The government’s announcement that it has commissioned a Gonski 2.0 Report to be released in December this year is a distraction from the flawed current school funding model, Centre for Independent Studies education policy analyst Blaise Joseph said.
The author of the research paper The Fantasy of Gonski Funding: the ongoing battle over school spending — released on this week — Mr Joseph said “Gonski 1.0 was fundamentally flawed to begin with. There’s no reason to think Gonski 2.0 will be any better.”
“We don’t need another report on education funding. We need a reform of the obvious flaws in the current funding model.”
“Gonski 1.0 came up with a school funding model that turned out to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement.
“Given the complexities involved in school funding, it is imperative that the Gonski 2.0 panel include people with high levels of expertise in school financing, to avoid having the same issues.”
Mr Joseph said the government’s announcement that it would cut funding to some 24 ‘overfunded’ non-government schools was also merely a distraction from the problems with the entire school funding model.
“The total ‘overfunding’ of some independent schools in the current model was estimated to be $215 million in 2014, compared to total government spending on schools of $53 billion in the same year.”
He said today’s announcement of billions more in taxpayer funding for schools over the next ten years are “basically a bribe to keep non-government schools happy to make up for losing special deals with the federal government.”
“For decades, there have been piecemeal arrangements between governments and the Independent and Catholic schools systems, based on opaque negotiations. At least the government is sensibly moving away from this towards a fairer, nationally consistent federal funding allocation, but at a huge cost to the taxpayer.”
Mr Joseph said the real problem with the current school funding model is that it sets the funding benchmark, the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), unrealistically and unjustifiably high.
“The first Gonski Report proposed a base level of funding per student and extra funding for schools with disadvantaged students.”
“But following the Gillard government’s negotiations with the states and non-government schools, the criteria for disadvantage was expanded so much that the majority of Australian students are now considered ‘disadvantaged’ and receive extra funding.”
“This is simply not financially viable and means the school funding benchmark, which the government said today it will continue to work towards over the next few years, is unreasonably high.”
Blaise Joseph is an Education Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies and author of The Fantasy of Gonski Funding: the ongoing battle over school spending released on April 30.