After catching up on posts by friends I can’t help thinking that I’m suffering from Adultitus… Ian’s currently taking part in the 40 day escape plan (from Adultitus) and sounds like he and Jen are having lots of fun testing the effects of hair-care products on underarm hair or doing some extreme skipping… and here I am fighting to finish a post that I’ve been wanting to write for a while - on public education… ugh. Why?
Basically, I’m hoping you can help me to figure out what’s true and what’s not… After chatting with some old mates the other day about public education in Australia, we got to the point where we didn’t have enough solid facts or statistics to move forward. I’ve only been working in public education for the past two-and-a-bit years, and to be honest, I’m a bit confused about the direction of Education in Australia. If you can provide any insight on the points below I’d be grateful, or perhaps your country has followed a similar road and you can help me see what Australian Education will look like 10 years down the line when my daughter is close to High School! Here are some common things that I hear:
1. Government (ie. public) Funding for private schools continues to increase while public school funding is lucky to beat inflation.
Of course, it all depends on who you listen to. The World Socialist Web Site certainly seems to think so (2004):
For the first time, more federal money will be allocated to private, non-Catholic schools than to government schools. Independent schools, which currently have 13 percent of student enrolments, will receive $7.6 billion; Catholic schools, with approximately 18 percent of total students, have been allocated $12.6 billion. Government schools, attended by 68 percent of students, will get $7.2 billion or only 26 percent of federal funding.
Can anyone verify this information? At the other extreme the Centre for Independent (?) Studies certainly seems to have a very different view, stating that (2000):
Fact 1: Private schools do not drain money from public schools. Private school students, whose parents contribute to public education through taxes and then pay for their children’s education again through fees, actually cost the state less.
That being said, I don’t quite follow the logic of this argument - the quote simply states the obvious - that parents contribute to public education through taxes. Again, I would like to be able to verify this information, but there aren’t any specific details provided. So how can I know? Is there a fair and balanced view, a simple statistic with transparent calculations would be grand? What’s your view?
2. As a result, public education is going down the drain (with the exception of certain selective schools such as James Ruse or Sydney Boys High).
According to Gannicott (1998:27, quoted in the CIS Paper) in 1996 non-catholic private schools had an average Tertiary Entrance Rank of 70.55, while the public school average was 45.10. But why this is the case? Again, it depends who you listen to… the CIS Paper argues that it really comes down to something the private schools do (not funding or resources).
Whereas others put forward that it’s related to the socio-economic backgrounds of students at public and private schools. In the Independant Education Union’s submission to the Senate Inquiry into Commonwealth Funding for Schools, it’s stated that:
The [OECD] PISA report also confirmed current research (Teese, 2000; Flanagan 2002) that in Australia socioeconomic background is a very important determinant to student achievement. It found that variance in achievement between schools is largely explained by differences in socio economic background at both student and school levels. Geographic location, street address, socio economic status, employment and family income to a very significant extent influence academic success.
Is there then simple evidence, for example, to show the percentage of students from high er socioeconomic backgrounds that attend private schools as well as the percentage from students of lower socioeconomic background? Does this mean necessarily that Public Education is being strangled?
3. The current direction of Australian Education can only only enlarge the gap between the rich and poor.
As “more and more middle-class parents are confronting the tough financial choice of sending their children to private schools” (at least the middle-class have the an option), it seems almost certain that the current direction of Educational policy in Australia - for whatever reason - is only going to increase the gap between the rich and poor. Is this a fair statement? An obvious statement? or an over-generalised statement?
If you can spare the time, I’d really welcome any light-shedding in this area - whatever your persuasion.
Mike asked me to post a link to the idea of an education voucher… so here you go: linky
Thanks Ian. I had a read of the wikipedia article on Education Vouchers… from what I understand, the basic assumption is that private schools should be able to receive the same public money as public schools. I know this sounds ok in theory when you envisage a system where any kid can choose which school they want to go to, but the article itself has some good arguments against too:
“Further, many argue that given the limited budget for schools, a voucher system weakens public schools while at the same time not necessarily providing enough money for people to attend private schools. (The tendency of the costs of tuition to rise along with its demand further compounds the problem.) This weakens the educational possibilities for many. Since vouchers typically pay much less than the tuition charged by the private schools, only the richer students and those given scholarships will be able to attend them.”
