the funding differential between public & private, continues to not only highlight unfairness, but applaud it. To query the facts as written, reveals self-serving self-interest – a cheap ticket to be on the appealing side of self-perceived class.
If you think merely querying facts – which in this case is particularly warranted because the facts provided have the massive omission of ignoring state government funding- reveals self-serving self-interest, I’m glad you are retired from teaching. Kids should always be taught to question.
Arky, I’m wondering if firstly you have ever taught in a public school, and secondly whether you have kids (or nieces and nephews) in a private school? Yes, I know it shouldn’t make any difference to the argument, so hold back on the outrage. But there’s a familiar pattern to your discourse that reminds me of arguing with parents who have kids in private schools, and that pattern is to ignore the wood for the trees. Yes, some good private schools need the extra private dollar to deliver services. But this article, flawed though it may be, is about the bulk of funding and resources going to the wealthy end of education at the expense of the poorer. No teacher I’ve ever known argues that this isn’t happening. Inequality begins with education, and continues through life.
By the way, kids should not just be taught to question, they should also be taught to see the bigger picture.
As I recall govt funding to non govt schools started in the 50’s because the Catholic Church left parish primaries in a terrible state. I went to a well known non catholic private school in the 70’s and there was no govt funding though the rumbles were starting and there was a party called DOGS – Defence of govt schools – trying to fend it off. As others pointed out the real rort started with Howard – one his many poison legacies.
While it’s true the article doesn’t mention state govt funding that’s beside the point. Private schools are obscenely over funded as can be seen by the honey pot led explosion in numbers of such schools. I’d prefer to phase out non govt school funding completely especially including Catholic parish schools. However I’d also want to see a reversion to streaming and selective schools which is terribly untrendy but will soften the blow and are a good idea anyway.
The argument of I pay my taxes so my kids should get a share wherever they go is nonsense. I pay my share for jails but I’m not asking for a spot. We need an ethos that says the govt provides a good education system and if you want something else – guess what ? – user pays.
Let’s stop pretending the current system is producing good value for money and maximum educational good for the greatest number.