So effectively, the end result is not much different to what we have today, with private schools receiving similar funding to public schools (yet to verify the detail… can anyone help?), and students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds having access to better educations. Again from the wikipedia article:
“In addition, economists point to the problem of “cream skimming,” a variety of adverse selection in the educational market. With a presumably greater pool of applicants, the private schools will be more selective over which students to admit, possibly excluding those who belong to the “wrong” religion or ethnicity, those with disabilities such as autism or multiple sclerosis, and those with disciplinary problems. On the other hand, by law the public schools have to educate everyone, so that they become a “dumping ground” for those students unwanted by the private schools. This further undermines the reputation of the public schools, leading to a vicious circle that tends toward the total abolition of the public schools and the end of universal education.”
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the post, nice to have some solid discussion. To answer your questions I think we need more information.
1. Surely the extent of Federal government funding to public and private schools is a misleading figure as it is the State governments who primarily fund education. We need to know the extent of total government funding (state and federal) to private and public schools.
Lets assume for argument’s sake that the federal government’s education funding is distributed around the states in proportion to their populations. So NSW has 6 682 000 people out of a national population of 20 459 097. So NSW has 33% of the nations people, so lets assume NSW gets 33% of the federal education budget.
(edit: just fixed up data since the table didn’t work, Michael).
NSW Public Schools
Federal Government: $ 2.376 bn
State Government: $7.2 bn
Total: $9.576 bn
Total Per Student: $12 912
NSW Private Schools
Federal Government: $ 6.67 bn
State Government: $ 0.7 bn
Total: $ 7.37 bn
Total Per Student: $19 815
NSW State Budget Data taken from: http://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/bp05-06/bp3/pdf/bp3_05educ_f.pdf
Paints a pretty grim picture doesn’t it. Did I get my Math’s right?
Looks like your blog doesn’t let me make a table - I hope you get the drift
I think that the federal government’s reasoning on this is that the state govs should be paying for the state schools.
It does seem unreasonable the difference in money being paid by the fed gov though.
Who SHOULD be paying for it?
I really don’t know.
Gday Benny… wow, thanks for adding some real figures to the argument. And yeah, good point about needing total (State Federal) funding.
I reformatted the figures for text (hope it’s ok). Assuming your maths is correct, that’s pretty strange? Why would (or should) private school students receive more funding per person?
I tried to check your calculations, but couldn’t find some of the info… if you get a chance, can you source where you got the federal funding numbers, as well as the number of students in public/private ed in NSW? taa. (I’ll update the post with a chart of your data too…)
Ian, your point makes sense for the difference in Federal funding, but why the difference in total funding?
Hey Mick,
I took all those figured from the pdf file I referenced there. It’s the State Government Budget Papers on Education. It had the number of student figures.
I took the federal figures from your post and estimated NSW by dividing by population so that could be where I went wrong:
http://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/bp05-06/bp3/pdf/bp3_05educ_f.pdf
OK, checked all those figures in a nice spreadsheet for OpenOffice) (or XLS version)… calculations are correct.
That is, it would seem that the total funding (state plus federal) per private student per year is 150% of that of a public student? ($19,815 versus $12,912).
Current uncertainties in these calculations are:
1) Estimate of NSW cut for federal budget (based on NSW having 33% of the population)
2) Figures for 2005 Federal funding for public and private education at: 7.2bn and 20.2bn respectively (need to verify these figures reported in the WSWS article… perhaps it is available on a government site somewhere.)
Grrr… how can we verify this info? Surely this type of information should be redily available..
One thing to think about with those money amounts is how much goes to each school and how much does the state government put in.
I don’t think the state gov gives any money to private schools, but obviously gives at least some to state schools.
What is the discrepancy there?
If that $7.2Bn state gov. funds per school equals that of private funding, is that so bad?
(note - I went through public schooling, and Mat and baby #2 most likely will as well)
I’m not sure I’m understanding what you’re saying Ian. Do you mean how the federal funding is divied up among the private schools? I agree, we haven’t even touched on how this is appropriated… from what I’ve read, it’s based on the estimated Socio-economic Status (SES) of the School community. I don’t know much about this yet, except that there’s been lots of debating about it.
As for state government giving money to private schools, according to the State Gov Budget Papers on Education that Ben found, the State government does budget 0.7bn for non-government schools, for the purposes of: (from page 5-30):
“Provision of per capita grants, interest rate subsidies, textbook allowances and other forms of support to non-government schools. Assistance to families in meeting costs of students attending school.”
Or did I misunderstand what you were saying? Wasn’t too sure…
I think this really all comes down to how you view the words “public” and “private”, what does “public education” actually mean to you?
I guess it also depends on how you read the label on schools as ‘public’ schools, or ’state’ schools.
State schools are a responsibility of the state government (I realise that the two states mentioned have different meanings, sorry) as far as I am aware, meaning that they are the state government’s responsibility for funding.
I don’t know why the federal government pays any money towards education (not complaining, I just don’t know why), but it would seem that by paying more to private schools (those run not by the state (read:government) it is because they are providing additional funds to schools that don’t get money from the state govt (usually).
Hmmm, I think I’m making less and less sense.
G’day Ian,
I think you are right in a sense. Public education is a state gov portfolio, and I think it makes sense for the federal government to top up private education fees with some additional funding. From what I understand, private schools are on a funding scale in which the ‘richer’ they get, the less money the federal government gives them per student. I think this is good as there are many low fee private schools, eps in low, socio economic areas where the fees charged to parents are far lower than the cost of education and they need the funding to be viable.
The problem is that if these figures are right then the federal government is giving far too much and public students are getting a raw deal. Surely the governments (combined) should be paying more per student to public students than to private students. When you consider school fees on top of gov funding, the private school students are getting far more money spent on their education. Hardly fair.
There are some more stats we need to know to answer questions 2 and 3. Question 2 (Is pub education going down the drain due to lack of funding?) requires a comparison of student performance in nearby pub and priv schools. It’s no good saying that pub schools do worse than priv schools on average since the priv schools are probably concentrated in ‘rich’ areas. I would suggest that a student’s level of educational attainment is a function of many factors, funding being only one.
To answer the third question (Is this producing more income inequality) we need to know if its still true that a uni degree gives you a higher income. I know that these are good days for tradesmen. And many uni degrees don’t give you high paying jobs (as the teachers federation frequently remind us).
I’ve got a feeling the numbers we’re working with for Federal funding are way out. The only article I could find that mentioned them was the WSWS article that puts total federal funding at around 27bn… but this sounds way to large? (Edit: Come to think of it, the figures in this article are most likely for the 2005-2008 period… ie, over 4 years).
In Appendix D of the Quadrennial Administrative Guidelines for 2005-2008, there’s a summary of funding for 2005, the total federal funding for education comes to 7.5bn.
.. confused :T
Using the Federal funding from the Quadrennial Administrative Guidelines for 2005-2008 and plugging in the numbers:
Fed. Gov. funding for gov schools (australia wide): $2,327,959,000
Fed. Gov. funding for non-gov schools (australia wide): $4,660,244,000
into our spreadsheet outputs:
Total funding (State plus Federal) for gov school student: $9,704
Total funding (State plus Federal) for non-gov student: $1,880
Those numbers certainly make a lot more sense!? Is this correct?
They certainly look a lot more reasonable.
Federal government is giving loads more to non-gov schools BUT when the state govt. funds are added it looks much better.
I’d imagine this is correct - simply because so many people kicked up a stink about it I’m sure they never saw accurate numbers and if they were correct the federal government wouldn’t have been so fine with it all.
That looks much better.
I don’t have a problem with that system if those figures are correct - seems fair enough to me. Especially if the funding is geared towards the lower fee private schools.
re
point 1
on average a publicly funded high school student costs the tax payer about $6000 a year.
Catholic is about $4000 of tax money and independent $3500.
If all cathloic / independent school close, the australian tax payer could not afford to educate all its children.
The AEU only talks about federal money. GENERALLY, the state gives LESS than 5% to catholic and independent schools. THIS is why the federal government gives to these schools. Nothing much more than that.
point 2.
Generally parents that send their children to catholic / independent schools want their children to develop a work ethic. Work ethic = school results.
Having worked in Tassie’s high school, I would suggest that some schools are disfunctional to say the least……. Not much learning occuring here…..
Point 3
As “more and more middle-class parents are confronting the tough financial choice of sending their children to private schools” (at least the middle-class have the an option), it seems almost certain that the current direction of Educational policy in Australia - for whatever reason - is only going to increase the gap between the rich and poor. Is this a fair statement? An obvious statement? or an over-generalised statement?
Yes. As lower economic families access private education (through ? affordable Catholic schools they then lower the standard in these schools. Catholic’s are now sending their children to independent schools to get away from the riff raff……)
As Australia’s population ages, the vote will be in things for the aged. Education is in the background as it won’t win votes (or have the potential to). Private education will have some sway as rich grandparents spend their money on their grandchildren’s education.
hope this helps.
Hi Damian, sure does help!
With the point 1, I think all of us so far are quite satisfied with the federal funding of low-fee paying catholic and independent schools - although it would still be great to have a reference for the figures you’ve quoted if you’ve got any handy, as they’re quite different from our calculated estimates above.
What we’re (or I’m) unsure of is how much the more elite high-fee schools cost the taxpayer? I assume it would be quite a bit less than the catholic/independent schools due to the Socio-economic status (SES), but would like to see a number.
As for point 2, I totally agree about some schools being disfunctional (I assume the school you worked in was a public school in Tassie?). Guess the question is why? Do you reckon it’s a lack of funding, over-stretching teachers, or on the other hand, the result of a failing education system/culture that needs to be totally revamped? (or both or neither). Would be interested to hear about your experience in that school.
And for point 3, I didn’t realise that Catholic schools were starting to take some of the “riff raff” from the public system? Does this then mean that as the public system continues to degrade (if it is degrading), that the low-fee private schools will also degrade, leaving only the selective public schools and the more expensive private schools as options for a “good education”?
Thanks again for your input!
Hi Micheal,
Point 1 - I’ll dig the figures up. They were from an article last year from the Australian Parents Council magazine (June 2005? ) http://www.austparents.edu.au/
Point 2 - How long have we got? I think that the youth (generalisation) have changed the way they think. Andrew Fuller http://www.andrewfuller.com.au/research.php suggest that society has created this change in the way youth behave for a multiple of reasons. I also think some taechers in schools are not interested in these changes and therefore do not change their pedagogy. Here in lies the problem. I actually think ‘old’ teachers (old in teaching style - not age) are half the problem. They blame the student for they problems…..’This the way I have done it for 30 years…..the kids are just different to day……
Putting it another way….Many of out teachers were educated when the EH was designed. They are still using EJ teaching strategies because the system allows them to get away with no upgrading their skills. (unlike industry. If industry took this approach they would go broke!!!!!)
Teachers also hide behind ‘I’m a professional and don’t question me!’
Also, many teachers have given up because they do not get the resources they need to help their students learn. For exampl, 95% of Tassie’s special ed schools have closed because a ‘few experts’ said that inclusion is better. (The government thought this is great because they could close all the specail schools, saving millions of dollars. Its a shame only have this money has been spent to include this students in mainsteam schools. If you raise this point they quickly label you a disciminatory person.
Point 3 - Yep. Those with money will get the quality. Also remember this. Most first world countries will lose at least 1/2 its teaching staff in the next 5 years. (OECD report - http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,2340,en_2649_34521_11969545_1_1_1_1,00.html )
Also over 60 % of new qualified teachers leave teaching in the first 5 years (OECD) , mainly because the environment sucks and if you are looking for a 25 yaer career are you going to put up with little shit heads and a system that does not support you?) The only reason the old teachers stay is because the supa fund is to ggo and only a few years away….. Nothing to do with enjoying teaching or being good at it…
Do you want me to go on…
Also food for though - The 40 % of those recently qualified teachers that stay do so because they can’t get jobs in other industries because they are useless…. but they can teach our next generation……
Thanks for the links Damian, and for the food for thought :) Think there’s definitely a problem with a lot of the “old-skool teacher culture”…
Just trying to summarise a bit, i think we’ve established that it’s misleading to look at funding just from the federal government, and that we need to look at the total funding (state plus Federal) to get a real picture (thanks Benny).
But that has lead me to the following question: Which of the following statements is most true?
1) Public education is the State Govs’ responsibility, whereas Private Education is the Federal Govs responsibility.
2) Public education is our governments’ responsibility (State plus Federal), whereas private education is the responsibility of private entities (although gov funding maybe appropriate in lots of circumstances).
3) Education (public plus private) is the State Govs’ responsibility, and I’m not sure why the Federal gov is not putting it’s extra funding through the State Govs.
4) Education (public plus private) is our total governments’ responsibility (State Federal), and I’m not sure why there isn’t one consistant Education portfolio.
Hi Micheal,
Pretty well education is the States’ responsibilities, although the federal government wants to start to control the whole lot (including vet sector). Nelson has done this through funding. ie Nelson says “if you don’t do this….. I won’t give you the money.” As you well know all systems need the money.
Generally befor the 1960’s all Catholic indepenent schools were self funded 100%. By the 1960’s these school (that were run and staffed by various religious orders slowly need to take on lay (non- religious) teaching staff). This meant the schools cost more to run etc. In the 1960’s #%*@ hit the fan as the various systems asked the states for money to fund their schools. The States’ said GO #@*# yourself! I think then the Arch Bishop of Canberra said %#&@ you back and closed all the catholic schools in Canberra (mid 1960’s). He sent his students to the local state schools. 30% enrolment overnight meant holyshit! Thus funding for private / catholic schools was born.
The reality is that the Australian tax payer could not afford to educate all its children. Therefore private / catholic systems are here to stay as they save the state / federal system about 30% on a fully state school system.
PS my mum told me this.
:) Damian
“According to Gannicott (1998:27, quoted in the CIS Paper) in 1996 non-catholic private schools had an average Tertiary Entrance Rank of 70.55, while the public school average was 45.10. ” Moving right away from the spreadsheet, I question what value a ter has in determining how good a persons education is.
I believe private schools teach to achieve a high ter, perhaps public school are providing a more rounded general education.
It is a great topic to explore - I will follow with interest.
I went to a selective public school, so I don’t have first hand experience in these other schools, but from what I have seen of friends etc, the quality of education was superior in private schools (not all of them, but enough).
Public schools seem to have an air of ‘learning is for geeks’ about them, where teens (espescially boys) will actively NOT learn, because it is uncool.
Jude, yeah I agree in part. But is there a better system? How can uni’s process the tens of thousands of applicants for courses without some kind of “number”?
Feeling a bit ripped off right now. On the way home I heard on the radio that A Current Affair was running a story of the cost of public/private education tonight, so I recorded it.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched the commercial stations, but I was pretty blown away by this one. The story just seemed to show how expensive education is either way, and kept referring to the Australian Scholarships Group throughout with some really interesting statistics (I thought they must have been a research group). At the end of the story they mentioned that there’s more info online on the ACA site.
So I go there, and hmmm… no stats there… but they’ve conveniently provided one web link for this story to the Australian Scholarships Group. Great, I think, I’ll be able to look at all those statistics and research that they mentioned, but no… nada. The ASG is simply convincing you to start investing (with them) in your childs future - you provide the scholarship for your children by contributing to one of their funds now.
So, ACA story is semi-interesting but doesn’t really come to a point other than “Most people don’t realise how expensive education is - public or private”, while mentioning the ASG throughout as the source of research and statistics, then linking to them (and only them) on their site. Surely there’s a better weblink for that story…I mean, looking at the ASG site, there is no reason the story should link to ASG other than to get people to sign up with an account.
Sorry for the rant, but is it just me or do others think this is strange? I guess I can’t get over how “commercial” commercial tv really is…
It is surprising how difficult it is to find good stats on this subject esp given its high profile in public debate. Perhaps this blog post will be come THE site for such research :)
Ian, yeah that was certainly the case at my school… (a non-selective public school). At least in my year anyway. I wasn’t the only kid in my group who occasionally answered questions wrong in maths tests so as not to stand out as a geek.
My question’s then this: why is the learning culture so different between public and private schools?
Ben: Totally! I even asked out local MP, Kerry Bartlett to respond with info from his perspective, which h(is offic)e did via email with lots of interesting stats, but again no source for the stats. I’ve written back asking if they could provide the source but no response yet.
Hi All,
Great comments.
Having been educated in the Catholic system (over 20 years ago) and worked in the Catholic, public and independent systems over the past 10 I have a few comments.
Society in general is changing and this is reflected in in our schools.
From my experience you could say that Catholic / independent students (read parents) are very much ‘middle class’, with middle class values. Due to state schools taking all comers, this ‘true representation of society’ reflects in the work performance of the schools. A few thoughts ‘Its hard to soar like an eagle, when you are surrounded by turkeys’ and ‘to survive in schoolyou need freinds - ones that don’t stick out’. Just like a prison!
Also - Catholic schools are not all that much better, they just ahve better PR machines and everything that happens is keep ‘in house’ (as a good Catholic should!) These ‘in house’ attitude is also supported by Australian research (2005) from the Jesuit Social Services http://info.jesuit.org.au/info/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=288 also suports this.
I would say the independents to this as well. The things that go on in Catholic schools that I could tell you about would make your hair curl.
Interesting though, is the fact that although Catholic / Independent students find it easier to get into university in Australia, they fail to survive more often than the state students. I would suggest that this may be because of two reasons. 1. They are insulated from the real world for 13 years of there life 2. They have had some onehelp them succeed (mum & dad or even peer pressure) This generally doesn’t happen whey they get to uni. sink or swim. I also think many Catholic students have ‘ego’ problems. That is they think they are shit hot. Again to do with this insulated life.
I hope this makes sense.
PS. Most for my private reading is related to education in Australia, most research and senate inquiry findings. A bit sad I know, but….
Damian